Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Framework Adjustment 16 to the Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish Fishery Management Plan

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 648</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 241022-0277]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BN02</RIN> <SUBJECT>Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Framework Adjustment 16 to the Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish Fishery Management Plan</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> NMFS approves and implements Framework Adjustment 16 to the Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish Fishery Management Plan. Framework Adjustment 16 was developed by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council to establish a volumetric vessel hold capacity baseline for limited access <E T="03">Illex</E> squid vessels, allow NMFS to collect information on vessel processing type from limited access <E T="03">Illex</E> and Tier 1 longfin squid vessels, and clarify existing <E T="03">Illex</E> squid reporting requirements. This action is necessary to restrict future increases in capacity in the <E T="03">Illex</E> squid fishery and gain more accurate catch information to inform stock assessments. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective November 29, 2024, except for instruction 3 amending §§ 648.4(a)(5)(ii)(F), 648.4(a)(5)(ii)(H), and 648.4(c)(2)(viii), which is effective November 28, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Copies of Framework Adjustment 16, including the preliminary Regulatory Impact Review and the Regulatory Flexibility Act Analysis prepared by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, are available from Dr. Christopher M. Moore, Executive Director, Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, Suite 201, 800 North State Street, Dover, DE 19901. The document is also accessible via the internet at <E T="03">https://www.mafmc.org/supporting-documents.</E> Copies of the small entity compliance guide are available from Michael Pentony, Regional Administrator, NMFS, Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, 55 Great Republic Drive, Gloucester, MA 01930-2298, or via the internet at <E T="03">https://www.greateratlantic.fisheries.noaa.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Maria Fenton, Fishery Policy Analyst, (978) 281-9196, or <E T="03">maria.fenton@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council adopted Framework Adjustment 16 to the Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish Fishery Management Plan (FMP) during its October 2023 meeting. This action was initiated following NMFS' September 7, 2022, disapproval of Amendment 22 to the Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish FMP. The purpose of Amendment 22 was to better align fleet capacity with current quotas by creating a tiered permit system for the current limited access <E T="03">Illex</E> squid permits to remove latent effort from the fishery. Amendment 22 was developed in response to an overall increase in the number of active limited access <E T="03">Illex</E> vessels, which had no trip limits, and a perceived increase in racing to fish during the weeks leading up to <E T="03">Illex</E> fishery closures since 2017. To address these issues, Amendment 22 proposed reallocating existing <E T="03">Illex</E> squid limited access permits through tiered permitting measures. NMFS' review of Amendment 22 determined that the record supporting the Council's proposal was not adequate or sufficient to support a decision to further restrict the number and types of permits in the <E T="03">Illex</E> fishery in light of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act's (Magnuson-Stevens Act) National Standards, Amendment 22's stated purpose and need, and the goals and objectives of the FMP. Following the disapproval of Amendment 22, the Council considered alternative measures to address potential latent effort in the <E T="03">Illex</E> fishery through Framework 16. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Approved Measures</HD> This action approves the management measures recommended in Framework Adjustment 16 to the Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish FMP. The measures implemented in this final rule are: <HD SOURCE="HD2">1. Volumetric Hold Baseline for Limited Access Illex Squid Vessels</HD> Section 303(b)(4) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act allows for provisions in an FMP that limit the type and quantity of vessels participating in a fishery, for conservation and management purposes. This action establishes a volumetric vessel hold capacity baseline for limited access <E T="03">Illex</E> squid vessels in order to restrict future increases in capacity in the fishery. This baseline will be required in addition to the standard length and horsepower baselines that are mandatory for all Federal limited access permits in the Greater Atlantic Region. In order to establish its volumetric hold