Federal Register / Vol. 76, No. 1 / Monday, January 3, 2011 / Notices 99 

for scoping purposes only. These 

preliminary issues may not represent 

the full range of issues that eventually 

will be evaluated in the EIS. 

Copies of an information packet will 

be available from NMFS (see 

ADDRESSES). 

Following publication of this NOI, the 

Council will conduct public scoping 

meetings to determine the range of 

issues to be addressed in the draft EIS 

(DEIS) and the associated Amendment 

5. After the DEIS associated with 

Amendment 5 is completed, it will be 

filed with the Environmental Protection 

Agency (EPA). The EPA will publish a 

notice of availability of the DEIS for 

public comment in the Federal Register. 

The DEIS will have a 45-day comment 

period. This procedure is pursuant to 

regulations issued by the Council on 

Environmental Quality (CEQ) for 

implementing the procedural provisions 

of the National Environmental Policy 

Act (NEPA; 40 CFR parts 1500–1508) 

and to NOAA’s Administrative Order 

216–6 regarding NOAA’s compliance 

with NEPA and the CEQ regulations. 

The Council will consider public 

comments received on the DEIS in 

developing the final environmental 

impact statement (FEIS), and before 

voting to submit the final amendment to 

NMFS for Secretarial review, approval, 

and implementation. NMFS will 

announce in the Federal Register the 

availability of the final amendment and 

FEIS for public review during the 

Secretarial review period, and will 

consider all public comments prior to 

final agency action to approve, 

disapprove, or partially approve the 

final amendment. 

Scoping Meetings, Times, and Locations 

All meetings will begin at 3 p.m. In 

addition to Amendment 5, the Council 

intends to scope additional amendments 

at this series of meetings. Separate NOIs 

will be prepared for each amendment. 

The meetings will be physically 

accessible to people with disabilities. 

Requests for information packets or for 

sign language interpretation or other 

auxiliary aids should be directed to the 

Council (see FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

CONTACT). 

Monday, January 24, 2011–Hilton 

New Bern/Riverfront, 100 Middle Street, 

New Bern, NC 28560; phone 252–638– 

3585. 

Wednesday, January 26, 2011–Crowne 

Plaza Charleston Airport, 4831 Tanger 

Outlet Boulevard, North Charleston, SC 

29418; phone 843–744–4422. 

Thursday, January 27, 2011–Mighty 

Eighth Air Force Museum, 175 Bourne 

Avenue, Pooler, GA 31322; phone 912– 

748–8888. 

Monday, January 31, 2011– 

Jacksonville Marriott, 4670 Salisbury 

Road, Jacksonville, FL 32256; phone 

904–296–2222. 

Tuesday, February 1, 2011– 

International Palms Resort, 1300 N. 

Atlantic Avenue, Cocoa Beach, FL 

32931; phone 321–783–2271. 

Thursday, February 3, 2011–Key 

Largo Grande Resort, 97000 Overseas 

Resort, Key Largo, FL 33037; phone 

305–852–5553. 

Authority: 16 U.S.C. 1801 et seq. 

Dated: December 28, 2010. 

Emily H. Menashes, 

Acting Director, Office of Sustainable 

Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service. 

[FR Doc. 2010–33099 Filed 12–30–10; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3210–22–P 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration 

RIN 0648–BA52 

Fisheries of the Caribbean, Gulf of 

Mexico, and South Atlantic; 

Amendment 24 to the Fishery 

Management Plan for Snapper Grouper 

Resources of the South Atlantic 

AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries 

Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 

Commerce. 

ACTION: Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare 

an environmental impact statement 

(EIS); notice of scoping meetings; 

request for comments. 

SUMMARY: NMFS, Southeast Region, in 

collaboration with the South Atlantic 

Fishery Management Council (Council), 

intends to prepare an EIS to describe 

and analyze a range of alternatives for 

management actions to be included in 

an amendment to the Fishery 

Management Plan for the SnapperGrouper Fishery of the South Atlantic 

Region (FMP). These alternatives will 

consider measures to establish a 

rebuilding plan for the red grouper 

stock, while setting annual catch limits 

(ACLs), accountability measures (AMs), 

allocations, maximum sustainable yield 

(MSY), and optimum yield (OY) for red 

grouper. The purpose of this NOI is to 

solicit public comments on the scope of 

issues to be addressed in the EIS. 

DATES: Written comments on the scope 

of issues to be addressed in the EIS will 

be accepted from January 12 to February 

14, 5 p.m., eastern time. 

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, 

identified by RIN 0648–BA52, by any 

one of the following methods: 

• Electronic Submissions: Submit all 

electronic public comments via the 

Federal e-Rulemaking Portal http:// 

www.regulations.gov. 

