Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Listing Determinations for Ten Species of Giant Clams Under the Endangered Species Act; Public Hearings

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Parts 223 and 224</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 240626-0177; RTID 0648-XF174]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Listing Determinations for Ten Species of Giant Clams Under the Endangered Species Act; Public Hearings</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notification of public hearings and listening sessions. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> We, NMFS, will hold seven public hearings and three listening sessions related to our proposed rule to list five species of giant clams as endangered and five species of giant clams as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Please see Public Hearings and Listening Sessions in the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section for date information. Comments on the proposed rule (89 FR 60498, July 25, 2024) must be received by October 23, 2024. Comments received after this date may not be accepted. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The addresses for the venues of the in-person hearings and listening sessions, and instructions for joining the virtual hearing are provided below. • <E T="03">Tutuila Public Hearing #1 and Listening Session:</E> Rex H. Lee Auditorium, Utulei, Eastern District, American Samoa 96799. • <E T="03">Tutuila Public Hearing #2:</E> Tradewinds Hotel, Tafuna, Western District, American Samoa 96799. • <E T="03">Tinian Public Hearing:</E> Tinian Elementary School, 8th Avenue, San Jose, Tinian, CNMI 96952. • <E T="03">Rota Public Hearing:</E> Department of Commerce, Songsong Village, Rota, CNMI 96951. • <E T="03">Guam Public Hearing and Listening Session:</E> Pacific Islands Club Guam, Pale San Vitores Rd., Tumon, Guam 96913. • <E T="03">Saipan Public Hearing and Listening Session:</E> Crowne Plaza Resort, Coral Tree Ave., Garapan, Saipan, CNMI 96950. • <E T="03">Virtual Hearing:</E> This hearing will be conducted as a Webex meeting. You may join the Webex meeting using a web browser, the Webex desktop app (app installation required), a mobile app on a phone (app installation required), or audio-only using just a phone call, as specified below. ○ <E T="03">Join the webinar via this link: https://noaanmfs-meets.webex.com/noaanmfs-meets/j.php?MTID=m62351f6b3e964c7a1b91f6e8bc59a208.</E> ○ <E T="03">Webinar number:</E> 2820 450 2543 Webinar password: rV5ttXEcT77 (78588932 when dialing from a phone or video system). ○ <E T="03">Join by phone:</E> +1-415-527-5035 Access code: 282 045 02543. You may submit comments verbally or in writing at the public hearings, or in writing by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Submissions:</E> Submit all electronic comments via the Federal e- Rulemaking Portal. Go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and enter NOAA-NMFS-2017-0029 in the Search box. Click the “Comment” icon, complete the required fields, and enter or attach your comments. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> John Rippe, Office of Protected Resources, NMFS, 1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> You must submit comments by one of the previously described methods to ensure that we receive, document, and consider them. Comments sent by any other method, to any other address or individual, or received after the end of the comment period on October 23, 2024, may not be considered. All comments received are a part of the public record and will generally be posted to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> without change. All Personal Identifying Information (for example, name, address, <E T="03">etc.</E> ) voluntarily submitted by the commenter may be publicly accessible. Do not submit confidential business information or otherwise sensitive or protected information. NMFS will accept anonymous comments (enter “N/A” in the required fields if you wish to remain anonymous). <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> John Rippe, NMFS Office of Protected Resources, at <E T="03">John.Rippe@noaa.gov</E> or 301-427-8467. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On July 25, 2024, NOAA Fisheries announced a proposed rule (89 FR 60498) to list five species of giant clams ( <E T="03">Hippopus porcellanus, Tridacna derasa, T. gigas, T. mbalavuana,</E> and <E T="03">T. squamosina</E> ) as endangered and one species of giant clam ( <E T="03">H. hippopus</E> ) as threatened under the ESA due to their extinction risk, as assessed under section 4(a)(1) of the ESA. We also proposed to list four additional species of giant clams ( <E T="03">T. crocea, T. maxima, T. noae,</E> and <E T="03">T. squamosa</E> ) as threatened under the ESA. They are proposed to be listed due to the similarity of appearance of products derived from these species ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> meat, worked shell products, and pearls) to those derived from the six aforementioned species. In that notification, we proposed to extend all of the ESA section 9 prohibitions to <E T="03">H. hippopus.