Electronic Logbook Reporting in Commercial Fisheries of the Gulf of America and Atlantic

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 622</CFR> <RIN>RIN 0648-BN11</RIN> <SUBJECT>Electronic Logbook Reporting in Commercial Fisheries of the Gulf of America and Atlantic</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Announcement of availability of proposed fishery management plan amendments; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> Two regional fishery management councils have submitted to NMFS for review, and consideration of approval and implementation by NMFS, amendments to four fishery management plans (FMPs) in the Gulf of America (Gulf), South Atlantic, and Atlantic, referenced here as the Commercial Electronic Logbook Amendments. If approved by the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary) and implemented by NMFS, the Commercial Electronic Logbook Amendments would require submission of certain commercial fishing logbooks in an electronic format rather than the current paper format. These FMP amendments also propose minor changes to some of the required data fields in the logbooks determined to be necessary to successfully transition from paper to electronic reporting. The purpose of the Commercial Electronic Logbook Amendments is to increase the accuracy and efficiency of fisheries data that NMFS receives from federally permitted fishermen participating in the applicable commercial fisheries that occur in the Gulf, South Atlantic, and Atlantic. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Written comments on the Commercial Electronic Logbook Amendments must be received no later than January 20, 2026. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments on the Commercial Electronic Logbook Amendments, identified by NOAA- NMFS-2025-0570, by either of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Submission:</E> Submit comments electronically via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal. Visit <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and type NOAA-NMFS-2025-0570 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 Karla Gore, NMFS Southeast Regional Office, 263 13th Avenue South, St. Petersburg, FL 33701. <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 will 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. An electronic copy of the Commercial Electronic Reporting Amendments is available from <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> or from the NMFS Southeast Regional Office website at <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/southeast/resources-fishing/southeast-electronic-reporting-technologies.</E> The Commercial Electronic Logbook Amendments include a Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) analysis, regulatory impact review, and fishery impact statement. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Karla Gore, NMFS Southeast Regional Office, 727-824-5305, <E T="03">karla.gore@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> NMFS manages a number of fisheries in Federal waters of the U.S. southeast region. The Coastal Migratory Pelagic (CMP) fishery includes the Gulf and Atlantic region, and fish such as king mackerel. The Gulf Fishery Management Council (Gulf Council), South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (South Atlantic Council), and NMFS prepared the FMP for the Coastal Migratory Pelagic Resources of the Gulf and Atlantic Region (CMP FMP). The South Atlantic Council and NMFS prepared the FMP for Dolphin and Wahoo Fishery of the Atlantic (Dolphin and Wahoo FMP) and the FMP for the Snapper-Grouper Fishery of the South Atlantic Region (Snapper-Grouper FMP) in the South Atlantic. The Gulf Council and NMFS prepared the FMP for the Reef Fish Resources of the Gulf (Reef Fish FMP). The FMPs were approved by the Secretary and are implemented by NMFS through regulations at 50 CFR part 622 under the authority of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act, 16 U.S.C. 1801 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). The Magnuson-Stevens Act requires each regional fishery management council to submit any FMP or FMP amendment to the Secretary for review and approval, partial approval, or disapproval. The Magnuson-Stevens Act also requires that NMFS, upon receiving an FMP or FMP amendment, publish an announcement in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notifying the public that the FMP or amendment is available for review and comment. This action is proposed under the authority of section 303(a)(5) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act [16 U.S.C. 1853(a)(5)], which requires that FMPs specify the data required to be submitted to the Secretary, and consistent with National Standard 7 of the Magnuson-Stevens Act [16 U.S.C. 1851(a)(7)], which requires that conservation and management measures minimize costs and avoid unnecessary duplication where practicable. The Magnuson-Stevens Act requires that NMFS and regional fishery management councils prevent overfishing and continually achieve the optimum yield from federally managed fish stocks. These mandates are intended to ensure that fishery resources are managed for the greatest overall benefit to the Nation, particularly with respect to providing food production and recreational opportunities, and protecting marine ecosystems. Congress recognized that the collection of reliable data is essential to the effective conservation, management, and scientific understanding of the Nation's fishery resources [16 U.S.C. 1801(a)(7)]. The Commercial Electronic Logbook Amendments would amend four separate FMPs to require the owner or operator of a vessel issued a commercial permit to submit the required logbook in an electronic format rather than using the current paper forms. The FMP amendments include Amendment 35 to the CMP FMP, Amendment 4 to the Dolphin and Wahoo FMP, Amendment 54 to the Snapper-Grouper FMP, and Amendment 57 to the Reef Fish FMP. The Commercial Electronic Logbook Amendments would apply to a vessel owner or operator for which NMFS has issued a commercial permit for: 1. CMP species in the Gulf and Atlantic; 2. Atlantic dolphinfish (dolphin) and wahoo; 3. South Atlantic snapper-grouper species; or 4. Gulf reef fish species. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The Commercial Electronic Logbook Amendments detail the evolution of the data collections through the commercial coastal fisheries logbook program (CFLP) and other commercial reporting requirements. All of these programs provide essential trip information required to assess the status of fish stocks and monitor harvest, which are necessary to comply with the Magnuson-Stevens Act. In addition, economic and discard data are collected to address other provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Act and other applicable law, such as the need to provide analyses of net economic effects and bycatch. The following discussion summarizes the CFLP and related data collection programs. <HD SOURCE="HD2">The Commercial Logbook Program</HD> NMFS began the CFLP in 1990 for fishermen issued a Federal commercial permit for the Gulf reef fish fishery. Over time, NMFS has expanded the CFLP to include commercial harvest in the South Atlantic snapper-grouper fishery (1992), the CMP fishery in the Gulf and Atlantic (1998), and the Atlantic dolphin and wahoo fishery (2004). Fishermen that target shark species under the FMP for highly migratory species (HMS), which include various tunas, billfishes, and sharks, and is developed by NMFS' Atlantic HMS Management Division, are also included in the CFLP. The CFLP collects basic fishing effort and catch related data, including species and weights of landed fish, fishing location and depth of water, and the type of gear used to fish. Since the initial implementation of the CFLP, NMFS has made several changes to forms and survey design to improve data collection. For example, the trip expense section of the form has been modified several times since 2001 and several updates were made to the “gear type used” data field to better clarify how fish were harvested. Also, the NMFS Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC) created a separate no-fishing form to better distinguish between non-fishing and non-reporting activity. Currently every December, NMFS' SEFSC mails the logbook to the owners of federally permitted vessels with the applicable commercial permit (permit holders). Each year, NMFS selects 20 percent of permit holders to complete economic questions in the “trip expense” section of the logbook and 20 percent of permit holders are selected to complete a supplemental discard survey. The mailing consists of a carbon paper logbook of approximately 100 pages containing 3 sections—instructions, fishing trip reporting forms, and no-fishing report forms—along with postage paid return envelopes. The owner or operator of the federally permitted vessel must report the fishing activity of each trip within 7 days after finishing a trip or after a month without any fishing activity, and mail the form to SEFSC. This recordkeeping and reporting requirement has been in place since at least 2004 for the affected Federal fisheries. NMFS recommends tha ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 23k characters. 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