Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Amendment 113 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Groundfish of the Gulf of Alaska; Central Gulf of Alaska Rockfish Program Adjustments

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 679</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 240808-0216]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BM69</RIN> <SUBJECT>Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Amendment 113 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Groundfish of the Gulf of Alaska; Central Gulf of Alaska Rockfish Program Adjustments</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NMFS issues this final rule to implement amendment 113 to the Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for the Groundfish of the Gulf of Alaska (GOA). This final rule modifies specific provisions of the Central Gulf of Alaska (CGOA) Rockfish Program (RP) to change the season start date, remove the catcher vessel (CV) cooperative quota (CQ) cap, and revise the processing and harvesting caps. This final rule is necessary to provide increased flexibility and efficiency and to help ensure the rockfish total allowable catch (TAC) is fully harvested and landed in Kodiak while maintaining the intent of the RP. This action is intended to promote the goals and objectives of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act), the GOA FMP, and other applicable laws. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective September 16, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Electronic copies of amendment 113 to the GOA FMP, the Environmental Assessment/Regulatory Impact Review prepared for this action (the analysis), and the Finding of No Significant Impact prepared for this action may be obtained from <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and the NMFS Alaska Region website at <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/region/alaska.</E> Written comments regarding the burden-hour estimates or other aspects of the collection-of-information requirements contained in this final rule may be submitted to NMFS Alaska Region, P.O. Box 21668, Juneau, AK 99802-1668, Attn: Gretchen Harrington; and to <E T="03">www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain.</E> Find this particular information collection by selecting “Currently under Review—Open for Public Comments” or by using the search function. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Joel Kraski, 907-586-7228, <E T="03">joel.kraski@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This final rule implements amendment 113 to the GOA FMP. A notice of availability (NOA) for amendment 113 was published by NMFS in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on April 4, 2024 (89 FR 23535), with public comments invited through June 3, 2024. NMFS published a proposed rule to implement amendment 113 in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on May 10, 2024 (89 FR 40449), with public comments invited through June 10, 2024. The Secretary of Commerce approved amendment 113 on June 27, 2024 after considering information from the public and determining that amendment 113 is consistent with the GOA FMP, the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and other applicable laws. NMFS received 3 relevant written comments in response to requests for public comment, that were either directed to the NOA for the FMP amendments, the proposed rule, or both, in association with Secretarial approval of the amendment or the proposed rule. A summary of the comments and NMFS' responses are provided under the heading Comments and Responses section below. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">The Rockfish Program</HD> The RP was developed to enhance resource conservation and improve economic efficiency in the CGOA rockfish fisheries. A detailed description of the RP and its development is provided in the preambles to the proposed and final rules implementing the RP (76 FR 52147, August 19, 2011; 76 FR 81248, December 27, 2011). The RP, which includes the CGOA rockfish species of Pacific ocean perch, northern rockfish, and pelagic shelf rockfish, is based on the recognition of historical participation of fishing vessels and processors in the CGOA rockfish fisheries from 1996 to 2002. The rockfish primary species are northern rockfish, Pacific ocean perch, and dusky rockfish. The rockfish secondary species are Pacific cod, rougheye rockfish, shortraker rockfish, and sablefish. The RP provides catch limits for non-rockfish species and non-target rockfish species harvested with the CGOA rockfish species, based upon historical harvest levels of these incidentally caught species, and sets aside up to 5 percent of the TAC of the CGOA rockfish fisheries for CVs that are not eligible to participate in the program. The RP apportions TAC to cooperatives formed by individuals holding a License Limitation Program (LLP) license with rockfish quota share (QS). Fishing under cooperative management resulted in a slower-paced fishery that allowed harvesters to choose when to fish and provided greater stability for processors by spreading out production over a longer period of time. