Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands; 2026 and 2027 Harvest Specifications for Groundfish

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 679</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 251212-0184; RTID 0648-XF348]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands; 2026 and 2027 Harvest Specifications for Groundfish</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; harvest specifications and request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NMFS proposes 2026 and 2027 harvest specifications, apportionments, and prohibited species catch limits for the groundfish fisheries of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI) management area. This action is necessary to establish harvest limits for groundfish during the 2026 and 2027 fishing years and to accomplish the goals and objectives of the Fishery Management Plan for Groundfish of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Management Area (FMP). The 2026 harvest specifications supersede those previously set in the final 2025 and 2026 harvest specifications, and the 2027 harvest specifications will be superseded in early 2027 when the final 2027 and 2028 harvest specifications are published. The intended effect of this action is to conserve and manage the groundfish resources in the BSAI in accordance with the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act). </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received by January 5, 2026. </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-2025-1098.</E> You may submit comments on this document, identified by NOAA-NMFS-2025-1098 by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Submission:</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-2025-1098 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 Gretchen Harrington, Assistant Regional Administrator, Sustainable Fisheries Division, Alaska Region NMFS. Mail comments to P.O. Box 21668, Juneau, AK 99802-1668. <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). Electronic copies of the Alaska Groundfish Harvest Specifications Final Environmental Impact Statement (Final EIS), Record of Decision (ROD) for the Final EIS, and the annual Supplementary Information Reports (SIR) to the Final EIS prepared for this action are available from <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> An updated 2026 SIR for the final 2026 and 2027 harvest specifications will be available from the same source. The final 2024 Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation (SAFE) report for the groundfish resources of the BSAI, dated December 2024, is available from the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) at 1007 West Third, Suite 400, Anchorage, AK 99501-2252, phone 907-271-2809, or from the Council's website at <E T="03">https://www.npfmc.org</E> and at <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/alaska/population-assessments/north-pacific-groundfish-stock-assessments-and-fishery-evaluation.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Andrew Olson and Steven Whitney, 907-586-7228. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Federal regulations at 50 CFR part 679 implement the FMP and govern the groundfish fisheries in the BSAI. The Council prepared the FMP, and NMFS approved it, under the Magnuson-Stevens Act. General regulations governing U.S. fisheries also appear at 50 CFR part 600. The FMP and its implementing regulations require NMFS, after consultation with the Council, to specify annually an overfishing limit (OFL), acceptable biological catch (ABC), and total allowable catch (TAC) for each target species category. The sum of TACs for all groundfish species in the BSAI must be within the optimum yield (OY) range of 1.4 million to 2.0 million metric tons (mt) (§ 679.20(a)(1)(i)(A) and 679.20(a)(2)). Section 679.20(c)(1) further requires that NMFS publish proposed harvest specifications in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> and solicit public comments on proposed annual TACs for each target species and apportionments thereof; prohibited species catch (PSC) allowances; prohibited species quota (PSQ) reserves established by § 679.21; seasonal allowances of pollock, Pacific cod, and Atka mackerel TAC; American Fisheries Act (AFA) allocations; Amendment 80 allocations; Community Development Quota (CDQ) reserve amounts established by § 679.20(b)(1)(ii); and ABC surpluses and reserves for CDQ groups and Amendment 80 cooperatives for flathead sole, rock sole, and yellowfin sole. The proposed harvest specifications set forth in tables 1 through 15 of this action satisfy these requirements. Under § 679.20(c)(3), NMFS will publish the final 2026 and 2027 harvest specifications after (1) considering comments received within the comment period (see <E T="02">DATES</E> ), (2) consulting with the Council at its December 2025 meeting, (3) considering information presented in the 2026 SIR to the Final EIS that assesses the need to prepare a Supplemental EIS (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ), and (4) considering information presented in the final 2024 SAFE report, including the Ecosystem Status Reports (ESR) for both the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Other Actions Affecting the 2026 and 2027 the BSAI Harvest Specifications</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">State of Alaska Guideline Harvest Levels</HD> The State of Alaska Board of Fisheries (BOF) established the guideline harvest level (GHL) for vessels using pot, longline, jig, and hand troll gear in State waters in the State's Aleutian Islands subarea (AI) State-waters sablefish registration area that includes all State waters west of Scotch Cap Light (164° 44.72′ W longitude) and south of Cape Sarichef (54° 36′ N latitude). The 2026 and 2027 AI GHL is set at 5 percent of the combined proposed Bering Sea (BS) subarea and AI apportionment of ABC (1,223 mt). The State's AI sablefish registration area includes areas adjacent to parts of the Federal BS subarea. Since most of the State's 2026 and 2027 GHL sablefish fishery is expected to occur in State waters adjacent to the Federal BS subarea, the Council and its BSAI Groundfish Plan Team (Plan Team), Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC), and Advisory Panel (AP) recommended that the sum of all State and Federal sablefish removals from the BS and AI not exceed the recommended apportionment of ABC for sablefish in the BS and AI. Accordingly, the Council recommended, and NMFS proposes, that the 2026 and 2027 sablefish TACs in the BS and AI be reduced to account for the State's GHLs for sablefish caught in State waters. The State's GHL for vessels using pot gear in State waters in the BS is currently equal to 13 percent of the Pacific cod ABC in the BS and is increased by one percent if 90 percent of the GHL is harvested by November 15 of the preceding year for 2 consecutive years, but may not exceed 15 percent of the BS ABC. However, if 90 percent of the GHL is not harvested by November 15 of the preceding year for two consecutive years the GHL will decrease by 1 percent, but the GHL may not decrease below 10 percent of the BS ABC. For 2026 the GHL for vessels using pot gear will remain the same as the GHL set in 2025 at 13 percent of the BS ABC, which is 18,398 mt. The GHL for 2027 may change based on harvest during the preceding fishing years, and any adjustment based on the 2027 GHL will be accounted for in the final 2027 and 2028 harvest specifications. Additionally, the State has established a GHL for vessels using jig gear in State waters in the BS equal to 45 mt of Pacific cod in the BS. The Council and its Plan Team, SSC, and AP recommended that the sum of all State and Federal waters Pacific cod removals from the BS not exceed the ABC recommendations for Pacific cod in the BS. Accordingly, the Council recommended, and NMFS proposes, that the 2026 and 2027 Pacific cod TACs in the BS account for the State's GHL of 18,443 mt for Pacific cod caught in State waters in the BS. The State's GHL in State waters in the AI is currently equal to 35 percent of the AI ABC. The AI GHL will increase annually by 4 percent of the AI ABC if 90 percent of the GHL is harvested by November 15 of the preceding year, but may not exceed 39 percent of the AI ABC or 15 million pounds (6,804 mt). If 90 percent of the GHL is not harvested by November 15 of the preceding year for 2 consecutive years the GHL will decrease by 4 percent, but the GHL may not decrease below 15 percent of the AI ABC. The Council and its Plan Team, SSC, and AP recommended that the sum of all State and Federal Pacific cod removals from the AI not exceed the ABC recommendations for Pacific cod in the AI. Accordingly, the Council recommended, and NMFS proposes, that the 2026 and 2027 Pacific cod TACs in the AI account for the State's GHL for Pacific c ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 78k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━