Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act Provisions; Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Proposed 2026 and Projected 2027 Specifications for the Summer Flounder, Scup, Black Sea Bass, and Bluefish Fisheries

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 648</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 251204-0177]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BO09</RIN> <SUBJECT>Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act Provisions; Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Proposed 2026 and Projected 2027 Specifications for the Summer Flounder, Scup, Black Sea Bass, and Bluefish Fisheries</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 proposes 2026 and projects 2027 specifications for the summer flounder, scup, black sea bass, and bluefish fisheries. The implementing regulations for the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Fishery Management Plan (FMP) and the Bluefish FMP require us to publish specifications for the upcoming fishing year for each of these species and to provide an opportunity for public comment. The proposed specifications establish allowable harvest levels for these species that will prevent overfishing, consistent with the most recent scientific information. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before December 24, 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-2025-0735.</E> You may submit comments on this document, identified by NOAA-NMFS-2025-0735, by the following method: • <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-2025-0735 in the Search box. Click on the “Comment” icon, complete the required fields, and enter or attach your comments. <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). An Environmental Assessment (EA) was prepared for the 2026-2027 summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass specifications, and a Supplemental Information Report (SIR) was prepared for the 2026-2027 bluefish specifications. Copies of the EA and SIR are available on request from Dr. Christopher M. Moore, Executive Director, Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, Suite 201, 800 North State Street, Dover, DE 19901. They are also accessible via the internet at: <E T="03">https://www.mafmc.org/supporting-documents.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Laura Deighan, Fishery Policy Analyst, (978) 281-9184, or <E T="03">laura.deighan@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">General Background</HD> The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council), in cooperation with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (Commission), develops management measures for the summer flounder, scup, black sea bass, and bluefish fisheries. The Council, pursuant to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act), develops recommendations regarding fisheries in Federal waters seaward of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. The Commission, pursuant to the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act, addresses fisheries in State waters from Florida to Maine. These bodies work together in the development of complementary FMPs for species including summer flounder, scup, black sea bass, and bluefish that are harvested in both Federal and State waters, and each year these bodies work together to develop specifications for these fisheries. The Council provides its recommendations to NMFS. Under the provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, on behalf of the Secretary of Commerce, the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office's Regional Administrator reviews proposed specifications for consistency with the FMP, plan amendments, the Magnuson-Stevens Act and other applicable law. The Regional Administrator is required to publish proposed regulations, consistent with the Council's recommendations, with such technical changes as may be necessary for clarity and an explanation of those changes for public comment (section 304(b)(1)(A) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act). After public comment, the Regional Administrator may publish revisions to the proposed regulations along with an explanation of any differences between the proposed and final regulations (section 304(b)(3) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act; 50 CFR 648.90(a)). Specifications in these fisheries include stock-wide overfishing limits (OFL) and acceptable biological catches (ABC), as well as various catch and landing subdivisions, such as the commercial and recreational sector annual catch limits (ACL), annual catch targets (ACT), and sector-specific landing limits ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> the commercial fishery quota and recreational harvest limit) established for 1 to 3 years at a time. Adjustments to commercial management measures for all four species and the recreational management measures for bluefish ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> minimum fish sizes, seasonal closures, and possession restrictions) are also considered in the specifications process. The process for measures used to manage the recreational summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass fisheries occurs separately and is not discussed further in this rule. The Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass FMP and the Bluefish FMP and their implementing regulations establish the process for setting specifications for each of those four species. All requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, including the 10 National Standards, also apply to specifications. The FMPs also contain formulas to divide the specification catch limits into commercial and recreational fishery allocations, State-by-State quotas, and quota periods, depending on the species in question. This proposed rule outlines the application of the existing allocation provisions for each species and provides the resulting allocations, by State and sector, as appropriate, for each species. At a joint meeting in August 2025, the Commission's Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Boards and its Bluefish Board and the Council recommended 2026 and projected 2027 summer flounder, scup, black sea bass, and bluefish specifications. While the Boards' actions were finalized at the Commission and Council's August meeting, the Council's recommendations must be reviewed by NMFS to ensure that they comply with the FMPs, implementing regulations, and applicable law. NMFS must also conduct notice and comment rulemaking to propose and implement the final specifications. This action proposes the ABCs, recreational and commercial ACLs, recreational and commercial ACTs, commercial quotas and recreational harvest limits for all four species, as recommended by the Boards and Council. The Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass FMP and the Bluefish FMP and their implementing regulations establish the process for setting specifications for each of these species, including formulas to divide the catch limits into commercial and recreational fishery allocations, State-by-State quotas, and quota periods, depending on the species. This proposed rule outlines the application of the existing allocation provisions for each species and provides the resulting preliminary allocations by State and sector, as appropriate, for each species. NMFS will announce any adjustments to the 2026 catch limits needed to account for any previous overages in the final rule before the start of the 2026 fishing year. This action also proposes increases to the recreational possession limits in the bluefish fishery, as recommended by the Bluefish Board and Council. Changes to summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass recreational management measures are expected to be discussed at the joint Commission and Council meeting in December and would be implemented through a separate action. This action does not propose any changes to the commercial management measures for any of the four species. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Proposed 2026 and Projected 2027 Specifications</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Summer Flounder Specifications</HD> Consistent with the statutory scheme described above, NMFS is proposing the Board and Council-recommended 2026 and 2027 (projected) summer flounder catch and landings limits shown in table 1. This action proposes a constant, averaged ABC of 30.01 million pounds (lb; 13,611 metric tons (mt)) for 2026 and 2027, consistent with the recommendations of the Council, Board, and the Council's Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC). The ABCs are based on the OFL and the applicable risk policy. During their August meeting, the Board and Council discussed the tendency for large fluctuations in the summer flounder stock, where reductions in the ABC by 25 percent or more have been necessary in the years following an ABC set at or above 25 to 30 million lb (11,340 to 13,608 mt). In the past, some stakeholders have expressed a preference for more stability, as large swings can create planning and business challenges for both the commercial and the recreational sectors. In addition, the ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 49k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━