baseline, a limited access <E T="03">Illex</E> squid vessel's fish hold capacity measurement must be certified by a qualified individual or entity as specified at 50 CFR 648.4(a)(5)(ii)(H)( <E T="03">1</E> ). Limited access <E T="03">Illex</E> squid vessels must submit a fish hold capacity measurement, along with a signed certification by the qualified individual or entity, to NMFS within 395 days of the publication of this final rule. A similar volumetric hold baseline was implemented for Tier 1 and Tier 2 Atlantic mackerel permit holders through Amendment 11 to the Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish FMP (76 FR 68642, November 7, 2011) in 2011. If a vessel already has a volumetric hold baseline related to a Tier 1 or Tier 2 mackerel permit, that baseline could be used for its limited access <E T="03">Illex</E> squid permit as well, and no new survey is required. If a limited access <E T="03">Illex</E> squid permit is in Confirmation of Permit History (CPH) when fish hold capacity measurements are due, the default volumetric hold baseline for that CPH permit will be established based on the fish hold capacity measurement of the first replacement vessel greater than 20 feet (ft) (6.09 meters (m)) after the permit is removed from CPH (at which point the vessel's fish hold would have to be measured consistent with the requirements at § 648.4(a)(5)(ii)(H)( <E T="03">1</E> ) before the vessel could fish under the permit). If a permit in CPH already had an existing fish hold capacity measurement from the vessel immediately preceding the permit's placement into CPH that met the certification requirements, that measurement could be used to establish a volumetric hold baseline for the <E T="03">Illex</E> squid permit during the implementation period. If a limited access <E T="03">Illex</E> squid vessel is upgraded (through refitting or replacement), the upgraded vessel's volumetric hold capacity cannot exceed its volumetric hold baseline by more than 10 percent. The modified fish hold, or the fish hold of the replacement vessel, must be surveyed by a qualified surveyor, as described at § 648.4(a)(5)(ii)(H), unless the replacement vessel already has an appropriate fish hold capacity measurement on file with NMFS, in which case no new survey is required. <HD SOURCE="HD2">2. Limited Access Illex and Longfin Squid Processing Type</HD> Section 303(a)(5) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act requires FMPs to specify the pertinent data that shall be submitted to the Secretary with respect to commercial, recreational, charter fishing, and fish processing in the fishery. This action authorizes NMFS to collect information on processing type ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> frozen at-sea, refrigerated sea water, fresh/iced) from vessels issued a limited access <E T="03">Illex</E> or Tier 1 longfin squid permit. Vessel processing type information will be collected annually during the permit renewal process as described at § 648.4(c)(2)(ix), beginning in permit year 2025 (starting January 1, 2025). This information will help scientists analyze the catch per unit effort (CPUE) in the <E T="03">Illex</E> and longfin squid fisheries, which will improve the monitoring and management of these fisheries. <HD SOURCE="HD2">3. Clarifications to Existing Illex Squid Vessel Reporting Requirements</HD> Section 305(d) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act requires the Secretary to promulgate regulations necessary to carry out any FMP, FMP amendment, or other provision of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. This action clarifies an existing requirement that limited access <E T="03">Illex</E> squid vessels are required to submit daily vessel monitoring system (VMS) catch reports while on declared <E T="03">Illex</E> squid trips, as described at § 648.7(b)(3)(iv). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments and Responses</HD> We received nine public comments on the Framework Adjustment 16 proposed rule during the public comment period: One from Seafreeze Ltd.; four from the Town Dock; one from Lund's Fisheries; and three from members of the public. Consolidated responses are provided to similar comments on the proposed measures. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Limited Access Illex Squid Vessel Volumetric Hold Baseline</HD> <E T="03">Comment 1:</E> Two commenters (Seafreeze Ltd. and Lund's Fisheries) supported the proposed measure establishing a volumetric hold baseline for limited access <E T="03">Illex</E> squid vessels. Seafreeze Ltd. stated that establishing a volumetric hold baseline will help prevent speculative entry and activation of latent effort (from smaller-capacity vessels onto larger-capacity vessels) in the <E T="03">Illex</E> squid fishery. Seafreeze Ltd. also explained that many existing participants in the <E T="03">Illex</E> squid fishery hold Tier 1 or Tier 2 mackerel permits with associated hold capacit ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 28k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━