</E> We also proposed to issue a protective regulation under section 4(d) of the ESA to prohibit the import and export of derivative parts and products of <E T="03">T. crocea, T. maxima, T. noae,</E> and <E T="03">T. squamosa</E> into and from the United States and its Territories. The proposed rule and other materials prepared in support of this action are available at: <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/action/proposed-rule-10-species-giant-clams-under-endangered-species-act.</E> We are accepting public comments on the proposed rule through a 90-day public comment period, which ends on October 23, 2024 (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> for instructions on how to submit a public comment). All comments submitted prior to this date will be considered before finalizing the listing determination. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Public Hearings</HD> Public hearings on the proposed listing determination for 10 species of giant clams will be held on the following dates in the evening hours of the affected jurisdictions (American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), and Guam). Times are given in Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), Chamorro Standard Time (ChST) and Samoa Standard Time (SST). Addresses for the venues of the in-person hearings and instructions for joining the virtual hearing are provided under <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> above. • <E T="03">American Samoa, Tutuila #1:</E> A public hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, September 4, 2024, at the Rex H. Lee Auditorium. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. SST, the informational meeting will begin at 6 p.m. SST, and the public hearing will begin at 7 p.m. SST. • <E T="03">American Samoa, Tutuila #2:</E> A public hearing is scheduled for Thursday, September 5, 2024, at the Tradewinds Hotel. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. SST, the informational meeting will begin at 6 p.m. SST, and the public hearing will begin at 7 p.m. SST. • <E T="03">CNMI, Tinian:</E> A public hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, September 10, 2024, at Tinian Elementary School. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. ChST, the informational meeting will begin at 6 p.m. ChST, and the public hearing will begin at 7 p.m. ChST. • <E T="03">CNMI, Rota:</E> A public hearing is scheduled for Thursday, September 12, 2024, at the Department of Commerce, Rota. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. ChST, the informational meeting will begin at 6 p.m. ChST, and the public hearing will begin at 7 p.m. ChST. • <E T="03">Guam:</E> A public hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, September 17, 2024, at Pacific Islands Club Guam. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. ChST, the informational meeting will begin at 6 p.m. ChST, and the public hearing will begin at 7 p.m. ChST. • <E T="03">CNMI, Saipan:</E> A public hearing is scheduled for Thursday, September 19, 2024, at Crowne Plaza Resort. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. ChST, the informational meeting will begin at 6 p.m. ChST, and the public hearing will begin at 7 p.m. ChST. • One virtual hearing is scheduled for the following time and date: ○ <E T="03">Eastern Daylight Time Zone:</E> the informational meeting will begin on Wednesday, October 2, 2024, at 7 p.m. EDT, and the public hearing will begin at 8 p.m. EDT. ○ <E T="03">Samoa Standard Time Zone:</E> the informational meeting will begin on Wednesday, October 2, 2024, at 12 p.m. SST, and the public hearing will begin at 1 p.m. SST. ○ <E T="03">Chamorro Standard Time Zone:</E> the informational meeting will begin on Thursday, October 3, 2024, at 9 a.m. ChST, and the public hearing will begin at 10 a.m. ChST. Six public hearings will be conducted in-person and one hearing will be conducted online as a Webex meeting, as specified in <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> above. The hearings will begin with a brief presentation by NMFS that provides an overview of the proposed ESA listing determination for 10 species of giant clams. After the presentation but before public comments, there will be a question and answer session during which members of the public may ask NMFS staff clarifying questions about the proposed rule. Following the question and answer session, members of the public will have the opportunity to provide oral comments on the record regarding the proposed listing determination. Members of the public will also have the opportunity to submit written comments at the hearings. Written comments may also be submitted at any time during the relevant public comment period as described above (see <E T= ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 13k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━