• Mail: Rick DeVictor, Southeast 

Regional Office, NMFS, 263 13th 

Avenue South, St. Petersburg, FL 33701. 

Instructions: No comments will be 

posted for public viewing until after the 

comment period is over. All comments 

received are a part of the public record 

and will generally be posted to http:// 

www.regulations.gov without change. 

All Personal Identifying Information (for 

example, name, address, etc.) 

voluntarily submitted by the commenter 

may be publicly accessible. Do not 

submit Confidential Business 

Information or otherwise sensitive or 

protected information. 

To submit comments through the 

Federal e-Rulemaking Portal: http:// 

www.regulations.gov, enter ‘‘NOAA– 

NMFS–2010–0263’’ in the keyword 

search, then select ‘‘Send a Comment or 

Submission.’’ NMFS will accept 

anonymous comments (enter N/A in the 

required fields if you wish to remain 

anonymous). You may submit 

attachments to electronic comments in 

Microsoft Word, Excel, WordPerfect, or 

Adobe PDF file formats only. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Kim 

Iverson; phone: (843) 571–4366. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The red 

grouper stock in the south Atlantic was 

assessed through the Southeast, Data, 

Assessment, and Review (SEDAR) 

process in 2010. The assessment 

indicates that the stock is experiencing 

overfishing and is overfished. 

Overfishing is a condition when fishing 

pressure is beyond the allowable level. 

Overfishing may lead to an overfished 

condition. A stock is overfished when 

the biomass is below an identified 

minimum stock size threshold. Due to 

low biomass levels, an overfished stock 

has increased vulnerability to 

environmental variables and cannot 

produce the MSY. 

As directed by the Magnuson-Stevens 

Fishery Conservation and Management 

Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act), the 

Council and NMFS must implement a 

rebuilding plan, through an FMP 

Amendment or proposed regulations, 

which ends overfishing immediately 

and provides for rebuilding the fishery. 

The intent of a rebuilding plan is to 

increase biomass of overfished stocks to 

a sustainable level within a specified 

period of time. A plan should achieve 

conservation goals, while minimizing to 

the extent practicable adverse 

socioeconomic impacts. NMFS notified 

the Council of the stock status on June 

9, 2010; the Magnuson-Stevens Act 


jlentini on DSKJ8SOYB1PROD with NOTICES
100 Federal Register / Vol. 76, No. 1 / Monday, January 3, 2011 / Notices 

specifies that measures to end 

overfishing and rebuild the stock must 

be implemented within two years of 

notification. 

A reauthorization of the MagnusonStevens Act in 2007 introduced new 

tools that, when implemented, would 

end and prevent overfishing in order to 

achieve the OY from a fishery. The 

requirements are referred to as ACLs 

and AMs. An ACL is the level of annual 

catch of a stock that, if met or exceeded, 

triggers some corrective action. AMs are 

management controls to prevent ACLs 

from being exceeded and to correct 

overages of ACLs if they occur. Two 

examples of AMs include an in-season 

closure if catch approaches the ACL and 

reducing the ACL by an overage that 

occurred the previous fishing year. The 

EIS will include alternatives that would 

establish ACLs and AMs for red grouper 

in the South Atlantic region. 

The Council and NMFS are also 

considering a division of the red 

grouper ACL into sector-ACLs based 

upon allocation decisions. A ‘‘sector’’ 

means a distinct user group to which 

separate management strategies and 

separate catch quotas apply. Examples 

of sectors include commercial and 

recreational; the recreational sector may 

also be divided into for-hire and private 

recreational groups. The Council and 

NMFS have determined that sectorACLs and sector-AMs are important 

components of red grouper management 

as each sector differs in scientific and 

management uncertainty. A range of 

options will be evaluated in the EIS, 

including those that base allocation 

decisions on historical landings. 

NMFS, in collaboration with the 

Council, will develop an EIS to describe 

and analyze alternatives to address the 

management needs described above. 

Those alternatives will include a ‘‘no 

action’’ alternative for each action. 

In accordance with NOAA’s 

Administrative Order 216–6, Section 

5.02(c), Scoping Process, NMFS, in 

collaboration with the Council, has 

identified preliminary environmental 

issues as a means to initiate discussion 

for scoping purposes only. These 

preliminary issues may not represent 

the full range of issues that eventually 

will be evaluated in the EIS. 

Copies of an information packet will 

be available from NMFS (see 

ADDRESSES). 

