Atlantic Highly Migratory Species; Electronic Reporting Requirements

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 635</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 240829-0229]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BM23</RIN> <SUBJECT>Atlantic Highly Migratory Species; Electronic Reporting Requirements</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 is proposing to modify and/or expand reporting requirements for Atlantic highly migratory species (HMS), including reporting by commercial, for-hire, and private recreational vessel owners and dealers. This proposed action would require vessel owners, who currently report in existing paper commercial logbooks ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> Atlantic HMS logbook and the Southeast Coastal Fisheries Logbook Program), to report electronically. NMFS is also proposing to implement new logbook requirements for vessel owners holding HMS Charter/Headboat permits or Atlantic Tunas General category permits, Atlantic Tunas Harpoon category permits, and/or Swordfish General Commercial permits. This proposed action would modify reporting options for private recreational vessel owners holding HMS Angling permits. Additionally, HMS dealers would be required to report individual fish weights for additional species ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> Atlantic bigeye, albacore, yellowfin, and skipjack (BAYS) tunas, swordfish, and pelagic sharks). All HMS reporting would become electronic, using systems or applications approved by NMFS for Atlantic HMS. Finally, this proposed action would make technical changes to clarify certain HMS regulations. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Written comments must be received by January 6, 2025. Three public webinars will be held on the dates listed in table 1 of the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section of this document. </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-2023-0047.</E> You may submit comments on this document, identified by NOAA-NMFS-2023-0047, by electronic submission. Submit all electronic public comments via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal. Visit <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and type NOAA-NMFS-2023-0047 in the Search box. Click on the “Comment” icon, complete the required fields, and enter or attach your 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 at: <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). Written comments regarding the burden-hour estimates or other aspects of the collection-of-information requirements contained in this proposed rule may be submitted at: <E T="03">https://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. Copies of the supporting documents, including the Regulatory Impact Review (RIR) and Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (IRFA) for this action, the advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) on HMS electronic reporting requirements, and the 2006 Consolidated HMS Fishery Management Plan (FMP) and amendments are available from the HMS website at: <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/topic/atlantic-highly-migratory-species</E> or by contacting Carrie Soltanoff at the email address or telephone number below. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Carrie Soltanoff ( <E T="03">carrie.soltanoff@noaa.gov</E> ), Guy DuBeck ( <E T="03">guy.dubeck@noaa.gov</E> ), or Ann Williamson ( <E T="03">ann.williamson@noaa.gov</E> ) by email, or by phone at 301-427-8503. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Atlantic HMS fisheries ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> tunas, billfish, swordfish, and sharks) are managed under the 2006 Consolidated HMS FMP and its amendments pursuant to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act) (16 U.S.C. 1801 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) and consistent with the Atlantic Tunas Convention Act (ATCA) (16 U.S.C. 971 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). HMS implementing regulations are at 50 CFR part 635. The regulations specific to HMS reporting can be found at § 635.5. The Magnuson-Stevens Act, among other things, requires FMPs to specify the data which shall be submitted to the Secretary with respect to commercial, recreational, and charter fishing (16 U.S.C. 1853(a)(5)), thus authorizing the collection of such data. In addition, the Magnuson-Stevens Act authorizes NMFS to require permits and “such other measures, requirements, or conditions and restrictions as are determined to be necessary and appropriate for the conservation and management of the fishery” (16 U.S.C. 1853(b)(1), (14)). The purpose of this rulemaking is to: (1) streamline and modernize reporting through electronic reporting and consolidation of reporting deadlines, including converting existing commercial paper logbooks to electronic logbooks; (2) expand electronic logbook reporting to additional commercial and charter/headboat vessel owners; and (3) collect additional information from dealers through existing electronic reporting mechanisms. The expansion of reporting requirements would create consistency with NMFS efforts in other fisheries and augment data necessary for fishery science and management. Electronic logbook reporting is a step towards streamlining HMS reporting for commercial, for-hire, and private recreational fisheries consistent with the “One Stop Reporting” initiative for HMS, Greater Atlantic Region, and Southeast Region fisheries. The intent of the “One Stop Reporting” initiative is to expand capabilities for the submission of a single electronic report to satisfy overlapping reporting requirements of vessels holding permits in multiple regions. The need for each action is described in more detail below, under the following topics and respective alternatives: A. Electronic Logbook for HMS Commercial Limited Access Permits; B. Electronic Logbook for Atlantic Tunas General Category Permit, Atlantic Tunas Harpoon Category Permit, Swordfish General Commercial Permit, and HMS Charter/Headboat Permit; C. HMS Angling Permit Reporting Requirements; and D. HMS Dealer Reporting: Individual Fish Reports and Technical Change in Bluefin Tuna Reporting Requirements. Implementation of the measures proposed in this rulemaking is contingent on available funding. Implementation of some or all aspects of the preferred alternatives may be delayed pending funding availability and any needed development of, or changes to, electronic reporting systems/applications. In addition to comments on the alternatives themselves, should delayed implementation be necessary, NMFS is requesting comments on which alternatives the public feels are most important. NMFS is proposing to clarify in this rulemaking that the owner of a vessel with an HMS permit is ultimately responsible for ensuring that all reports are submitted in a timely and accurate manner. NMFS is aware that currently vessel operators and owners complete reporting obligations according to each vessel's business practices. The proposed regulations make clear that even though commercial and for-hire vessel owners may allow the vessel operator or another person to submit all required reports, the onus and responsibility is on the vessel owner. However, because both owners and operators may submit reports, the description of proposed measures and other alternatives in this preamble refer to vessel “owners/operators.” NMFS published an ANPRM on May 12, 2023 (88 FR 30699) that described the reporting topics addressed in this rulemaking and provided management options. NMFS presented the ANPRM to the HMS Advisory Panel, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, and the New England, Mid-Atlantic, South Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean Fishery Management Councils, and held five in-person and two virtual public hearings. The ANPRM comment period ended August 18, 2023. Written comments submitted on the ANPRM can be viewed at: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/NOAA-NMFS-2023-0047.</E> NMFS considered all the comments received in the development of this proposed rule. As described in more detail below, the preferred alternatives and sub-alternatives in this action are: <HD SOURCE="HD1">A. Electronic Logbook for HMS Commercial Limited Access Permits</HD> • Alternative A1. Format for submission of logbooks and associated weighout slips. ○ Sub-alternative A1b. Vessel owners/operators would complete and submit logbook entries electronically; submit an uploaded file of the weighout slip with logbook submission. NMFS would offer a voluntary standardized weighout slip form. • Alternative A2. Timing requirement for logbook submission. ○ Sub-alternative A2b. Vessel owners/operators would be required to submit logbook entries within 7 days of offloading all HMS, including the cost-earnings portion of the logbook for selected vessel owners. <HD SOURCE="HD1">B. Electronic Logbook for Atlantic Tunas General Category Permit, Atlantic Tunas Harpoon Category ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 174k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━