Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Gulf of Alaska; Proposed 2025 and 2026 Harvest Specifications for Groundfish

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 679</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 241121-0299; RTID 0648-XE336]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Gulf of Alaska; Proposed 2025 and 2026 Harvest Specifications for Groundfish</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; harvest specifications and request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NMFS proposes 2025 and 2026 harvest specifications, apportionments, and Pacific halibut prohibited species catch (PSC) limits for the groundfish fisheries of the Gulf of Alaska (GOA). This action is necessary to establish harvest limits for groundfish during the 2025 and 2026 fishing years and to accomplish the goals and objectives of the Fishery Management Plan for Groundfish of the GOA (FMP). The 2025 harvest specifications supersede those previously set in the final 2024 and 2025 harvest specifications, and the 2026 harvest specifications will be superseded in early 2026 when the final 2026 and 2027 harvest specifications are published. The intended effect of this action is to conserve and manage the groundfish resources in the GOA in accordance with the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act). </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received by December 30, 2024. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments on this document, identified by NOAA-NMFS-2024-0124 by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Submission:</E> Submit all electronic public comments via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal. Go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and enter NOAA-NMFS-2024-0124 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 Alaska Groundfish Harvest Specifications Final Environmental Impact Statement (Final EIS), Record of Decision (ROD) for the Final EIS, and the annual Supplementary Information Reports (SIR) to the Final EIS prepared for this action are available from <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> An updated 2025 SIR for the final 2025 and 2026 harvest specifications will be available from the same source. The final 2023 Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation (SAFE) report for the groundfish resources of the GOA, dated December 2023, is available from the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) at 1007 West Third, Suite 400, Anchorage, AK 99501-2252, phone 907-271-2809, or from the NMFS website at <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/alaska/population-assessments/north-pacific-groundfish-stock-assessments-and-fishery-evaluation.</E> The 2024 SAFE report for the GOA will be available from the same sources. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Abby Jahn, 907-586-7228. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> NMFS manages the GOA groundfish fisheries in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of the GOA under the FMP. The Council prepared and NMFS approved the 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 FMP appear at 50 CFR parts 600, 679, and 680. The FMP and its implementing regulations require that NMFS, after consultation with the Council, specify the total allowable catch (TAC) for each target species, the sum of which must be within the optimum yield (OY) range of 116,000 to 800,000 metric tons (mt) (§ 679.20(a)(1)(i)(B) and 679.20(a)(2)). Section 679.20(c)(1) further requires NMFS to publish and solicit public comment on proposed annual TACs and apportionments thereof for each target species, Pacific halibut PSC limits, and seasonal allowances of pollock and Pacific cod. The proposed harvest specifications in tables 1 through 19 of this rule satisfy these requirements. For 2025 and 2026, the sum of the proposed TAC amounts is 482,000 mt. Under § 679.20(c)(3), NMFS will publish the final 2025 and 2026 harvest specifications after (1) considering comments received within the comment period (see <E T="02">DATES</E> ), (2) consulting with the Council at its December 2024 meeting, (3) considering information presented in the 2025 SIR to the Final EIS that assesses the need to prepare a Supplemental EIS (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ), and (4) considering information presented in the final 2024 SAFE report, including the 2024 Ecosystem Status Report (ESR) for the GOA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Other Actions Potentially Affecting the 2025 and 2026 GOA Harvest Specifications</HD> The Alaska Board of Fisheries (BOF) is considering five proposals for management of fishing in State waters that if adopted could potentially affect the GOA groundfish harvest specifications for 2025 and 2026. The BOF will not take action on these proposals until after the December 2024 Council meeting. Proposal 8, if adopted by the BOF, would increase the Prince William Sound (PWS) Pacific cod fishery guideline harvest level (GHL) from 25 percent to a minimum of 35 percent and a maximum of 50 percent of the acceptable biological catch (ABC) for the Eastern Regulatory Area of the GOA. The final 2025 and 2026 harvest specifications would have to account for this increase in the GHL when specifying the Pacific cod TAC for the Eastern Regulatory Area to ensure that the sum of all State waters and Federal waters Pacific cod removals from the GOA do not exceed ABC recommendations. Proposal 13, if adopted, allows for 100 percent retention of longnose and big skate in the PWS Pacific cod and Pacific halibut fisheries until 25 percent of the TAC for the Eastern Regulatory Area is reached. The final 2025 and 2026 harvest specifications would need to account for this change when specifying TACs for longnose and big skates for the Eastern Regulatory Area to ensure that the sum of all skate removals from State and Federal waters of the GOA do not exceed ABC recommendations. Proposals 14 and 16, if adopted, would limit or close the PWS pollock fishery, which would mean a reduced or no GHL, and the final 2025 and 2026 harvest specifications would account for this change to the GHL by changing the TAC. Proposal 43, if adopted, would establish a directed octopus fishery in PWS, which means the State could set a GHL. The final 2025 and 2026 harvest specifications would have to account for this GHL for octopus in PWS when specifying the TAC to ensure that the sum of all octopus removals from the State and Federal waters of the GOA do not exceed ABC recommendation. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Proposed ABC and TAC Specifications</HD> In October 2024, the Council's Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC), its Advisory Panel (AP), and the Council reviewed the most recent biological and harvest information about the condition of the GOA groundfish stocks. The Council's GOA Groundfish Plan Team (Plan Team) compiled and presented this information in the final 2023 SAFE report for the GOA groundfish fisheries, dated December 2023 (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ). The final 2024 SAFE report, including individual stock assessments, will be available online (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ). The SAFE report contains a review of the latest scientific analyses and estimates of each species' biomass and past, present, and possible future condition of the stocks and groundfish fisheries off Alaska. The SAFE report also contains an economic summary informed by the Economic SAFE report (available online, see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ) and ecosystem information summarized from the ESR. The SAFE provides information to the Council and NMFS for recommending and setting, respectively, annual harvest levels for each stock and documenting significant trends or changes in the resource, marine ecosystems, and fisheries over time. An ESR is prepared for the GOA ecosystem (as well as for the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands ecosystems). ESRs compile and summarize information about the status of the Alaska marine ecosystems for the Plan Team, SSC, AP, Council, NMFS, and the public, and they are updated annually. These ESRs include ecosystem report cards, ecosystem assessments, and ecosystem-based management indicators ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> climate indices, sea surface temperature), which together provide context for ecosystem-based fisheries management in Alaska. The ESRs inform stock assessments and are integrated into the annual harvest recommendations primarily through inclusion in stock assessment-specific risk tables that inform the specification of ABC for each target species. The ESRs provide context for the SSC's recommendations for overfishing levels (OFL) and ABC, as well as for the Council's TAC recommendations. The SAFE reports and the ESRs ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 111k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━