Regulations for the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Management Review: Blueprint for Restoration

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>15 CFR Part 922</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 241204-0311]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BJ14</RIN> <SUBJECT>Regulations for the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Management Review: Blueprint for Restoration</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS), National Ocean Service (NOS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Commerce (DOC). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> As part of its Restoration Blueprint initiative, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is issuing final regulations for the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS or sanctuary) that will expand the boundary of the sanctuary, update sanctuary-wide regulations, update the individual marine zones and their associated regulations, and revise the sanctuary's terms of designation. NOAA is also finalizing a revised management plan and final environmental impact statement (EIS) as part of this action. The final rule describes how NOAA will work to improve the condition of resources in FKNMS through a series of regulatory measures designed to reduce threats and, where appropriate, restore coral reefs, seagrasses, and other important habitats. The intended effect of this final rule is to manage and protect the living and heritage resources of FKNMS for the benefit of the public. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Effective Date:</E> Pursuant to section 304(b) of the National Marine Sanctuaries Act (NMSA) (16 U.S.C. 1434(b)), the designation and regulations shall take effect and become final after the close of a review period of forty-five days of continuous session of Congress, beginning on the date on which this Federal rulemaking is published, which is January 17, 2025; however, if the Governor of the State of Florida certifies to the Secretary of Commerce during that same review period that any such regulation is unacceptable, the regulation(s) will not take effect in State waters of the sanctuary. The public can track days of the congressional session at the following website: <E T="03">https://www.congress.gov/days-in-session.</E> NOAA will publish an announcement of the effective date of the final regulations in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . <E T="03">Incorporation by reference:</E> The incorporation by reference of certain material listed in the rule is approved by the Director of the Federal Register as of after the close of a review period of forty-five days of continuous session of Congress, beginning on the date on which this Federal rulemaking is published, which is January 17, 2025. NOAA will publish an announcement of the IBR approval date in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . <E T="03">Delay of effective date:</E> NOAA is delaying the effective date of §§ 922.163(a)(5)(x) and 922.164(e)(3), (f)(2), (g)(1), and (h)(1) until January 19, 2027. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Copies of the final EIS and management plan described in this rule, the Record of Decision (ROD), and additional background materials are available at <E T="03">https://floridakeys.noaa.gov/blueprint/.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Beth Dieveney, Policy Analyst, FKNMS, 33 East Quay Rd., Key West, FL 33040, 305-797-6818 phone, or by email at <E T="03">beth.dieveney@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">1. Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary</HD> Designated in 1990, FKNMS was the ninth national marine sanctuary in the National Marine Sanctuary System. As one of the largest marine protected areas in the United States, FKNMS encompasses approximately 3,800 square miles of coastal and ocean waters from the estuarine waters of South Florida along the Florida Keys archipelago to the Dry Tortugas, encompassing more than 1,700 islands. FKNMS provides habitats for more than 6,000 species of fishes, invertebrates, and plants, in addition to uniquely expansive and diverse seagrass and coral reef communities. Within the boundaries of the sanctuary lie spectacular, unique, and nationally significant marine resources including North America's only coral barrier reef, extensive seagrass beds, mangrove-fringed islands, and more than 6,000 species of marine life. The sanctuary also protects pieces of our Nation's history such as shipwrecks and other archeological resources. This final rule follows NOAA's publication of a 2022 proposed rule and a 2019 draft EIS, which included a range of alternatives. The health of the marine environment around the Florida Keys and the health of the Florida Keys community in Monroe County, Florida, are inextricably linked. A declining marine environment puts the economy and jobs at risk. Relying on the existence and maintenance of a healthy marine environment, the Florida Keys support more than 82,874 residents and approximately 5.13 million visitors annually (Rockport Analytics, 2019). Tourism value to the Florida Keys economy was estimated at $2.4 billion (in 2018, the most recent year data were available), supporting 43% of jobs and employment in Monroe County and sales tax paid by visitors to Monroe County made up roughly 59% of state and local tax receipts attributed to tourism (Rockport Analytics, 2019). <HD SOURCE="HD2">2. Need for the Rulemaking</HD> NOAA's management of FKNMS is directed by the purposes and policies of the NMSA and the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and Protection Act (FKNMSPA, Public Law 101-605). The NMSA requires the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary) to evaluate the substantive progress toward implementing the management plan and goals for the sanctuary, especially the effectiveness of site-specific management techniques and strategies, and . . . revise the management plan and regulations as necessary to fulfill the purposes and policies of this chapter. (16 U.S.C. 1434(e)). Those purposes and policies include: • Provide authority for comprehensive and coordinated conservation and management of these marine areas, and activities affecting them, in a manner which complements existing regulatory authorities (16 U.S.C. 1431(b)(2)); • Maintain the natural biological communities in the national marine sanctuaries, and to protect, and, where appropriate, restore and enhance natural habitats, populations, and ecological processes ( <E T="03">id.</E> 1431(b)(3)); • Facilitate to the extent compatible with the primary objective of resource protection, all public and private uses of the resources of these marine areas not prohibited pursuant to other authorities ( <E T="03">id.</E> (b)(6)); • Develop and implement coordinated plans for the protection and management of these areas with appropriate Federal agencies, State and local governments . . . and other public and private interests concerned with the continuing health and resilience of these marine areas ( <E T="03">id.</E> 1431(b)(7)); and • Create models of, and incentives for, ways to conserve and manage these areas, including the application of innovative management techniques ( <E T="03">id.</E> 1431(b)(8)). The FKNMSPA directs NOAA to protect and preserve living and other resources of the Florida Keys marine environment, provide education on and interpretation of sanctuary resources to the public, and manage human uses of the sanctuary consistent with the FKNMSPA (Sec. 3, Pub. L. 101-605, 104 Stat. 3090). In order to ensure long-term resource viability and ecosystem function, NOAA is updating the FKNMS management framework to address current and future threats to sanctuary resources, such as diminished water quality originating from both within and outside the sanctuary, significant decrease in coral cover, and habitat degradation from vessel impacts including anchor damage, propeller-scarring, and groundings. Each of these threats has major implications for FKNMS. In addition, NOAA is updating FKNMS management efforts to respond to the 2011 FKNMS Condition Report, <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> which concluded that resources in the Florida Keys were in fair to fair/poor condition and generally either stable or in decline. Since the release of the 2011 condition report, sanctuary resources have been further degraded by Hurricane Irma (2017), a serious and widespread coral disease outbreak, a seagrass die-off, and warming ocean temperatures as evident during the summer 2023 marine heat wave, among other threats. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">https://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/science/condition/fknms/welcome.html</E> . </FTNT> Furthermore, during the comment phase on the draft documents for this action, the public emphasized the need for a more ecosystem-based management approach to better protect the region's marine resources. To that end, there was strong public support for sanctuary expansion and updated marine zones—actions that are consistent with the purposes and policies of the NMSA and the FKNMSPA. As a result, this final rule extends national marine sanctuary management actions to areas that have demonstrated biological and ecological connectivity with existing sanctuary resources and includes adaptive management strategies to better respond to changing conditions, use patterns, and emerging threats to resources. In addition to these regulatory updates, NOAA is enhancing research, restoration, and education efforts to conserve and restore these nationally significant sanctuary resources. These efforts, which are described in the final management plan, are critical for assessing changes occurring in the environment, fostering a stewardship ethic, and developing a better understanding of the ecosystem services that sanc ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 705k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━