Subsistence Management Regulations for Public Lands in Alaska-Subpart B, Federal Subsistence Board Membership

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE <SUBAGY>Forest Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>36 CFR Part 242</CFR> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 100</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-R7-SM-2024-0017; 245D0102DM DS61900000 DMSN00000.000000 DX61901; 70101-1261-0000L6]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BH67</RIN> <SUBJECT>Subsistence Management Regulations for Public Lands in Alaska—Subpart B, Federal Subsistence Board Membership</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCIES:</HD> Forest Service, Agriculture; Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> Based on requests during joint consultations with Alaska Native Tribes and others, the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture (Departments) revise the regulations concerning the composition of the Federal Subsistence Board (Board), which has authority to administer the subsistence taking and uses of fish and wildlife on public lands in Alaska, subject to the Department's oversight. The Departments add three public members nominated or recommended by federally recognized Tribal governments, require that those nominees have certain knowledge and experience, define requirements used to select the Board Chair, and affirm the Secretaries' authority to replace Board members and the Secretaries' responsibility and oversight regarding Board decisions. These regulatory revisions are responsive to the primary requests made to the Departments during the consultations. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective November 18, 2024. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submitted comments and supporting documents are available for review by going to the <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> website at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and typing the docket number, FWS-R7-SM-2024-0017, into the search block at the top of the page. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Crystal Leonetti, Acting Director, Office of Subsistence Management; 907-786-3888; or <E T="03">subsistence@ios.doi.gov.</E> For questions specific to National Forest System lands, contact Gregory Risdahl, Regional Subsistence Program Leader, USDA, Forest Service, Alaska Region; 907-302-7354 or <E T="03">gregory.risdahl@usda.gov.</E> Individuals in the United States who are deaf, blind, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability may dial 711 (TTY, TDD, or TeleBraille) to access telecommunications relay services. Individuals outside the United States should use the relay services offered within their country to make international calls to the point-of-contact in the United States. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">History of the Program</HD> Under title VIII of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) (16 U.S.C. 3111-3126), the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture (Secretaries) jointly implement the Federal Subsistence Management Program (Program). The Program provides a preference for take of fish and wildlife resources for subsistence uses on Federal public lands and waters in Alaska. The Secretaries published temporary regulations to carry out the Program in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on June 29, 1990 (55 FR 27114), and final regulations were published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on May 29, 1992 (57 FR 22940). The Program regulations have subsequently been amended many times. Because the Program is a joint effort between the Department of the Interior (DOI) and the Department of Agriculture (collectively, “the Departments”), these regulations are located in two titles of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR): Title 36, “Parks, Forests, and Public Property,” and Title 50, “Wildlife and Fisheries,” at 36 CFR 242.1-28 and 50 CFR 100.1-28, respectively. The regulations contain subparts as follows: Subpart A, General Provisions; Subpart B, Program Structure; Subpart C, Board Determinations; and Subpart D, Subsistence Taking of Fish and Wildlife. Consistent with subpart B of these regulations, the Secretaries established a Federal Subsistence Board (Board) to administer the Program. The Board is currently made up of: • A Chair appointed by the Secretary of the Interior with concurrence of the Secretary of Agriculture; • The Alaska Regional Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; • The Alaska Regional Director, National Park Service; • The Alaska State Director, Bureau of Land Management; • The Alaska Regional Director, Bureau of Indian Affairs; • The Alaska Regional Forester, U.S. Forest Service; and • Two public members appointed by the Secretary of the Interior with concurrence of the Secretary of Agriculture. Through the Board, these agencies and public members participate in the development of regulations for subparts C and D, which, among other things, set forth program eligibility and specific harvest seasons and limits. In administering the Program, the Secretaries divided Alaska into 10 subsistence resource regions, each of which is represented by a Subsistence Regional Advisory Council (Council). The Councils provide a forum for rural residents with personal knowledge of local conditions and resource requirements to have a meaningful role in the subsistence management of fish and wildlife on Federal public lands in Alaska. The Council members represent varied geographical, cultural, and user interests within each region. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background of This Rule</HD> In January 2022, the Departments held joint consultations with approximately 445 individual subsistence users and representatives from federally recognized Tribes of Alaska, Tribal Consortia, Alaska Native Organizations, and Alaska Native Corporations. In October-November 2022, DOI leadership and officials of the Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, held joint consultations with various Alaska Tribes regarding fisheries. During all of these consultations, a primary request from commenters was to make changes to the Federal Subsistence Board, including increasing the number of public members to five and adding more voting members who represent Alaska Native villages and have local knowledge and direct subsistence experience. As a result of this consultation process, the Departments proposed to revise CFR titles 36 (in part 242) and 50 (in part 100) at § __.10 to be responsive to the requests to define the requirements used for the selection of the Board Chair, increase the number of public members of the Board, and include a voice for federally recognized Tribal governments to nominate or recommend a certain number of the public members of the Board (89 FR 14008, February 26, 2024). The proposed rule also included a provision that the Board Chair, like the two current public members, must possess personal knowledge of and direct experience with subsistence uses in rural Alaska. The proposed rule further required the three new public members to possess personal knowledge of and direct experience with subsistence uses in rural Alaska, including Alaska Native subsistence uses, and to be nominated or recommended by federally recognized Tribal governments. As is currently required in the Program regulations, the Board Chair and all public members were proposed to be appointed by the Secretary of the Interior with the concurrence of the Secretary of Agriculture. The Secretaries were to retain the authority to remove public members from the Board and also would retain their existing authorities to replace agency personnel on the Board. The proposed rule also explained, as is currently the case, that the public members will become special governmental employees for the purpose of serving on the Board. Lastly, consistent with title VIII of ANILCA, the proposed rule confirmed that the Secretaries retain the authority to modify, disapprove, or stay any action taken by the Board. For temporary special actions, the proposed rule provided that such actions would not become effective until at least 10 calendar days after the date of the action to allow the Secretaries an opportunity to act, if needed. For emergency special actions, the proposed rule provided that the Board action would likewise not become effective for 10 calendar days unless the Board determines that the emergency situation calls for responsive action within 24 hours to protect subsistence resources or public safety. The February 26, 2024, proposed rule (89 FR 14008) opened a public comment period that closed April 26, 2024. During the public comment period, the Departments received 65 comments from a variety of individuals and entities, including Federally Recognized Tribes of Alaska and Alaska Native Corporations. The public comments and a report detailing the information received during the 2022 joint consultations, “Federal Subsistence Policy Consultation Summary Report,” can be found in Docket No. FWS-R7-SM-2024-0017 at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Regulatory Revisions</HD> The February 26, 2024, proposed rule (89 FR 14008) described the regulatory revisions proposed by the Secretaries. The following paragraphs summarize by subject matter the regulatory changes being made in this final rule. <HD SOURCE="HD2">I. Increase in Number of Public Board Members</HD> The current Board includes a Chair, two public Board members, and five Federal agency personnel. The Secretaries will add three public members nominated or recommended by federally recognized Tribes in Alaska, while also requiring that they possess personal knowledge of and direct experience with subsistence uses in rural Alaska, including Alaska Native subsistence uses, for the purpose of ensuring adequate representation by members with rural subsistence experience on the Board at any par ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 51k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━