Magnuson-Stevens Act Provisions; Fisheries Off West Coast States; Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery; Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan; Amendment 33; 2025-26 Biennial Specifications and Management Measures

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 660</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 241022-0278]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BN08</RIN> <SUBJECT>Magnuson-Stevens Act Provisions; Fisheries Off West Coast States; Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery; Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan; Amendment 33; 2025-26 Biennial Specifications and Management Measures</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> This final rule establishes the 2025-26 harvest specifications for groundfish caught in the U.S. exclusive economic zone (EEZ) seaward of Washington, Oregon, and California, consistent with the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act or MSA) and the Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan (PCGFMP). This final rule also revises management measures intended to keep the total annual catch of each groundfish stock or stock complex within the annual catch limits. These measures are intended to help prevent overfishing, rebuild overfished stocks, achieve optimum yield, and ensure that management measures are based on the best scientific information available. Additionally, this final rule makes minor corrections ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> correcting grammar, removing outdated regulations, revisions for clarity) to the regulations, as well as technical corrections recommended by the Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) at their September 2024 meeting. Last, this final rule implements amendment 33 to the PCGFMP, which establishes a rebuilding plan for California quillback rockfish and revises the allocation framework for shortspine thornyhead. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective January 1, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The Analysis, which addresses the National Environmental Policy Act, Presidential Executive Order 12866, the Regulatory Flexibility Act, and the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, is accessible via the internet at the NMFS West Coast Region website at <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/region/west-coast.</E> The final 2024 Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation (SAFE) report for Pacific Coast groundfish, as well as the SAFE reports for previous years, are available from the Council's website at <E T="03">https://www.pcouncil.org.</E> The final Council Analytical Document, which describes the Council's final recommendations on the 2025-26 harvest specifications and management measures and amendment 33, is also available from the Council's website at <E T="03">https://www.pcouncil.org.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Lynn Massey, Fishery Management Specialist, at 562-900-2060 or <E T="03">lynn.massey@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Harvest Specifications</HD> This final rule sets 2025-26 harvest specifications and management measures for the 90+ groundfish stocks or management units which currently have annual catch limits (ACLs) or ACL contributions to stock complexes managed under the PCGFMP, except for Pacific whiting. Pacific whiting harvest specifications are established annually through a separate bilateral process with Canada. The proposed overfishing limits (OFLs), acceptable biological catches (ABCs), and ACLs are based on the best available biological and socioeconomic data, including projected biomass trends, information on assumed distribution of stock biomass, and revised technical methods used to calculate stock biomass. See tables 1a and 2a to Part 660, Subpart C in the regulatory text supporting this rule for the 2025-26 OFLs, ABCs, and ACLs for each stock or stock complex. A detailed description of each stock and stock complex for which the Council establishes harvest specifications set through this rule can be found in the 2024 SAFE document posted on the Council's website at <E T="03">https://www.pcouncil.org/stock-assessments-star-reports-stat-reports-rebuilding-analyses-terms-of-reference/safe-documents-4/.</E> A summary of how the 2025-26 harvest specifications were developed, including a description of off-the-top deductions for Tribal, research, incidental open access (IOA), and experimental fisheries, was provided in the proposed rule (87 FR 70406, August 29, 2024) and is not repeated here. Additional information on the development of these harvest specifications is also provided in the Analysis. For most stocks, the Council recommended harvest specifications based on the default harvest control rule used in the prior biennium. The Council recommended deviating from the default harvest control rule for four stocks in 2025-2026. Table 1 presents a summary of the changes to the harvest control rules for these stocks for the 2025-26 biennium. Each of these changes was discussed in the proposed rule and that discussion is not repeated here. <GPOTABLE COLS="3" OPTS="L2,nj,i1" CDEF="s50,r50,r50"> <TTITLE>Table 1—Changes to Harvest Control Rules for the 2025-26 Biennium</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Stock</CHED> <CHED H="1"> Default harvest control rule  <SU>a</SU> </CHED> <CHED H="1"> Alternative harvest control rule  <ENT>ACL = ABC (P* 0.40)</ENT> <ENT>ACL = ABC (P* 0.45).