International Fisheries; Western and Central Pacific Fisheries for Highly Migratory Species; Changes to Purse Seine Fish Aggregating Device Closure Periods

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 300</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 240821-0223]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BM86</RIN> <SUBJECT>International Fisheries; Western and Central Pacific Fisheries for Highly Migratory Species; Changes to Purse Seine Fish Aggregating Device Closure Periods</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> Under authority of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Convention Implementation Act (WCPFC Implementation Act), NMFS issues this final rule to shorten the duration of fish aggregating device (FAD) closure periods for the U.S. purse seine fishery. This action is necessary to satisfy the obligations of the United States under the Convention on the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (Convention), to which it is a Contracting Party. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective August 29, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Copies of supporting documents prepared for this final rule, including the regulatory impact review (RIR), as well as the proposed rule (89 FR 46352, May 29, 2024), are available via the Federal e-rulemaking Portal, at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> (search for Docket ID NOAA-NMFS-2024-0057). Those documents are also available from NMFS at the following address: Sarah Malloy, Deputy Regional Administrator, NMFS, Pacific Islands Regional Office (PIRO), 1845 Wasp Blvd., Building 176, Honolulu, HI 96818. A final regulatory flexibility analysis (FRFA) prepared under authority of the Regulatory Flexibility Act is included in the “Classification” section in <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Rini Ghosh, NMFS PIRO, 808-725-5033. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On May 29, 2024, NMFS published a proposed rule in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (89 FR 46352) proposing to change the duration of FAD closure periods for the U.S. purse seine fishery operating in the western and central Pacific Ocean (WCPO). The 15-day public comment period for the proposed rule closed on June 13, 2024. This final rule is issued under the authority of the WCPFC Implementation Act (16 U.S.C. 6901 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ), which authorizes the Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Department in which the United States Coast Guard is operating (currently the Department of Homeland Security), to promulgate such regulations as may be necessary to carry out the obligations of the United States under the Convention, including the decisions of the Commission for the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPFC or Commission). The WCPFC Implementation Act further provides that the Secretary of Commerce shall ensure consistency, to the extent practicable, of fishery management programs administered under the WCPFC Implementation Act and the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA; 16 U.S.C. 1801 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ), as well as other specific laws (see 16 U.S.C. 6905(b)). The Secretary of Commerce has delegated the authority to promulgate regulations under the WCPFC Implementation Act to NMFS. A map showing the boundaries of the area of application of the Convention (Convention Area), which comprises the majority of the WCPO, can be found on the WCPFC website at: <E T="03">www.wcpfc.int/doc/convention-area-map.</E> This final rule implements specific provisions of a recent WCPFC decision (Conservation and Management Measure (CMM) 2023-01, “Conservation and Management Measure for Bigeye, Yellowfin and Skipjack Tuna in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean”). The preamble to the proposed rule provides background information on the Convention and the Commission, the provisions that are being implemented in this rule, and the basis for the regulations, which is not repeated here. <HD SOURCE="HD1">The Action</HD> The specific elements of the final rule are detailed below. In accordance with CMM 2023-01, the final rule shortens the duration of the FAD prohibition period to extend from July 1 through August 15 (instead of from July 1 through September 30, as previously required) during each calendar year in the Convention Area between the latitudes of 20° N and 20° S (inclusive of the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and high seas in the Convention Area and excluding the area of overlap between the WCPFC and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC)). Regarding the additional one-month FAD prohibition period on the high seas in the Convention Area, the final rule implements the high seas FAD prohibition period in December in 2024 and during each calendar year thereafter. As currently defined in 50 CFR 300.211, a FAD is “any artificial or natural floating object, whether anchored or not and whether situated at the water surface or not, that is capable of aggregating fish, as well as any object used for that purpose that is situated on board a vessel or otherwise out of the water. The definition of FAD does not include a vessel.” Under this final rule, the regulatory definition of a FAD will not change. Although the definition of a FAD does not include a vessel, the restrictions during the FAD prohibition periods include certain activities related to fish that have aggregated in association with a vessel, or drawn by a vessel, as described below. The prohibitions applicable to these FAD-related measures are in existing regulations at 50 CFR 300.223(b)(1)(i)- (v). Specifically, during the FAD prohibition periods in each calendar year, owners, operators, and crew of fishing vessels of the United States equipped with purse seine gear shall not do any of the following activities in the Convention Area (excluding the area of overlap between the WCPFC and IATTC) between 20° N latitude and 20° S latitude: (1) Set a purse seine around a FAD or within 1 nautical mile (1,852 meters) of a FAD; (2) Set a purse seine in a manner intended to capture fish that have aggregated in association with a FAD or a vessel, such as by setting the purse seine in an area from which a FAD or a vessel has been moved or removed within the previous 8 hours, setting the purse seine in an area in which a FAD has been inspected or handled within the previous 8 hours, or setting the purse seine in an area into which fish were drawn by a vessel from the vicinity of a FAD or a vessel; (3) Deploy a FAD into the water; (4) Repair, clean, maintain, or otherwise service a FAD, including any electronic equipment used in association with a FAD, in the water or on a vessel while at sea, except that: a FAD may be inspected and handled as needed to identify the FAD, identify and release incidentally captured animals, un-foul fishing gear, or prevent damage to property or risk to human safety; and a FAD may be removed from the water and if removed may be cleaned, provided that it is not returned to the water; or (5) From a purse seine vessel or any associated skiffs, other watercraft or equipment, submerge lights under water, suspend or hang lights over the side of the purse seine vessel, skiff, watercraft or equipment, or direct or use lights in a manner other than as needed to illuminate the deck of the purse seine vessel or associated skiffs, watercraft or equipment, to comply with navigational requirements, and to ensure the health and safety of the crew. These prohibitions do not apply during emergencies as needed to prevent human injury or the loss of human life, the loss of the purse seine vessel, skiffs, watercraft or aircraft, or environmental damage. The final rule also makes a technical correction regarding the area of application in 50 CFR 300.223(b)(3)(i) to explicitly state that the requirements regarding activating FADs apply in the Convention Area. The current regulatory text does not include the specific area of application. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments and Responses</HD> NMFS received one comment letter on the proposed rule. The American Tunaboat Association (ATA), which represents owners and operators of U.S. purse seine fishing vessels, expressed strong support for the proposed rule. ATA also noted that though it currently prefers that the high seas FAD closure occur in December in 2024, it is possible that the fleet's preference could change in the future. In addition, ATA noted that the Commission's decision in CMM 2023-01 to reduce the FAD closures was precautionary in reducing the existing FAD closures by one-half. According to ATA, during the discussion at the Commission meeting, there was a strong argument that the FAD closures could be eliminated in their entirety without jeopardizing the health of the marine resources in question. NMFS acknowledges the comment from ATA and the information provided. NMFS is finalizing the high seas closure in December for 2024 and each subsequent year, as proposed. NMFS is implementing the Commission's decision as specified in CMM 2023-01 to fulfill the obligations of the United States under the Convention and has considered available biological and scientific information. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Changes From the Proposed Rule</HD> There are no changes to the proposed rule in this final rule. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Classification</HD> The Administrator, Pacific Islands Region, NMFS, has determined that this action is consistent with the WCPFC Implementation Act and other applicable laws. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Administrative Procedure Act</HD> Co ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 29k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━