14950 Federal Register / Vol. 74, No. 62 / Thursday, April 2, 2009 / Proposed Rules 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration 

50 CFR Part 679 

RIN 0648–AR06 

Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic 

Zone Off Alaska; Catcher Vessel 

Operational Area and Inshore/Offshore 

Provisions for the Bering Sea and 

Aleutian Islands and the Gulf of Alaska 

Groundfish Fisheries; Amendments 62/ 

62 

AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries 

Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 

Commerce. 

ACTION: Announcement of availability of 

fishery management plan amendments; 

request for comments. 

SUMMARY: The North Pacific Fishery 

Management Council has submitted 

Amendment 62 to the Fishery 

Management Plan for Groundfish of the 

Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands 

Management Area (BSAI FMP) and 

Amendment 62 to the Fishery 

Management Plan for Groundfish of the 

Gulf of Alaska (GOA FMP). If approved, 

Amendments 62/62 would revise the 

BSAI FMP description of the Catcher 

Vessel Operational Area (CVOA) and 

remove the obsolete sunset date for 

inshore/offshore sector allocations of 

pollock and Pacific cod in the GOA 

FMP. This action is necessary to amend 

outdated FMP text so that both FMPs 

are consistent with the American 

Fisheries Act (AFA) and other 

applicable law. This action is intended 

to promote the goals and objectives of 

the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery 

Conservation and Management Act, the 

FMPs, and other applicable laws. 

DATES: Comments on Amendments 62/ 

62 must be received on or before June 

1, 2009. 

ADDRESSES: Send comments to Sue 

Salveson, Assistant Regional 

Administrator, Sustainable Fisheries 

Division, Alaska Region, NMFS, Attn: 

Ellen Sebastian. You may submit 

comments, identified by ‘‘RIN 0648– 

AR06’’ by any one of the following 

methods: 

• Electronic Submissions: Submit all 

electronic public comments via the 

Federal eRulemaking Portal: http:// 

www.regulations.gov. 

• Fax: 907–586–7557. 

• Mail: P. O. Box 21668, Juneau, AK 

99802. 

• Hand delivery to the Federal 

Building: 709 West 9th Street, Room 

420A, Juneau, Alaska. 

All comments received are a part of 

the public record and will be posted to 

http://www.regulations.gov without 

change. All Personal Identifying 

Information (e.g., name, address) 

voluntarily submitted by the commenter 

may be publicly accessible. Do not 

submit Confidential Business 

Information or otherwise sensitive or 

protected information. 

NMFS will accept anonymous 

comments (enter N/A in the required 

fields, if you wish to remain 

anonymous). Attachments to electronic 

comments must be in Microsoft Word, 

Excel, WordPerfect, or Adobe portable 

document file (pdf) formats to be 

accepted. 

Copies of the Environmental 

Assessment/Regulatory Impact Review 

(EA/RIR) prepared for this action are 

available from the NMFS Alaska Region 

website at http:// 

www.alaskafisheries.noaa.gov or from 

the mailing and street addresses listed 

above. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Becky Carls, 907–586–7228. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The 

Magnuson-Stevens Fishery 

Conservation and Management Act 

(Magnuson-Stevens Act) requires that 

each regional fishery management 

council submit any FMP or FMP 

amendment it prepares to NMFS for 

review and approval, disapproval, or 

partial approval by the Secretary of 

Commerce (Secretary). The MagnusonStevens Act also requires that NMFS, 

upon receiving an FMP amendment, 

immediately publish a notice in the 

Federal Register that the FMP 

amendment is available for public 

review and comment. This requirement 

is satisfied by this notice of availability 

(NOA) for Amendments 62/62. 

In June 2002, the North Pacific 

Fishery Management Council (Council) 

adopted Amendments 62/62 to revise 

obsolete or inconsistent inshore/ 

offshore language in the BSAI and GOA 

FMPs to make them consistent with the 

AFA. A combination of circumstances 

has since resulted in the delay of 

submitting these amendments for 

Secretarial review. Additionally, other 

amendments incorporated two of the 

four Council-approved FMP changes 

regarding inshore/offshore language. In 

April 2008, the Council reviewed 

Amendments 62/62 and affirmed its 

2002 decisions concerning the 

remaining FMP amendments. 

Inshore/Offshore Language 

The purpose of the revisions 

recommended by the Council 

concerning BSAI inshore/offshore 

language in the FMPs was to make the 

FMPs consistent with the AFA, passed 

in 1998. Most of the inshore/offshore 

language made obsolete by the AFA was 

removed from federal regulations under 

a final rule that implemented the AFA 

provisions under Amendments 61/61 to 

the BSAI and GOA FMPs (67 FR 79692, 

December 30, 2002). To revise 

additional inshore/offshore language in 

the FMPs overlooked in Amendments 

61/61, the following four actions were 

adopted by the Council under 

Amendments 62/62: 

•Remove obsolete inshore/offshore 

language from the BSAI FMP. 

•Revise the BSAI FMP description of 

the CVOA. 

•Remove references to BSAI inshore/ 

offshore allocations from the GOA FMP. 

•Remove the December 31, 2004, 

sunset date for inshore/offshore sector 

allocations of pollock and Pacific cod 

from the GOA FMP. 