</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01"> Shortspine thornyhead  <ENT>ACL < ABC (P* 0.40)</ENT> <ENT>ACL < ABC (P* 0.45), 40-10 HRC applied.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Dover sole</ENT> <ENT>ACL = 50,000 metric tons (mt)</ENT> <ENT>ACL = ABC (P* 0.45).</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Quillback Rockfish off California</ENT> <ENT> ACL contribution < ABC (SPR 0.55; P* 0.45)  (ACL = ABC; P* 0.45). </ENT> </ROW> <TNOTE> <SU>a</SU>  The Default Harvest Control Rules were used to set the ACLs in 2023 and 2024. The Alternative Harvest Controls rules are the proposed changes for setting the ACLs in 2025 and 2026. </TNOTE> <TNOTE> <SU>b</SU>  The 40-10 adjustment applies where a precautionary reduction is warranted, per the PCGFMP at section 4.6.1. The 40-10 adjustment reduces the harvest rate to help the stock return to the maximum sustainable yield level. </TNOTE> <TNOTE> <SU>c</SU>  In 2023-24, the harvest control rule (ACL contribution < ABC, SPR 0.55; P* 0.45) specified an ACL contribution because quillback rockfish was still part of the Nearshore rockfish complex. For 2025-26, California quillback rockfish is proposed to be taken out of the Nearshore complex and managed pursuant to a stock-specific ACL. </TNOTE> <TNOTE> <SU>d</SU>  The Council recommended the ABC Rule as the alternative harvest control rule based on a range of harvest strategies analyzed in the California Quillback Rockfish Rebuilding Plan new management measure, which is described in section III, P of this preamble. </TNOTE> </GPOTABLE> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Management Measures</HD> This final rule revises management measures, which are used to further allocate the ACLs to the various components of the fishery ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> biennial fishery harvest guidelines and set-asides) and to control fishing. Management measures for the commercial fishery modify fishing behavior during the fishing year to ensure catch does not exceed the ACL, and include trip and cumulative landing limits, time/area closures, size limits, and gear restrictions. Management measures for the recreational fisheries include bag limits, size limits, gear restrictions, fish dressing requirements, and time/area closures. Each of these changes was discussed in the proposed rule and that discussion is not repeated here. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Deductions From the ACLs</HD> Before making allocations to the primary commercial and recreational components of groundfish fisheries, the Council recommends “off-the-top deductions,” or deductions from the ACLs to account for anticipated mortality for certain types of activities, including: (1) harvest in Pacific Coast treaty Indian Tribal fisheries; (2) harvest in scientific research activities; (3) harvest in non-groundfish fisheries ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> IOA catch); and (4) harvest that occurs under exempted fishing permits (EFPs). As part of NMFS' effort to simplify regulations pertaining to harvest specifications, the footnotes that typically specify these values in tables 1a, 1b, 2a, and 2b of subpart C have been removed, and all off-the-top deductions for individual stocks or stock complexes and are included in the 2024 SAFE. The details of the EFPs are discussed below in section II, I of this preamble and section III, I of the proposed rule. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Annual Catch Targets</HD> As defined at 50 CFR 660.11, an annual catch target (ACT) is a management target set below the ACL that may be used as an accountability measure in cases where there is uncertainty in inseason catch monitoring to ensure against exceeding an ACL. Since the ACT is a target and not a limit, it can be used in lieu of harvest guidelines (HGs) or set strategically to accomplish other management objectives. Sector-specific ACTs can also be specified to accomplish management objectives. For the 2025-26 biennium, NMFS is implementing ACTs for yelloweye rockfish in the non-trawl sectors (both commercial and recreational), copper rockfish in the recreational sector south of 34° 27′ North latitude (N lat.), and shortspine thornyhead in the commercial non-trawl sector north of 34° 27′ N lat. Further, NMFS is removing the ACT from the 2023-24 biennium for California quillback rockfish. These ACTs can be found in the footnotes to tables 1a and 2a to part 660, subpart C in the regulatory text of this final rule. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Biennial Fishery Allocations</HD> The Council ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 194k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━