[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 187 (Thursday, September 28, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Page 66820]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2023-21280]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration


Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the 
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment 
Request; Reporting Requirements for the Ocean Salmon Fishery Off the 
Coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California

    The Department of Commerce will submit the following information 
collection request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for 
review and clearance in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 
1995, on or after the date of publication of this notice. We invite the 
general public and other Federal agencies to comment on proposed, and 
continuing information collections, which helps us assess the impact of 
our information collection requirements and minimize the public's 
reporting burden. Public comments were previously requested via the 
Federal Register on June 26, 2023 (88 FR 41388) during a 60-day comment 
period, no comments were received. This notice allows for an additional 
30 days for public comments.
    Agency: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 
Commerce.
    Title: Reporting Requirements for the Ocean Salmon Fishery Off the 
Coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California.
    OMB Control Number: 0648-0433.
    Form Number(s): None.
    Type of Request: Regular submission (extension of a current 
information collection).
    Number of Respondents: 40.
    Average Hours per Response: 15 minutes.
    Total Annual Burden Hours: 10 hours.
    Needs and Uses: Ocean salmon fisheries conducted in the U.S. 
exclusive economic zone, 3-200 nautical miles off the West Coast states 
of Washington, Oregon, and California are managed by the Pacific 
Fishery Management Council (Council) and NOAA's NMFS under the 
Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA). 
Management measures for the ocean salmon fisheries are set annually, 
consistent with the Council's Pacific Coast Salmon Fishery Management 
Plan (FMP). The FMP provides a framework for managing the ocean salmon 
fisheries in a sustainable manner, as required under the MSA, through 
the use of conservation objectives, annual catch limits, and other 
reference points and status determination criteria described in the 
FMP. To meet these criteria, annual management measures, published in 
the Federal Register by NMFS, specify regulatory areas, catch 
restrictions, and landing restrictions based on the annual stock 
abundance forecasts. These catch and landing restrictions include area- 
time- and species-specific quotas for the commercial ocean salmon 
fishery, and generally require catch and landings to be reported to the 
appropriate state and tribal agencies to allow for timely and accurate 
accounting of the season's catch (50 CFR 660.404 and 50 CFR 
660.408(o)). The best available catch and effort data and projections 
are presented by the state fishery managers in telephone conference 
calls involving the NMFS Regional Administrator and representatives of 
the Council. However, NMFS acknowledges that unsafe weather or 
mechanical problems could prevent commercial fishermen from making 
their landings at the times and places specified, and the MSA requires 
conservation and management measures to promote the safety of human 
life at sea.
    The annual management measures will specify the contents and 
procedure of the notifications, and the entities receiving the 
notifications (e.g., U.S. Coast Guard). Absent this requirement by the 
Council, the state reporting systems would not regularly collect this 
specific type of in-season radio report. These provisions, and this 
federal collection of information, promote safety at sea and provide 
practical utility for sustainably managing the fishery, and ensure 
regulatory consistency across each state by implementing the same 
requirements in the territorial waters off each state. This information 
collection is intended to be general in scope by leaving the specifics 
of the contents and procedure of the notifications for annual 
determination, thus providing flexibility in responding to salmon 
management concerns in any given year.
    Affected Public: Business or other for-profit organizations.
    Frequency: Reporting under this emergency provision is infrequent.
    Respondent's Obligation: Mandatory.
    Legal Authority: 16 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.
    This information collection request may be viewed at 
www.reginfo.gov. Follow the instructions to view the Department of 
Commerce collections currently under review by OMB.
    Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information 
collection should be submitted within 30 days of the publication of 
this notice on the following website www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain. 
Find this particular information collection by selecting ``Currently 
under 30-day Review--Open for Public Comments'' or by using the search 
function and entering either the title of the collection or the OMB 
Control Number 0648-0433.

Sheleen Dumas,
Department PRA Clearance Officer, Office of the Under Secretary for 
Economic Affairs, Commerce Department.
[FR Doc. 2023-21280 Filed 9-27-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-22-P