International Fisheries; Pacific Tuna Fisheries; 2025-2026 Commercial Fishing Restrictions for Pacific Bluefin Tuna in the Eastern Pacific Ocean

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 300</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 250430-0075]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BN29</RIN> <SUBJECT>International Fisheries; Pacific Tuna Fisheries; 2025-2026 Commercial Fishing Restrictions for Pacific Bluefin Tuna in the Eastern Pacific Ocean</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> NMFS is issuing regulations under the Tuna Conventions Act of 1950, as amended, to implement Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) Resolution C-24-02 ( <E T="03">Measures for the Conservation and Management of Bluefin Tuna in the Eastern Pacific Ocean</E> ) adopted by the IATTC in September 2024. This rule implements annual catch and trip limits on United States commercial catch of Pacific bluefin tuna ( <E T="03">Thunnus orientalis;</E> PBF) in the eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO) for 2025-2026. This action is necessary to conserve PBF and for the United States to satisfy its obligations as a member of the IATTC. NMFS prepared an Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact for this action. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective June 5, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Copies of supporting documents that were prepared for the proposed rule, including the Environmental Assessment, Finding of No Significant Impact, and Regulatory Impact Review, are available via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/NOAA-NMFS-2024-0146.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Karter Harmon, NMFS, (562) 833-8324, <E T="03">Karter.Harmon@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> On December 30, 2024, NMFS published a proposed rule in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (89 FR 106400) to implement Resolution C-24-02 ( <E T="03">Measures for the Conservation and Management of Bluefin Tuna in the Eastern Pacific Ocean</E> ) adopted by the IATTC in September 2024. The proposed rule contains additional background information, including information on the IATTC and its Convention Area, the international obligations of the United States as an IATTC member, and the need for regulations. The 30-day public comment period for the proposed rule closed on January 29, 2025. NMFS received no comments on the proposed rule or supporting documents. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IATTC PBT Resolutions</HD> The IATTC has adopted PBF catch limits in the IATTC Convention Area since 2012. The IATTC Convention Area is defined as waters of the EPO within the area bounded by the west coast of the Americas and by 50° N latitude, 150° W longitude, and 50° S latitude. For more information about previous management measures, see the final rules implementing Resolution C-14-06 (80 FR 38986, July 8, 2015), Resolution C-16-08 (82 FR 18704, April 21, 2017), Resolutions C-18-01 and C-18-02 (84 FR 18409, May 1, 2019), Resolution C-20-02 (86 FR 16303, March 29, 2021), and Resolution C-21-05 (87 FR 47939, August 05, 2022). At its 102nd Meeting in September 2024, the IATTC adopted Resolution C-24-02, which establishes catch limits consistent with the 2024 Joint IATTC-NC Working Group on Pacific Bluefin Tuna Management (JWG) recommendation and contains catch increases for the United States. The 2025-2026 biennial catch limit for the United States established in C-24-02 was 1,822 mt, not to exceed 1,285 mt in any one year. The catch and trip limits in this rulemaking represent approximately an 80 percent increase over the most recent ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> 2022-2024) management regime for the United States (87 FR 47939, August 5, 2022). This is based on a recent 2024 stock assessment and subsequent NMFS status determinations determining the PBF stock in the EPO is not experiencing overfishing and is no longer overfished. As in previous resolutions, an IATTC member may add to the new catch limit any under-harvest from the previous catch limit in an amount not to exceed 5 percent of the last biennial catch limit. In this case, the United States may add up to 5 percent of 1,017 mt ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> 50.85 mt) from 2023-2024 to the 2025-2026 biennial catch limit. From Pacific Fisheries Information Network reports, U.S. commercial vessels caught 316.5 mt of PBT in 2023-2024. Therefore, the under-harvest from the previous biennial catch limit far exceeds 5 percent. NMFS has added 5 percent of the last biennial catch limit (50.85 mt) to the 2025-2026 biennial catch limit. Therefore, the final 2025-2026 biennial catch limit is 1,872.85 mt. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Regulations for PBT for 2025-2026</HD> Consistent with recommendations from the Pacific Fishery Management Council and its advisory bodies, this rule establishes trip limits for 2025 and 2026 while maintaining an adaptive management approach. The intent behind these trip limits is to encourage U.S. vessel owners and operators to fully utilize the U.S. catch limit while allowing ample opportunity for multiple gear types. Trip limits adjust seasonally, with the intent to ensure a portion of the annual catch limit remains available to smaller-volume gear types throughout the year. The annual catch and trip limits are described in detail below. <HD SOURCE="HD2">PBF Management Regime for 2025-2026</HD> The annual catch limit for 2025 is 1,285 mt. The annual catch limit for 2026 is the total cumulative catch in 2025 subtracted from the biennial limit, not to exceed 1,285 mt. The initial trip limit for both 2025 and 2026 is 60 mt and adjusts as follows: <E T="03">January-June:</E> • The trip limit decreases to 40 mt if the total catch is within 400 mt of the annual limit. • The trip limit decreases to 5 mt if the total catch is within 225 mt of the annual limit. <E T="03">July-September:</E> • The trip limit decreases to 40 mt if the catch is within 300 mt of the annual limit. • The trip limit decreases to 5 mt if the total catch is within 175 mt of the annual limit. <E T="03">October-December:</E> • The trip limit decreases to 40 mt if the catch is within 200 mt of the annual limit. • The trip limit decreases to 5 mt if the total catch is within 125 mt of the annual limit. Under the terms of this rule, NMFS will announce the 2026 annual limit in a notice published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> in January or early February 2026. This notice will also be posted on the NMFS website: <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/sustainable-fisheries/pacific-bluefin-tuna-commercial-harvest-status.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Landing Receipt Submission Deadlines</HD> Under California law and regulations, electronic landing receipts ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> e-tickets) for landings in California are required to be submitted to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) within 3 business days ( <E T="03">see</E> California Fish and Game Code section 8046 and 14 California Code of Regulations sec. 197). Under current Federal regulations ( <E T="03">see</E> 50 CFR 300.25(g)(9)), if landing PBF in California, fish landing receipts must be submitted within 24 hours to CDFW. This rule maintains this requirement. <HD SOURCE="HD2">In-Season Action Announcements</HD> Under this rulemaking, NMFS will use available fishery information ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> landing receipts) to estimate when the overall catch is expected to reach thresholds at which the agency would reduce the trip limit. NMFS will then make decisions on in-season actions to reduce the trip limit or close the fishery based on those estimates. Under current Federal regulations ( <E T="03">see</E> 50 CFR 300.25(g)(8)), if an in-season action taken under paragraphs is based on an overestimate of actual catch, NMFS will reverse that action in the timeliest possible manner, provided NMFS finds that reversing that action is consistent with the management objectives for the affected species. This rule maintains that requirement. Under current Federal regulations ( <E T="03">see</E> 50 CFR 300.25(g)(7)), NMFS posts a notice on the NMFS website announcing in-season actions to reduce trip limits or close the fishery ( <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/sustainable-fisheries/pacific-bluefin-tuna-commercial-harvest-status</E> ). In-season actions to reduce trip limits or close the fishery are also announced by email to vessel owners and published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> as soon as practicable. In-season actions are effective upon the earlier of either receipt by email of such notice or publication in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . This rule maintains these announcement procedures. In 2025-2026, if NMFS determines based on landing receipts or other available information that cumulative catch is expected to meet any of the thresholds described above, an intermediate or lower trip limit will be imposed by NMFS using the in-season action procedures described above. Upon the effective date of an in-season action to change trip limits, targeting, retaining on board, transshipping, or landing PBF in the Convention Area in violation of the in-season action will be prohibited, with the exception that any PBF already on board a fishing vessel on the effective date of the notification of in-season action may be retained on board and landed or transshipped within 24 hours after the effective date of the notice, to the extent authorized by applicable laws and regulations. If NMFS determines in 2025 or 2026 that the annual catch limits are expected to be reached, NMFS will close the fishery effective upon the date provided in the notification. The exception a ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━