Takes of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to Hilcorp Alaska, LLC Oil and Gas Activities in Cook Inlet, Alaska

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 217</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 250721-0127]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BN57</RIN> <SUBJECT>Takes of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to Hilcorp Alaska, LLC Oil and Gas Activities in Cook Inlet, Alaska</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; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NMFS has received a request from Hilcorp Alaska, LLC (Hilcorp) for regulations allowing for the take of marine mammals incidental to activities conducted in support of oil and gas exploration, development, production, and decommissioning in Cook Inlet, Alaska, over the course of 5 years (2025-2030). As required by the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), NMFS is proposing regulations to govern the requested take, and requests comments on the proposed regulations. NMFS will consider public comments prior to making any final decision on the requested MMPA regulations. Agency responses to received comments will be summarized in the final rule, if issued. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments and information must be received no later than August 25, 2025. </DATES> <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-2025-0052.</E> Submit all electronic public comments via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal. Go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and type NOAA-NMFS-2025-0052 in the Search box (note: copying and pasting the FDMS Docket Number directly from this document may not yield search results). Click on the “Comment” icon, complete the required fields, and enter or attach your comments. 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, etc.), 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 application and supporting documents, as well as a list of the references cited in this document, may be obtained online at: <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/marine-mammal-protection/incidental-take-authorizations-oil-and-gas.</E> In case of problems accessing these documents, please call the contact listed below. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jaclyn Daly, Office of Protected Resources, NMFS, (301) 427-8401. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The MMPA prohibits the “take” of marine mammals, with certain exceptions. Sections 101(a)(5)(A) and (D) of the MMPA (16 U.S.C. 1361 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) direct the Secretary of Commerce (as delegated to NMFS) to allow, upon request, the incidental, but not intentional, taking of small numbers of marine mammals by U.S. citizens who engage in a specified activity (other than commercial fishing) within a specified geographical region if certain findings are made and either regulations are promulgated and a Letter of Authorization (LOA) is issued or an incidental harassment authorization (IHA) is issued. Authorization for incidental takings shall be granted if NMFS finds that the taking will have a negligible impact on the species or stock(s) and will not have an unmitigable adverse impact on the availability of the species or stock(s) for taking for subsistence uses (where relevant). If such findings are made, NMFS must prescribe the permissible methods of taking and other “means of effecting the least practicable adverse impact” on the affected species or stocks and their habitat, paying particular attention to rookeries, mating grounds, and areas of similar significance, and on the availability of the species or stocks for taking for certain subsistence uses (referred to in shorthand as “mitigation”); and set forth requirements pertaining to the monitoring and reporting of the takings. The definitions of applicable MMPA statutory terms are provided directly below or included in the relevant sections of this proposed rule. • <E T="03">U.S. citizen</E> —individual U.S. citizens or any corporation or similar entity if it is organized under the laws of the United States or any governmental unit defined in 16 U.S.C. 1362(13); 50 CFR 216.103); • <E T="03">Take</E> —to harass, hunt, capture, or kill, or attempt to harass, hunt, capture, or kill any marine mammal (16 U.S.C. 1362(13); • <E T="03">Incidental harassment, incidental taking, and incidental, but not intentional, taking</E> —an accidental taking. This does not mean that the taking is unexpected, but rather it includes those takings that are infrequent, unavoidable or accidental (50 CFR 216.103); • <E T="03">Level A harassment</E> —any act of pursuit, torment, or annoyance which has the potential to injure a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild (16 U.S.C. 1362(18); 50 CFR 216.3); and • <E T="03">Level B harassment</E> —any act of pursuit, torment, or annoyance which has the potential to disturb a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild by causing disruption of behavioral patterns, including, but not limited to, migration, breathing, nursing, breeding, feeding, or sheltering (16 U.S.C. 1362(18); 50 CFR 216.3). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Purpose of Regulatory Action</HD> NMFS received an application from Hilcorp requesting 5-year regulations and a letter of authorization (LOA) that would authorize the take of 12 marine mammal species, comprising 15 stocks, by Level B harassment, and take by Level A harassment of 9 of those 12 species, comprising 12 stocks, incidental to activities conducted by Hilcorp in support of oil and gas exploration, development, production, and decommissioning. No serious injury or mortality is anticipated or proposed for authorization. The proposed regulations would provide a framework for authorizing the take of marine mammals incidental to specified activities associated with Hilcorp's oil and gas exploration, development, production, and decommissioning activities in Cook Inlet, Alaska. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Legal Authority for the Proposed Action</HD> Section 101(a)(5)(A) of the MMPA (16 U.S.C. 1371(a)(5)(A)) directs the Secretary of Commerce to allow, upon request, the incidental, but not intentional taking of small numbers of marine mammals by U.S. citizens who engage in a specified activity (other than commercial fishing) within a specified geographical region for up to 5 years if, after notice and public comment, the agency makes certain findings and promulgates regulations that set forth permissible methods of taking pursuant to that activity and other means of effecting the “least practicable adverse impact” on the affected species or stocks and their habitat (see the discussion below in the Proposed Mitigation section), as well as monitoring and reporting requirements. Section 101(a)(5)(A) of the MMPA and the implementing regulations at 50 CFR part 216, subpart I provide the legal basis for issuing this proposed rule containing 5-year regulations and for any subsequent Letter(s) of Authorization (LOA). <HD SOURCE="HD2">Summary of Major Provisions Within the Proposed Rule</HD> The major provisions of this proposed rule are: • Allowing NMFS to authorize, through an LOA, the take of small numbers of marine mammals by Level A harassment and/or Level B harassment incidental to Hilcorp's specified activities (no mortality or serious injury of any marine mammal would be authorized); • Avoiding activities that may result in take of Cook Inlet beluga whales (CIBWs) within 16 kilometers (km) (10 miles, mi) of the Mean Higher High Water (MHHW) line of the Susitna Delta (Beluga River to the Little Susitna River) between April 15 and November 15 to avoid and minimize impacts when CIBWs are more likely engaging in foraging behavior; • Requiring NMFS-approved protected species observers (PSOs) and delaying commencement of or shutting down certain activities should a marine mammal be detected within identified clearance or shutdown zones to minimize the amount and severity of take; • Requiring a soft start for impact pile driving to allow marine mammals the opportunity to leave the area prior to being exposed to higher noise levels; and • Requiring submission of monitoring reports including, but not limited to, a summary of marine mammal species and behavioral observations, construction shutdowns or delays, and construction work completed. <HD SOURCE="HD1">National Environmental Policy Act</HD> To comply with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA; 42 U.S.C. 4321 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) and NOAA Administrative Order (NAO) 216-6A, NMFS must review our proposed action ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> promulgation of regulations and subsequent issuance of an LOA thereunder) with respect to potential impacts on the human environment. Accordingly, NMFS has prepared a draft Environmental Assessment (EA) to evaluate the environmental impacts associated with the proposed issuance of the regulations and LOA. NMFS' draft EA is available at <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/marine-mammal-protection/incidental-take-authorizations-oil-and-gas.</E> NMFS will review all comments s ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 407k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━