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Final Rule</HD> Amendment 113 and this final rule address changes in, and potentially resolve associated commercial fish market impacts to, the RP fishery since the RP was reauthorized in 2021. A detailed description of this action and its development is provided in the preamble to the proposed rule and in the Analysis. This final rule changes the regulations to improve the likelihood that the TACs for the rockfish species are fully harvested and landed in Kodiak. This final rule provides additional flexibility for trawl vessels to participate in the RP during April each year, and keep rockfish processors fully operational, thus mitigating impacts from changes in market conditions. This final rule also implements changes to three of the RP use caps to remove constraints on the amount of CQ that can be caught or processed by participants, while still maintaining RP's original intent to limit consolidation while allowing this fishery to be prosecuted in a sustainable and functional manner. The term “use cap” or “cap” is the limit on the quota that can be caught or processed by participants in the RP. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Change in Rockfish Program Season Start Date</HD> This final rule changes the start date for this fishery from May 1 to April 1, specified at 50 CFR 679.80(a)(3)(ii) for a rockfish cooperative, to enhance flexibility for processing plants and vessel operators participating in the RP. This change in season start date helps maintain processing capacity for other non-trawl fisheries through workforce stability. This final rule changes associated references to RP season start dates in §§ 679.5(r)(10), 679.7(n)(3)(i), 679.7(n)(6)(vi), 679.51(a)(2)(vi)(D)( <E T="03">1</E> ), 679.81(i)(3), 679.84(g)(1), and 679.84(g)(2). The changes in § 679.5(r)(10) add April to the reporting period of the Rockfish Ex-vessel Volume and Value Report. The changes in § 679.7(n)(3)(i) and (n)(6)(vi) extend the requirement to use a Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) during the month of April while operating in the RP fishery. The changes in § 679.51(a)(2)(vi)(D)( <E T="03">1</E> ) extend the observer requirements for RP from May to the month of April. The changes in §§ 679.81(i)(3), 679.84(g)(1), and 679.84(g)(2) extend when catch of the rockfish primary species and rockfish secondary species are deducted from CQ from May to the month of April. These provisions all reference the season start date for RP and the changes in this final rule make the regulations consistent with the change to the season start date and eliminate references to the prior start date of May 1. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Remove the Catcher Vessel Cooperative Rockfish CQ Use Cap</HD> This final rule removes § 679.82(a)(3), thereby eliminating the CV cooperative rockfish CQ use cap that prevents a CV rockfish cooperative from holding or using an amount of rockfish primary species CQ during a calendar year that is greater than an amount resulting from 30.0 percent of the aggregate rockfish primary species QS initially assigned to the CV sector. Therefore, this final rule relieves the unnecessary administrative burden caused by the CQ use cap preventing RP CVs from joining together into larger cooperatives, providing more flexibility within the RP fishery for CVs. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Increase the Use Caps for Rockfish Processors</HD> This final rule revises 50 CFR 679.82(a)(5) to increase the use cap for rockfish processors from 30 percent to 40 percent of the CV QS pool for rockfish primary species, Pacific cod, and sablefish, which ensures that a minimum of three Kodiak processors are necessary to process all the RP CQ. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Revise CV Aggregated Rockfish Harvesting Cap</HD> This final rule revises 50 CFR 679.82(a)(4) by removing dusky rockfish and northern rockfish from the calculation of the 8 percent harvest vessel use cap for CVs. This final rule does not change the harvest vessel use cap for catcher/processor vessels. This change removes the phrases “rockfish primary species” and “aggregate rockfish primary species” in paragraph (4) and replaces them with the phrase “Pacific ocean perch.” This effectively removes dusky rockfish and northern rockfish from the calculation of the 8 percent harvest vessel use cap, so that the cap now applies only to a CV's harvest of Pacific ocean perch. This may improve the likelihood that the TACs for the rockfish primary species and the rockfish secondary species are fully harvested and landed in Kodiak. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Other Regulatory Changes</HD> In addition to the regulatory changes necessary to implement amendment 113, NMFS revises the following regulations for clarity, efficiency, and technical consistency: • Replace all relevant instances of “pelagic s ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 38k characters. 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