Magnuson-Stevens Act Provisions; Fisheries Off West Coast States; Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery; Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan; Amendment 33; 2025-26 Biennial Specifications and Management Measures

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 660</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 240802-0211]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BN08</RIN> <SUBJECT>Magnuson-Stevens Act Provisions; Fisheries Off West Coast States; Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery; Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan; Amendment 33; 2025-26 Biennial Specifications and Management Measures</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; availability of a draft environmental assessment; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This proposed rule would establish the 2025-26 harvest specifications for groundfish caught in the U.S. exclusive economic zone (EEZ) seaward of Washington, Oregon, and California, consistent with the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act or MSA) and the Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan (PCGFMP). This proposed rule would also revise management measures intended to keep the total annual catch of each groundfish stock or stock complex within the annual catch limits. These proposed measures are intended to help prevent overfishing, rebuild overfished stocks, achieve optimum yield, and ensure that management measures are based on the best scientific information available. This proposed rule would also make minor corrections ( <E T="03">e.g.</E> correcting grammar, removing outdated regulations, revisions for clarity) to the regulations. Additionally, this proposed rule announces the receipt of exempted fishing permit (EFP) applications. NMFS has made a preliminary determination that these applications warrant further consideration and is requesting public comment on these applications. This proposed rule also would implement amendment 33 to the PCGFMP, which would establish a rebuilding plan for California quillback rockfish and revise the allocation framework for shortspine thornyhead. In accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969, as amended, NMFS also announces the availability of a draft Environmental Assessment (EA) that analyzes the potential effects of the associated proposed rule. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received no later than September 30, 2024. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments on the proposed rule, draft EA, and EFP applications, identified by NOAA-NMFS-2024-0065, by the following method: • <E T="03">Electronic Submissions:</E> Submit all electronic public comments via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal. Go to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> and enter NOAA-NMFS-2024-0065 in the Search box. Click the “Comment” icon, complete the required fields, and enter or attach your comments. The EFP applications will be available under Supporting Documents through the same link. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> Comments must be submitted by the above method to ensure that the comments are received, documented, and considered by NMFS. 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. All comments received are a part of the public record and NMFS will post them for public viewing on <E T="03">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 is publicly accessible. NMFS will accept anonymous comments (enter “N/A” in the required fields if you wish to remain anonymous). Please specify whether the comments provided are associated with the proposed rule, draft EA, or EFP applications. Please submit written comments regarding the burden-hour estimates or other aspects of the collection-of-information requirements contained in this proposed rule and subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) by email to <E T="03">WCR.HMS@noaa.gov</E> and to <E T="03">OIRA_Submission@omb.eop.gov</E> or fax to (202) 395-7285. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Electronic Access</HD> This rulemaking is accessible via the internet at the Office of the Federal Register website at <E T="03">https://www.federalregister.gov/.</E> The draft Analysis, which includes an EA that addresses the NEPA, as well analyses that address Presidential Executive Order 12866, the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA), and the statutory requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens Act is accessible via the internet at the NMFS West Coast Region website at <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/region/west-coast</E> and the Pacific Fishery Management Council's (Council) website at <E T="03">http://www.pcouncil.org.</E> The final 2024 Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation (SAFE) report for Pacific Coast groundfish, as well as the SAFE reports for previous years, are available from the Council's website at <E T="03">http://www.pcouncil.org.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Lynn Massey, Fishery Management Specialist, at 562-900-2060 or <E T="03">lynn.massey@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> The Pacific Coast groundfish fishery in the U.S. EEZ seaward of Washington, Oregon, and California is managed under the PCGFMP. The Council developed the PCGFMP pursuant to the MSA (16 U.S.C. 1801 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). The Secretary of Commerce approved the PCGFMP and implemented the provisions of the plan through Federal regulations at 50 CFR part 660, subparts C through G. The PCGFMP manages more than 90 species of roundfish, flatfish, rockfish, sharks, and skates. Chapter 5 of the PCGFMP requires the Council to assess the biological, social, and economic conditions of the Pacific Coast groundfish fishery and use this information to develop harvest specifications and management measures at least biennially. This proposed rule is based on the Council's final recommendations for harvest specifications and management measures for the 2025-26 biennium made at its April and June 2024 meetings. The Council deemed the proposed regulations necessary and appropriate to implement these actions in a July 29, 2024, letter from Council Executive Director, Merrick Burden, to Regional Administrator Jennifer Quan. Under the MSA, NMFS is required to publish proposed rules for comment after preliminarily determining whether they are consistent with applicable law. We are seeking comment on the proposed regulations in this action and whether they are consistent with the PCGFMP, the MSA and its National Standards, and other applicable law. NMFS published a Notice of Availability (NOA) to announce the proposed amendment 33 to the PCGFMP (referred to interchangeably as “the amendment”) on August 2, 2024 (89 FR 63153). The NOA requests public review and comment on proposed changes to the Council fishery management plan document (89 FR 63153; August 2, 2024). Public comments are being solicited on the amendment through October 1, 2024, the end of the comment period for the NOA. Public comments on the proposed rule must be received by the end of the comment period on the amendment, as published in the NOA, to be considered in the approval/disapproval decision on the amendment. All comments received by the end of the comment period on the amendment, whether specifically directed to the amendment, or the proposed rule, will be considered in the approval/disapproval decision. Comments received after that date will not be considered in the approval/disapproval decision on the amendment. To be considered, comments must be received by close of business on the last day of the comment period; that does not mean postmarked or otherwise transmitted by that date. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Specification and Management Measure Development Process</HD> In 2023, the Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC) conducted full stock assessments for black rockfish (all areas), copper rockfish (California areas), petrale sole, and canary rockfish. The NWFSC conducted length-based data moderate assessments for shortspine thornyhead and rex sole. Additionally, the NWFSC conducted catch-only assessment updates for widow rockfish and yelloweye rockfish, a limited update assessment for sablefish, and catch-only projections for chilipepper rockfish and yellowtail rockfish north of 40°10′ north latitude (N lat.). The NWFSC did not update assessments for the remaining stocks, so harvest specifications for these stocks are based on assessments from previous years. The full stock assessments used to set catch limits for this biennium are available on the Council's website at <E T="03">https://www.pcouncil.org/.</E> The Council's stock assessment review panel (STAR panel) reviewed the stock assessments, including assessments on stocks for which some biological indicators are available, as described below, for technical merit, and to determine that each stock assessment document was sufficiently complete. Finally, the Council's Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) reviewed the stock assessments and STAR panel reports and made its recommendations to the Council (Agenda Item G.2, September 2023 Council Meeting; Agenda Item E.2, November 2023 Council Meeting). The Council considered the new stock assessments, stock assessment updates, catch-only updates, public comment, recommendations from the SSC, and advice from its advisory bodies over the course of six Council meetings during development of its recommendations for the 2025-26 harvest specifications and management measures. At each Council meeting between June 2023 and June 2024, the Council made a series of decisions and recom ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 285k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━