Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone off Alaska; Pacific Halibut Recreational Quota Entity Program Fee Collection

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Parts 300 and 679</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 241025-0279]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BN18</RIN> <SUBJECT>Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone off Alaska; Pacific Halibut Recreational Quota Entity Program Fee Collection</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 to require a charter halibut stamp (stamp) for charter vessel anglers, age 18 years or older, for each day and each trip they intend to catch and retain halibut on a charter vessel in International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC) regulatory area 2C (Southeast Alaska) and 3A (Southcentral Alaska). Persons who hold charter halibut permits (CHPs) would purchase stamps, which would be electronic, from NMFS. Charter vessel guides would be required to validate a stamp for each adult charter vessel angler intending to catch and retain halibut. NMFS would ultimately transfer the collected fees from the stamp purchases to the Recreational Quota Entity (RQE) to purchase halibut Quota Share (QS) issued in the Halibut and Sablefish Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) Program on behalf of the charter halibut fishery. This proposed rule is necessary to promote stability and economic viability in the charter halibut fishery, and is intended to promote the goals and objectives of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act), the Northern Pacific Halibut Act of 1982 (Halibut Act), and other applicable laws. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Submit comments on or before December 2, 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-2024-0099.</E> You may submit comments on this document, identified by NOAA-NMFS-2024-0099, 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-2024-0099 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 Regulatory Impact Review (RIR), and the Categorical Exclusion prepared for this action are available from <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> or from the NMFS Alaska Region website. 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 at the above address and to <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. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Kurt Iverson, 907-586-7228, <E T="03">kurt.iverson@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Authority for Action</HD> In December 2022, through the Consolidation Appropriations Act of 2023 (Pub. L. 117-328), the U.S. Congress (Congress) enacted the Driftnet Modernization and Bycatch Reduction Act. Public Law 117-328, 136 Stat. 4459, 5260-61 (Dec. 29, 2022). Section 106 of the Act authorizes the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) to recommend, and the Secretary of Commerce to approve, “regulations necessary for the collection of fees from charter vessel operators who guide recreational anglers who harvest Pacific halibut in IPHC regulatory areas 2C and 3A.” Under the Act, any fees collected shall be available for (1) financing administrative costs of the RQE Program; (2) the purchase of halibut QS in areas 2C and 3A by the RQE; (3) halibut conservation and research; and (4) promotion of the halibut resource by the RQE. This proposed rule would implement section 106 of the Act. The IPHC and NMFS manage fishing for Pacific halibut (halibut, <E T="03">Hippoglossus stenolepis</E> ) through regulations established under authority of the Halibut Act. The IPHC adopts regulations governing the halibut fishery under the Convention between the United States and Canada for the Preservation of the Halibut Fishery of the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea (Convention), signed at Ottawa, Ontario, on March 2, 1953, as amended by a Protocol Amending the Convention (signed at Washington, DC, on March 29, 1979). For the United States, regulations developed by the IPHC are subject to acceptance by the Secretary of State with concurrence from the Secretary of Commerce. After acceptance by the Secretary of State and concurrence from the Secretary of Commerce, NMFS publishes notice of the efficacy of the IPHC regulations in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . On March 18, 2024, NMFS published the IPHC regulations for the 2024 fishing year. IPHC regulations affecting sport fishing for halibut and vessels in the charter halibut fishery in IPHC regulatory areas 2C (Southeast Alaska) and 3A (South Central Alaska) may be found in that final rule (89 FR 19275, March 18, 2024). Section 5 of the Halibut Act provide the Secretary of Commerce with general responsibility to carry out the Convention and the Halibut Act. In adopting regulations that may be necessary to carry out the purposes and objectives of the Convention and the Halibut Act, the Secretary of Commerce is directed to consult with the Secretary of the department in which the U.S. Coast Guard is operating, which is currently the Department of Homeland Security. The Halibut Act at 16 U.S.C. 773(c) also provides the Council with authority to develop regulations for waters off Alaska, including limited access regulations that are in addition to, and not in conflict with, approved IPHC regulations. Regulations developed by the Council may be implemented by NMFS only after approval by the Secretary of Commerce. The Council exercised this authority in the development of halibut fishery management measures, codified at 50 CFR 300.65 through 300.67 and part 600. The Council also developed the IFQ Program for the commercial halibut and sablefish fisheries, codified at 50 CFR part 679. Management of halibut in the IFQ Program is authorized under section 5 of the Halibut Act. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">The Halibut Fisheries in Alaska</HD> The harvest of halibut in Alaska occurs in three fisheries—the commercial, sport, and subsistence fisheries. The commercial halibut fishery is managed under the IFQ Program that assigns catch shares to qualified persons as described at 50 CFR 300.65. Sport fishing for halibut in IPHC regulatory areas 2C and 3A are subject to different regulations, depending on whether those activities are guided ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> charter) or unguided. The subsistence halibut fishery is a non-commercial fishery that provides opportunities for customary and traditional use of halibut to Alaska rural residents and members of qualified Alaska Native Tribes, as described at 50 CFR 300.65. The following sections of the preamble summarize charter halibut fishery management and aspects of the commercial halibut IFQ fishery that are relevant for the proposed RQE Program fee collection. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Charter Halibut Fishery</HD> Charter fishing is subject to restrictions under Federal regulations that are generally more restrictive than the regulations applicable to unguided anglers. Charter fishery regulations apply if a charter vessel guide is providing sport fishing guide services for compensation or with the intent to receive compensation, to a person who is sport fishing, to take or attempt to take halibut by accompanying or physically directing the sport fisherman in sport fishing activities during any part of a charter vessel fishing trip. Throughout this preamble, the terms “charter fishery”, “charter vessel operator”, “charter vessel”, “charter vessel angler”, “sport fishing guide services” and “charter vessel guide” refer to the guided sport fishery for halibut in Alaska. Unguided anglers typically use their own vessels and equipment, or they may rent a vessel and fish with no assistance from a charter vessel guide. Over the years, NMFS has developed specific management programs for the charter fishery to achieve allocation and conservation objectives. NMFS has developed these programs with the intent of maintaining stability and economic viability in the charter fishery. The first major action was the Charter Halibut Limited Access Plan (CHLAP), which established limits on the number of charter vessel operators beginning in 2011. Three years later, NMFS implemented the halibut Catch Sharing Plan (CSP). The CS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 82k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━