Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Gulf of Alaska; 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. 251212-0183; RTID 0648-XF288]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Gulf of Alaska; 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 Pacific halibut prohibited species catch limits for the groundfish fishery of the Gulf of Alaska (GOA). 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 Gulf of Alaska (FMP). The final 2026 harvest specifications will 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those previously set in the final 2025 and 2026 harvest specifications, and the 2027 harvest specifications will be superseded in early 2027 when the final 2027 and 2028 harvest specifications are published.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 final 2026 and 2027 harvest specifications will be effective for one year from the publication of the final rule implementing those specifications, which is anticipated to publish in March 2026. The intended effect of this action is to conserve and manage the groundfish resources in the GOA in accordance with the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act). </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received by January 5, 2026. </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-2025-1164</E> . You may submit comments on this document, identified by NOAA-NMFS-2025-1164 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 enter NOAA-NMFS-2025-1164 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 GOA, 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> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Abby Jahn, 907-586-7228. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> NMFS manages the GOA groundfish fisheries in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of the GOA under the FMP. The Council prepared and recommended the FMP under the authority of the Magnuson-Stevens Act (16 U.S.C. 1801, <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). Regulations governing U.S. fisheries and implementing the FMP appear at 50 CFR parts 600, 679, and 680. The FMP and its implementing regulations require that NMFS, after consultation with the Council, specify the total allowable catch (TAC) for each target species, the sum of which must be within the optimum yield (OY) range of 116,000 to 800,000 metric tons (mt) (§§ 679.20(a)(1)(i)(B) and 679.20(a)(2)). Section 679.20(c)(1) further requires NMFS to publish and solicit public comment on proposed annual TACs and apportionments thereof for each target species, Pacific halibut prohibited species catch (PSC) limits, and seasonal allowances of pollock and Pacific cod. The proposed harvest specifications in tables 1 through 19 of this proposed rule would satisfy these requirements once finalized through a final rulemaking. For 2026 and 2027, the sum of the proposed TAC amounts is 464,741 mt. 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 Report (ESR) for the GOA. The final 2026 and 2027 harvest specifications will be effective for one year from the publication of the final rule implementing those specifications, which is anticipated to publish in March 2026. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Other Actions Affecting the 2026 and 2027 GOA Harvest Specifications</HD> In October 2025, the Alaska Board of Fisheries (BOF), which manages fisheries in State of Alaska (State) waters, adopted a proposal to increase the South Alaska Peninsula guideline harvest level (GHL) from 30 percent to 35 percent. This action affects the available Pacific cod TAC in the Western GOA and subsequent sectors whose allocations are derived from the Western GOA TAC because the TAC is adjusted to account for the GHL amount. NMFS intends to reflect this change in the final 2026 and 2027 harvest specifications for Pacific cod TAC and allocations for the Western GOA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Proposed Allowable Biological Catch (ABC) and TAC Specifications</HD> In October 2025, the Council, its Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC), and its Advisory Panel (AP) reviewed the most recent biological and harvest information on the condition of the GOA groundfish stocks. The Council's GOA Groundfish Plan Team (Plan Team) compiled and presented this information in the final 2024 SAFE report for the GOA groundfish fisheries, dated December 2024 (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ). The SAFE report contains a review of the latest scientific analyses and estimates of each species' biomass and other biological parameters including possible future condition of the stocks, as well as summaries of the available information on the GOA ecosystem and the economic condition of the GOA groundfish fisheries off Alaska. The SAFE provides information to the Council and NMFS for recommending and setting, respectively, annual harvest levels for each stock and documenting significant trends or changes in the resource, marine ecosystems, and fisheries over time. An appendix to the SAFE report is the Ecosystem Status Reports (ESRs). The ESRs compile and summarize information about the status of the Alaska marine ecosystems for the Plan Team, SSC, AP, Council, NMFS, and the public, and are updated annually. These ESRs include ecosystem report cards, ecosystem assessments, and ecosystem-based management indicators ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> climate indices, sea surface temperature) which together provide context for ecosystem-based fisheries management in Alaska. The ESRs inform stock assessments and are integrated in the annual harvest recommendations through inclusion in stock assessment-specific risk tables. Also, the ESR information provides context for the SSC's recommendations for overfishing limits (OFL) and ABCs, as well as for the Council's TAC recommendations. The SAFE reports and the ESRs are typically presented at the October and December Council meetings before the SSC, AP, and the Council make groundfish harvest specification recommendations and aid NMFS in implementing these annual groundfish harvest specifications. In addition to the 2024 SAFE report, the Plan Team, SSC, and Council also reviewed preliminary 2025 survey data, updates on ecological and socioeconomic profiles for certain species, and summaries of potential changes to models and methodologies. From these data and analyses, the Plan Team recommends, and the SSC sets, the proposed OFL and ABC for each species and species group. The proposed 2026 and 2027 OFLs and ABCs are based on the 2024 SAFE report. The AP and Council recommended that the proposed 2026 and 2027 TACs be set equal to proposed ABCs for all species and species groups, with the exception of the species and species groups further discussed below. The individual stock assessments that comprise, in part, the 2024 SAFE report are available at: <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/alaska/population-assessments/north-pacific-groundfish-stock-assessment-and-fishery-evaluation.</E> The proposed 2026 and 2027 OFLs and ABCs are based on the best available biological and sc ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 110k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━