Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands; 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. 241127-0305; RTID 0648-XE346]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands; 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 prohibited species catch allowances for the groundfish fisheries of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI) management area. 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 Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Management Area (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those previously set in the final 2024 and 2025 harvest specifications, and the 2026 harvest specifications will be superseded in early 2026 when the final 2026 and 2027 harvest specifications are published.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 BSAI in accordance with the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act). </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received by January 3, 2025. </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-2024-0116.</E> You may submit comments on this document, identified by NOAA-NMFS-2024-0116, 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-2024-0116 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, Attn: Records Office. Mail comments to P.O. Box 21668, Juneau, AK 99802-1668. • <E T="03">Fax:</E> (907) 586-7465; Attn: Gretchen Harrington. <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 BSAI, dated November 2023, is available from the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) at 1007 West 3rd Ave., Suite 400, Anchorage, Alaska 99501, phone 907-271-2809, or from the NMFS Alaska Region 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 BSAI will be available from the same sources. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Steve Whitney, 907-586-7228. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Federal regulations at 50 CFR part 679 implement the FMP and govern the groundfish fisheries in the BSAI. The Council prepared the FMP, and NMFS approved it, under the Magnuson-Stevens Act. General regulations governing U.S. fisheries also appear at 50 CFR part 600. The FMP and its implementing regulations require that NMFS, after consultation with the Council, specify annually the total allowable catch (TAC) for target species. The sum of TACs for all groundfish target species in the BSAI must be within the optimum yield (OY) range of 1.4 million to 2.0 million metric tons (mt) (see § 679.20(a)(1)(i)(A) and 679.20(a)(2)). Section 679.20(c)(1) further requires that NMFS publish proposed harvest specifications in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> and solicit public comments on proposed annual TACs for each target species and apportionments thereof; prohibited species catch (PSC) allowances; prohibited species quota (PSQ) reserves established by § 679.21; seasonal allowances of pollock, Pacific cod, and Atka mackerel TAC; American Fisheries Act allocations; Amendment 80 allocations; Community Development Quota (CDQ) reserve amounts established by § 679.20(b)(1)(ii); and acceptable biological catch (ABC) surpluses and reserves for CDQ groups and Amendment 80 cooperatives for flathead sole, rock sole, and yellowfin sole. The proposed harvest specifications set forth in tables 1 through 15 of this proposed rule satisfy these requirements. In accordance with § 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 Reports for both the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Other Actions Affecting or Potentially Affecting the 2025 and 2026 Harvest Specifications</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Amendment 125 to the FMP: Pacific Cod Small Boat Access</HD> NMFS is developing a proposed rule to implement Amendment 125 to the FMP, which, if approved, would redefine the BSAI Pacific cod jig sector during the A-season (January 1-April 30) to include hook-and-line or pot catcher vessels (CV) less than or equal to 55 feet (ft) (16.8 meters (m)) length overall (LOA). All harvest from the redefined A-season jig sector would be deducted from the jig sector's 1.4 percent allocation currently set in regulation (§ 679.20(a)(7)(ii)). In addition, the current hook-and-line or pot CV less than 60 feet (ft) (18.3 m) LOA sector would be redefined from January 1 to April 30 so that harvest only from hook-and-line or pot CVs with a LOA of 55 ft (16.8 m) and less than 60 ft LOA (55-59 ft) (16.8-18.0 m) would be deducted from the hook-and-line or pot CV less than 60 feet (ft) (18.3 m) LOA sector's 2.0 percent allocation currently set in regulation (§ 679.20(a)(7)(ii)). If amendment 125 and its implementing regulations are approved by the Secretary of Commerce, NMFS would incorporate the changes in a future harvest specifications action, and any such changes are anticipated for the 2026 and 2027 harvest specifications. <HD SOURCE="HD2">State of Alaska Guideline Harvest Levels</HD> For 2025 and 2026, the State of Alaska Board of Fisheries (BOF) established the guideline harvest level (GHL) for vessels using pot, longline, jig, and hand troll gear in State waters in the State's Aleutian Islands subarea (AI) State-waters sablefish registration area that includes all State waters west of Scotch Cap Light (164°44.72′ W longitude) and south of Cape Sarichef (54°36′ N latitude). The AI GHL is set at 5 percent of the combined proposed Bering Sea (BS) subarea and AI ABC (1,233 mt). The State's AI sablefish registration area includes areas adjacent to parts of the Federal BS subarea. Since most of the State's 2025 and 2026 GHL sablefish fishery is expected to occur in State waters adjacent to the Federal BS subarea, the Council and its BSAI Groundfish Plan Team (Plan Team), Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC), and Advisory Panel (AP) recommended that the sum of all State and Federal sablefish removals from the BS and AI not exceed the proposed ABC recommendations for sablefish in the BS and AI. Accordingly, the Council recommended, and NMFS proposes, that the 2025 and 2026 sablefish TACs in the BS and AI be reduced by at least 5 percent to account for the State's GHLs for sablefish caught in State waters. For 2025 and 2026, the BOF established the GHL for vessels using pot gear in State waters in the BS equal to 13 percent of the Pacific cod ABC in the BS. The BS GHL will increase by one percent if 90 percent of the GHL is harvested by November 15 of the preceding year for 2 consecutive years but may not exceed 15 percent of the BS ABC. If 90 percent of the GHL is not harvested by November 15 of the preceding year for 2 consecutive years, the GHL will decrease by 1 percent, but the GHL may not decrease below 10 percent of the BS ABC. Based on harvest in 2023 and 2024, the GHL will be 13 percent in 2025. 13 percent of the proposed BS ABC is 19,614 mt. NMFS will account for any adjustment to the 2026 GHL in the final 2026 and 2027 harvest specifications. Also, for 2025 and 2026, the BOF established an additional GHL for vessels using ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 111k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━