International Fisheries; Pacific Tuna Fisheries; Fish Aggregating Device Design and Reporting Requirements in the Eastern Pacific Ocean

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 300</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No 240703-0185]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BM70</RIN> <SUBJECT>International Fisheries; Pacific Tuna Fisheries; Fish Aggregating Device Design and Reporting Requirements in the Eastern Pacific Ocean</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NMFS proposes regulations under the Tuna Conventions Act of 1950 (TCA), as amended, to implement two resolutions adopted at the 101st meeting of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) in August 2023. These resolutions include Resolution C-23-03 (“Amendment to Resolution C-99-07 on Fish Aggregating Devices”) and Resolution C-23-04 (“On the Design and Biodegradability of Drifting Fish Aggregating Devices (DFADs) in the IATTC Area of Competence”). The proposed rule would modify regulations for the design of fish aggregating devices (FADs) in the eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO) to require non-entangling and biodegradable materials. Furthermore, the proposed rule would require that data related to the recovery of FADs for the purpose of final disposal or recycling in the EPO be collected by vessel owners and operators, and submitted to the IATTC, unless that information is already collected and submitted to the IATTC by an observer. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments on the proposed rule and supporting documents must be submitted in writing by August 19, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> A plain language summary of this proposed rule is available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/NOAA-NMFS-2023-0147.</E> You may submit comments on this document, identified by NOAA-NMFS-2023-0147, by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Submission:</E> Submit all electronic public comments via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal. Visit <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and enter “NOAA-NMFS-2023-0147” in the Search box. Click on the “Comment” icon, complete the required fields, and enter or attach your comments. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Submit written comments to Tyler Lawson, NMFS West Coast Region Portland Office, 1201 NE Lloyd Blvd., Suite 1100, Portland, OR 97232. Include the identifier “NOAA-NMFS-2023-0147” in the comments. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> Comments sent by any other method, to any other address or individual, or received after the end of the comment period, may not be considered by NMFS. All comments received are a part of the public record and will generally be posted for public viewing on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> without change. All personal identifying information ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> name, address, <E T="03">etc.</E> ), confidential business information, or otherwise sensitive information submitted voluntarily by the sender will be publicly accessible. NMFS will accept anonymous comments (enter“N/A” in the required fields if you wish to remain anonymous). Copies of supporting documents that were prepared for this proposed rule, including the regulatory impact review are available via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> docket NOAA-NMFS-2023-0147, or by contacting Tyler Lawson (see address above, and other contact information in <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> ). Send comments on aspects of the collection of information to Tyler Lawson (address above), by email to <E T="03">OIRA_Submission@omb.eop.gov,</E> or by fax to (202) 395-5806. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Tyler Lawson, NMFS West Coast Region, (503) 230-5421, <E T="03">tyler.lawson@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background on the IATTC</HD> The United States is a member of the IATTC, which was established under the 1949 Convention for the Establishment of an Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (1949 Convention). In 2003, the IATTC updated the 1949 Convention through the adoption of the Convention for the Strengthening of the IATTC Established by the 1949 Convention between the United States of America and the Republic of Costa Rica (Antigua Convention). The Antigua Convention entered into force in 2010. The United States acceded to the Antigua Convention on February 24, 2016. The full text of the Antigua Convention is available at: <E T="03">https://www.iattc.org/PDFFiles2/Antigua_Convention_Jun_2003.pdf.</E> The IATTC consists of 21 member nations and 5 cooperating non-member nations. The IATTC facilitates scientific research, as well as the conservation and management, of tuna and tuna-like species in the IATTC Convention Area. The IATTC Convention Area is defined as waters of the EPO within the area bounded by the west coast of the Americas and by 50° N latitude, 150° W longitude, and 50° S latitude. The IATTC maintains a scientific research and fishery monitoring program and regularly assesses the status of tuna, sharks, and billfish stocks in the IATTC Convention Area to determine appropriate catch limits and other measures deemed necessary to promote sustainable fisheries and prevent the overexploitation of these stocks. <HD SOURCE="HD1">International Obligations of the United States Under the Antigua Convention</HD> As a party to the Antigua Convention and a member of the IATTC, the United States is legally bound to implement decisions of the IATTC under the TCA, as amended (16 U.S.C. 951 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). The TCA directs the Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with the Secretary of State and, with respect to enforcement measures, the U.S. Coast Guard, to promulgate such regulations as may be necessary to carry out the United States' obligations under the Antigua Convention, including recommendations and decisions adopted by the IATTC. The authority of the Secretary of Commerce to promulgate such regulations has been delegated to NMFS. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IATTC Resolutions on Fish Aggregating Devices</HD> The 101st Meeting of the IATTC was held in Victoria, Canada, in August 2023. At this meeting, the IATTC adopted Resolutions C-23-03 and C-23-04. Resolution C-23-03 amends Resolution C-99-07 and continues to recommend that tender vessels remain prohibited, while clarifying that vessels may engage in FAD recovery activities that are limited to the collection of FADs for final disposal, but not for maintenance or adjustment. If FADs are recovered for final disposal or recycling, the resolution requires that all associated information on FAD recovery activities be reported to the IATTC Secretariat. The resolution encourages the initiation of recovery programs for FADs through cooperative initiatives among fishing vessels and other vessels implementing recovery projects in the IATTC Convention Area. Resolution C-23-04 contains new measures regarding materials that can be used in FADs that are deployed or redeployed in the IATTC Convention Area. These include biodegradable and non-entangling materials which would be phased in between 2025 and 2029. Beginning on January 1, 2025, purse seine vessel owners and operators are required to meet non-entangling design requirements for FADs and the use of mesh nets will be prohibited for any part of a FAD. Resolution C-23-04 defines “non-entangling FAD” as “a FAD that does not include any netting materials for any part of the FAD including both the surface structure ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> raft) and subsurface structure ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> tail).” Beginning on January 1, 2026, purse seine vessel owners and operators are required to begin using biodegradable materials in either the surface or subsurface portion of FADs. By January 1, 2029, both the surface and subsurface portion of the FAD must be composed of biodegradable materials. Resolution C-23-04 defines “biodegradable” as “non-synthetic materials and/or bio- based alternatives that are consistent with international standards for materials that are biodegradable in marine environments. The components resulting from the degradation of these materials should not be damaging to the marine and coastal ecosystems or include heavy metals or plastics in their composition.” <HD SOURCE="HD1">Proposed Regulations for Fish Aggregating Devices</HD> This proposed rule would be implemented under the TCA (16 U.S.C. 951 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) and proposes changes to part 300, subpart C of title 50 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). This proposed rule would implement provisions in Resolutions C-23-03 and C-23-04 that would: (1) clarify that vessels may engage in the recovery of FADs for final disposal or recycling and implement reporting requirements for recovered FADs, while continuing to prohibit tender vessels; (2) specify requirements for non-entangling FADs starting on January 1, 2025; and (3) specify requirements to phase in biodegradable FAD components starting on January 1, 2026. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Recovery of FADs for Final Disposal or Recycling</HD> The proposed rule would implement the provisions of Resolution C-23-03 by clarifying what are considered allowable FAD recovery activities by vessels and by implementing disposal and reporting requirements for recovered FADs in the IATTC Convention Area. Cooperative initiatives and recovery projects are encouraged in the resolution; however, they are not intended to be the focus of the proposed rule or to be a formal NMFS program. Rather, the proposed rule is meant to clarify that vessels may volunteer to engage in recovery activities and to describe the permissible parameters of such activities. While tender vessels  <SU>1</SU> <FT ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 34k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━