After the draft EIS (DEIS) associated 

with Amendment 24 is completed, it 

will be filed with the Environmental 

Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA will 

publish a notice of availability of the 

DEIS for public comment in the Federal 

Register. The draft EIS will have a 45- 

day comment period. This procedure is 

pursuant to regulations issued by the 

Council on Environmental Quality 

(CEQ) for implementing the procedural 

provisions of the National 

Environmental Policy Act (NEPA; 40 

CFR parts 1500–1508) and to NOAA’s 

Administrative Order 216–6 regarding 

NOAA’s compliance with NEPA and the 

CEQ regulations. 

Following publication of this NOI, the 

Council will conduct public scoping 

meetings to determine the range of 

issues to be addressed in the DEIS and 

the associated Amendment 24. A 

Federal Register notice will announce 

the availability of the DEIS associated 

with this amendment, as well as a 45- 

day public comment period. The 

Council will consider public comments 

received on the DEIS in developing the 

final environmental impact statement 

(FEIS), and before voting to submit the 

final amendment to NMFS for 

Secretarial review, approval, and 

implementation. NMFS will announce 

in the Federal Register the availability 

of the final amendment and FEIS for 

public review during the Secretarial 

review period, and will consider all 

public comments prior to final agency 

action to approve, disapprove, or 

partially approve the final amendment. 

Scoping Meetings, Times, and Locations 

All meetings will begin at 3 p.m. In 

addition to Amendment 24, the Council 

intends to scope additional amendments 

at this series of meetings. Separate NOIs 

will be prepared for each amendment. 

The meetings will be physically 

accessible to people with disabilities. 

Requests for information packets or for 

sign language interpretation or other 

auxiliary aids should be directed to the 

Council (see FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

CONTACT). 

Monday, January 24, 2011—Hilton 

New Bern/Riverfront, 100 Middle Street, 

New Bern, NC 28560; phone 252–638– 

3585. 

Wednesday, January 26, 2011— 

Crowne Plaza Charleston Airport, 4831 

Tanger Outlet Boulevard, North 

Charleston, SC 29418; phone 843–744– 

4422. 

Thursday, January 27, 2011—Mighty 

Eighth Air Force Museum, 175 Bourne 

Avenue, Pooler, GA 31322; phone 912– 

748–8888. 

Monday, January 31, 2011— 

Jacksonville Marriott, 4670 Salisbury 

Road, Jacksonville, FL 32256; phone 

904–296–2222. 

Tuesday, February 1, 2011— 

International Palms Resort, 1300 N. 

Atlantic Avenue, Cocoa Beach, FL 

32931; phone 321–783–2271. 

Thursday, February 3, 2011—Key 

Largo Grande Resort, 97000 Overseas 

Resort, Key Largo, FL 33037; phone 

305–852–5553. 

Authority: 16 U.S.C. 1801 et seq. 

Dated: December 28, 2010. 

Emily H. Menashes, 

Acting Director, Office of Sustainable 

Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service. 

[FR Doc. 2010–33101 Filed 12–30–10; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3210–22–P 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration 

RIN 0648–BA59 

Fisheries of the Caribbean, Gulf of 

Mexico, and South Atlantic; 

Amendment 21 to the SnapperGrouper Fishery Management Plan of 

the South Atlantic 

AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries 

Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 

Commerce. 

ACTION: Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare 

an environmental impact statement 

(EIS); request for comments. 

SUMMARY: NMFS, Southeast Region, in 

collaboration with the South Atlantic 

Fishery Management Council (Council), 

intends to prepare an EIS to describe 

and analyze a range of alternatives for 

management actions to be included in 

Amendment 21 to the Snapper-Grouper 

Fishery Management Plan for the South 

Atlantic Region (Amendment 21). These 

alternatives will consider several 

management approaches for limiting 

effort in the snapper-grouper fishery, 

including: trip limits, endorsements, 

cooperatives, catch shares, regional 

quotas, and State-by-State quotas. The 

purpose of this amendment is to 

rationalize effort in the commercial 

snapper-grouper fishery in order to 

achieve and maintain optimum yield 

(OY), prevent overfishing, and rebuild 

overfished stocks. Rationalizing effort is 

expected to mitigate some of the 

problems resulting from derby fishing 

conditions or at least prevent the 

condition from becoming more severe. 

The purpose of this NOI is to solicit 

public comments on the scope of issues 

to be addressed in the EIS. 

DATES: Written comments on the scope 

of issues to be addressed in the EIS will 

be accepted from January 12 to February 

14, 5 p.m., Eastern time. 

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, 

identified by RIN 0648–BA59, by any 

one of the following methods: 

• Electronic Submissions: Submit all 

electronic public comments via the 


jlentini on DSKJ8SOYB1PROD with NOTICES