Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone; Authorizing Hook-and-Line Catcher/Processors To Use Longline Pot Gear in the Bering Sea Greenland Turbot Fishery

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 679</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 241017-0274]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BM77</RIN> <SUBJECT>Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone; Authorizing Hook-and-Line Catcher/Processors To Use Longline Pot Gear in the Bering Sea Greenland Turbot Fishery</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 proposes regulations that would authorize hook-and-line catcher/processors (C/Ps) to use longline pot gear when directed fishing for Greenland turbot in the Bering Sea (BS) subarea of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI). This proposed rule is necessary to improve efficiency, provide economic benefits for the hook-and-line C/P sector, and minimize potential fishery interactions with killer whales. This proposed rule would promote the goals and objectives of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act), the Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for Groundfish of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Management Area (BSAI FMP) and other applicable laws. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Submit comments on or before November 22, 2024. </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-2023-0156</E> . You may submit comments on this document, identified by NOAA-NMFS-2023-0156 by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Submission:</E> Submit all electronic public comments via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal. Visit <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and type NOAA-NMFS-2023-0156 in the Search box. Click on the “Comment” icon, complete the required fields, and enter or attach your comments. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Submit written comments to Gretchen Harrington, Assistant Regional Administrator, Sustainable Fisheries Division, Alaska Region NMFS. Mail comments to P.O. Box 21668, Juneau, AK 99802-1668. <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 on <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). Electronic copies of the Environmental Assessment and Regulatory Impact Review (RIR) (collectively “the Analysis”) prepared for this action are available on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> or from 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 proposed rule may be submitted to NMFS and on <E T="03">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain</E> . Find this particular information collection by selecting “Currently under 30-day Review—Open for Public Comments,” or by using the Search function. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Andrew Olson, 907-586-7228, <E T="03">andrew.olson@noaa.gov</E> . </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> NMFS manages the groundfish fisheries of the BSAI under the BSAI FMP. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) prepared, and the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary) approved, the BSAI FMP under the authority of the Magnuson-Stevens Act (16 U.S.C. 1801 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). Regulations governing U.S. fisheries and implementing the BSAI FMP appear at 50 CFR parts 600 and 679. The Council and NMFS manage Greenland turbot ( <E T="03">Reinhardtius hippoglossoides</E> ) as a groundfish species under the BSAI FMP. Section 3.4 of BSAI FMP identifies authorized gear types for groundfish fisheries as trawls, hook-and-line, pots, jigs, and other gear as defined in regulations. This section also states that further restrictions on gear which are necessary for conservation and management of fishery resources and which are consistent with the goals and objectives of the FMP are found at 50 CFR part 679. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The following background sections describe (1) the Greenland turbot directed fishery; (2) authorized gear; (3) whale depredation; and (4) groundfish maximum retainable amounts (MRAs). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Greenland Turbot Directed Fishery</HD> The directed fishery for Greenland turbot is managed under the BSAI FMP and is divided into two fishing subareas: (1) the BS; and (2) the Aleutian Islands (AI). Under the BSAI FMP, the acceptable biological catch (ABC) of Greenland turbot is allocated between the BS and AI subareas based on the proportion of biomass in each area. Annually, in the BSAI groundfish harvest specifications, NMFS establishes a total allowable catch (TAC) for Greenland turbot that is apportioned between the BS and AI subareas based on the TAC recommended by the Council (89 FR 17287, March 11, 2024). Under § 679.23(e)(1), directed fishing for Greenland turbot is authorized from May 1 through December 31 and NMFS closes the fishery if the TAC is reached prior to the season end date. The Greenland turbot directed fishery is a relatively small fishery with low TACs and the area where the fishery occurs in the BS and AI subareas (as described in section 3.3.2 of the Analysis (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section)) is very remote, making it difficult to prosecute the fishery. Under the Western Alaska Community Development Quota (CDQ) Program, § 679.20(b)(1)(ii)(D) requires that NMFS allocate 10.7 percent of the BS subarea Greenland turbot TAC to the CDQ reserve. CDQ allocations of BS subarea Greenland turbot may be fished by either trawl or nontrawl vessels. CDQ groups may arrange for the CDQ reserve to be fished by companies or on vessels in which they have an ownership stake, or they might make the CDQ reserve available to be fished by any permitted vessel and receive a royalty permit in return as described in section 3.3.1 of the Analysis (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section). CDQ fishing for Greenland turbot is authorized from January 1 through December 31 (§ 679.23(e)(4)(iii)). Vessels participating in the directed fishery for Greenland turbot in the BS subarea are required to have a groundfish license limitation program (LLP) license with the necessary gear ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> nontrawl, trawl, or both gear types) and BS subarea endorsements (see § 679.4(k)(1)(i)). The directed fishery for Greenland turbot is prosecuted by the trawl and nontrawl sectors and is mainly concentrated in the BS subarea, which is the focus of this proposed rule. The Greenland turbot fishery in the AI subarea has been closed to directed fishing in all years from 2013 through 2024 due to relatively low TACs. Additionally, several factors have contributed to low interest in developing this fishery such as lower local abundance, poorer fish quality resulting in lower value products, and higher operating costs. Participants in the Greenland turbot trawl fishery consist exclusively of Amendment 80 vessels. The Amendment 80 Program allocated several BSAI non-pollock trawl groundfish species among trawl fishery sectors, facilitated the formation of harvesting cooperatives in the non-American Fisheries Act (non-AFA) trawl C/P sector, and established a limited access privilege program for the non-AFA trawl C/P sector (72 FR 52668, September 14, 2007). This proposed rule does not change regulations applicable to the Amendment 80 Program. The majority of participants in the nontrawl Greenland turbot fishery are hook-and-line C/P vessels. Hook-and-line C/P vessels, as defined in the regulations at § 679.2, are vessels named on LLP licenses that are noninterim and transferable, or that are interim and subsequently become noninterim and transferable, and that are endorsed for BS subarea or AI subarea C/P fishing activity, C/P Pacific cod ( <E T="03">Gadus macrocephalus</E> ), and hook-and-line gear. As a broad category of vessels, hook-and-line C/Ps primarily target Pacific cod in the CDQ and non-CDQ fisheries in the BSAI, and may also participate in the Greenland turbot and sablefish fisheries, as well as groundfish fisheries in the Gulf of Alaska (GOA). Catcher vessels (CVs), on the other hand, have rarely targeted Greenland turbot in the BS subarea. This is due to the remoteness of the area where the fishery occurs and characteristics of Greenland turbot flesh that would degrade and lose value in the time required to make a shoreside landing, as CVs are vessels used for catching fish and do not process fish on board. Vessel LLP licenses have endorsements for operation type and are either CV or C/P. A C/V endorsement allows a vessel to harvest, but not process fish on board, while a C/P endorsement allows a vessel to harvest and on board processing. Most hook-and-line C/P vessels are members of the Freezer Longline Conservation Cooperative (FLCC). The FLCC is a voluntary cooperative represented by the Freezer Longline Coalition that comprises 36 LLP license holders endorsed for BS or AI subarea hook-and-line C/P fishing for Pacific cod. Cooperatives allow fishery participants to coordinate their collective fishing operations, and benefit from the result ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 42k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━