Since the Council adopted 

Amendments 62/62, other FMP 

amendments incorporated two of the 

four Council-recommended FMP 

changes regarding inshore/offshore 

language. The recommended removals 

from the FMPs of obsolete inshore/ 

offshore language and references were 

made under Amendments 83/75 (70 FR 

35395, June 20, 2005), as part of 

comprehensive housekeeping 

amendments. Amendments 83/75 

revised the respective FMPs by updating 

harvest, ecosystem, and socioeconomic 

information; consolidating text; and 

organizing the information to improve 

the readability of the documents. 

Amendments 83/75 were approved by 

the Secretary on June 14, 2005. 

In April 2008, the Council reviewed 

its remaining two recommendations 

under Amendments 62/62 and affirmed 

its 2002 adoption of these actions. 

Amendment 62 to the BSAI FMP would 

revise the CVOA descriptions to make 

the FMP consistent with current federal 

regulations at § 679.22(a)(5). The CVOA 

is an area in which AFA catcher/ 

processors are prohibited from directed 

fishing for pollock during the non-roe, 

or B, season unless they are 

participating in the Community 

Development Quota fishery. The current 

description at Section 3.5.2.1.6 of the 

BSAI FMP would be changed to use the 

more comprehensive term ‘‘non-roe 

season’’ instead of the term ‘‘pollock B 

season,’’ and the coordinates that define 

the CVOA would be added to the 

description. 


dwashington3 on PROD1PC60 with PROPOSALS
Federal Register / Vol. 74, No. 62 / Thursday, April 2, 2009 / Proposed Rules 14951 

Also, the description of the CVOA in 

Appendix B would be revised. Obsolete 

references to pollock ‘‘B’’ season dates, 

to the closing of the ‘‘inshore 

component’’ of the BSAI pollock 

fishery, and to the ‘‘offshore 

component’’ of the BSAI would be 

removed or modified. Currently, the 

description states that the ‘‘B’’ season 

for pollock begins on September 1. This 

season start date has been changed due 

to Steller sea lion protection measures 

and because the AFA has allowed for 

the lengthening of the pollock season. 

The current FMP description states that 

the ‘‘inshore component’’ in the BSAI 

may be closed to directed fishing for 

pollock. Under the AFA, NMFS no 

longer closes the ‘‘inshore component’’ 

to directed fishing for pollock, because 

each individual shoreside cooperative 

operates under its own pollock 

allocation. Therefore, this reference 

would be removed. Finally, the 

outdated reference to ‘‘offshore 

component’’ would be replaced by the 

AFA category ‘‘AFA catcher/processor.’’ 

The proposed new BSAI FMP text for 

Section 3.5.2.1.6 and Appendix B would 

be as follows: ‘‘The CVOA is defined as 

the area of the BSAI east of 167°30′ W. 

longitude, west of 163° W. longitude, 

south of 56° N. latitude, and north of the 

Aleutian Islands. AFA catcher/ 

processors are prohibited from engaging 

in directed fishing for pollock in the 

CVOA during the non-roe season unless 

they are participating in the CDQ 

fishery.’’ This prohibition currently 

exists in the regulations at 

§ 679.22(a)(5). 

Amendment 62 to the GOA FMP 

would formally remove the sunset date 

for GOA inshore/offshore pollock and 

Pacific cod allocations. As adopted by 

the Council and submitted to the 

Secretary in November 2001, 

Amendment 61 to the GOA FMP 

incorporated the AFA into the FMP, and 

extended GOA inshore/offshore 

allocations to December 31, 2004. 

Section 213 of the AFA as passed by 

Congress contained a December 31, 

2004, sunset date. The Council decided 

to apply this sunset date to GOA 

inshore/offshore allocations under 

Amendment 61 so that BSAI and GOA 

allocation issues could be addressed 

concurrently when the AFA pollock 

allocations were scheduled to expire. 

However, after Amendment 61 was 

submitted for Secretarial review, 

Congress enacted legislation to remove 

the December 31, 2004, sunset date from 

the AFA (Section 211 of title II, 

Department of Commerce and Related 

Agencies Appropriations Act, 2002, 

Public Law 107–77, November 28, 

2001). To reconcile the sunset dates 

contained in the FMP amendment with 

the newly-amended AFA, NMFS 

partially approved Amendments 61/61/ 

13/8 to the FMPs for groundfish, crab, 

and scallop on February 27, 2002. 

NMFS disapproved the December 31, 

2004, sunset dates in the amendments 

because the primary reason articulated 

by the Council for reviewing GOA 

inshore/offshore allocations in 2004 no 

longer existed. However, not all 

references to the sunset date were 

removed from the GOA FMP, 

necessitating Amendment 62 to the 

GOA FMP. As noted above, changes 

were made to the GOA FMP under 

Amendment 75. The removal of the 

sunset date from the FMP by 

Amendment 75 was premature because 

its removal was not specified as one of 

the changes made by Amendment 75. 

Approval of Amendment 62 to the GOA 

FMP would officially remove the sunset 

date from the FMP. 

Public comments are being solicited 

on the amendments through the end of 

the comment period stated in this NOA. 

To be considered, comments must be 

received by close of business on the last 

day of the comment period; that does 

not mean postmarked or otherwise 

transmitted by that date. 

Authority: 16 U.S.C. 773 et seq.; 1801 et 

seq.; 3631 et seq.; Pub. L. 108–447. 

Dated: March 27, 2009. 

Kristen C. Koch, 

Acting Director, Office of Sustainable 

Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service. 

[FR Doc. E9–7449 Filed 4–1–09; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–22–S 


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