50866 Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 174 / Monday, September 13, 2021 / Proposed Rules 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration 

50 CFR Part 648 

[Docket No. 210907–0178] 

RIN 0648–BK64 

Fisheries of the Northeastern United 

States; Amendment 7 to the Atlantic 

Bluefish Fishery Management Plan 

AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries 

Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 

Commerce. 

ACTION: Proposed rule; request for 

comments. 

SUMMARY: NMFS proposes to approve 

and implement measures included in 

Amendment 7 to the Atlantic Bluefish 

Fishery Management Plan, as submitted 

by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery 

Management Council. This amendment 

would revise the goals and objectives of 

the fishery management plan, reallocate 

quota between the commercial and 

recreational fisheries, reallocate 

commercial quota among the states, 

implement a rebuilding plan using a 

constant fishing mortality strategy, 

revise the sector quota transfer, and 

revise how management uncertainty is 

applied during the specifications 

process. Amendment 7 is intended to 

use the best information available to 

update the Bluefish Fishery 

Management Plan, by responding to 

changes in stock health and 

distribution, while recognizing 

economic need and reliance throughout 

the management area. 

DATES: Comments must be received by 

October 13, 2021. 

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments 

on this document, identified by NOAA– 

NMFS–2021–0071, by the following 

method: 

Electronic Submission: Submit all 

electronic public comments via the 

Federal e-Rulemaking Portal. 

1. Go to https://www.regulations.gov, 

and enter ‘‘NOAA–NMFS–2021–0071’’ 

in the Search box; 

2. Click the ‘‘Comment’’ icon, 

complete the required fields; and 

3. Enter or attach your comments. 

Instructions: 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 part of the public record 

and will generally be posted for public 

viewing on www.regulations.gov 

without change. All personal identifying 

information (e.g., name, address, etc.), 

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). 

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery 

Management Council prepared an 

environmental assessment (EA) for this 

action that describes the proposed 

measures and other considered 

alternatives. The EA also provides a 

thorough analysis of the biological, 

economic, and social impacts of the 

proposed measures and other 

considered alternatives. Copies of 

Amendment 7, including the EA, the 

Regulatory Impact Review, and the 

Regulatory Flexibility Act analysis 

prepared in support of this action, are 

available upon request from: Dr. 

Christopher M. Moore, Executive 

Director, Mid-Atlantic Fishery 

Management Council, Suite 201, 800 

North State Street, Dover, DE 19901. 

These documents are also accessible via 

the internet at https://www.mafmc.org/ 

supporting-documents. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Cynthia Ferrio, Fishery Policy Analyst, 

(978) 281–9180. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Background 

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery 

Management Council (Council) and the 

Atlantic States Marine Fisheries 

Commission (Commission) 

cooperatively manage bluefish from 

Maine to Florida under the Atlantic 

Bluefish Fishery Management Plan 

(FMP). This joint Bluefish FMP was 

adopted over 30 years ago in 1990. 

Since that time, the only substantial 

changes to management measures were 

made through Amendment 1 to the FMP 

in 2000, which established most 

measures and regulations still managing 

the fishery today, based on fishery data 

from 1981–1989. The Council and 

Commission initiated Amendment 7 to 

the FMP as a joint action in December 

2017 to respond to changes in the 

bluefish fishery that have occurred over 

the past 30–40 years, while the FMP has 

remained largely unaltered. When first 

initiated, Amendment 7 was intended to 

address a comprehensive range of 

management issues, from the goals and 

objectives of the FMP to the allocation 

and transfer of quota between the 

commercial and recreational sectors. 

In August 2019, an operational stock 

assessment determined that bluefish is 

overfished but not subject to 

overfishing. Following this 

determination, the Council and 

Commission’s Bluefish Management 

Board added development of a 

rebuilding plan to Amendment 7. The 

Council was notified of the overfished 

stock status determination in November 

2019; therefore, this amendment must 

be implemented by the end of 

November 2021 to ensure that the 

rebuilding plan is compliant with the 

timing requirements of section 304(e)(3) 

of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery 

Conservation and Management Act 

(Magnuson-Stevens Act). This timing 

will also allow the other changes 

proposed in Amendment 7 to be 

effective for the 2022 fishing year, 

beginning on January 1, 2022. Final 

alternatives for Amendment 7 set forth 

in a Public Hearing Document were 

approved at the joint meeting of the 

Council and Commission’s Bluefish 

Management Board in February 2021, 

and public hearings on those 

alternatives were held throughout the 

spring. On June 8, 2021, the Council and 

Board took final action to approve 

Amendment 7, with the intent that the 

measures would be effective for the 

2022 fishing year in January. 

A Notification of Availability (NOA) 

for Amendment 7 was published in the 

Federal Register on September 1, 2021 

(86 FR 48968). The Magnuson-Stevens 

Act allows NMFS as the implementing 

agency to approve, partially approve, or 

disapprove measures recommended by 

the Council in a regulatory amendment 

based on whether the measures are 

consistent with the FMP, the MagnusonStevens Act and its National Standards, 

and other applicable law. As such, 

NMFS is soliciting public comments in 

response to the NOA, and the proposed 

measures described below, on whether 

they are consistent with the Bluefish 

FMP, the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and 

other applicable law. The comment 

period on the NOA ends on November 

1, 2021. All public comments submitted 

by this date, whether specifically 

directed to the NOA or this proposed 

rule, will be considered in our decision 

to approve, partially approve, or 

disapprove Amendment 7. Comments 

on this proposed rule that are received 

before the end of this rule’s comment 

period (see DATES) will be considered in 

the decision to implement measures 

proposed by the Council. Comments 

received after the end of the NOA 

comment period will not be considered 

for this action. 

Proposed Measures 

This action proposes to implement 

Amendment 7 to the Bluefish FMP, as 

approved by the Council and 

Commission. The purpose of this action 


lotter on DSK11XQN23PROD with PROPOSALS1
Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 174 / Monday, September 13, 2021 / Proposed Rules 50867 

is to implement a rebuilding plan for 

bluefish, as required by the MagnusonStevens Act, and to update the FMP 

using the best scientific information 

available; responding to changes in the 

overall fishery over time. 

FMP Goals and Objectives 

The FMP’s existing goals and 

objectives were adopted in 1991 with 

the original FMP, and have remained 

unchanged since that time. Amendment 

7 would revise these goals and 

objectives to better reflect the current 

fishery. While the FMP currently only 

has one overarching goal and a few 

general objectives, the proposed 

revisions contain multiple goals linked 

to more specific objectives to better 

guide management. The following 

proposed revisions were developed with 

extensive input from the public. 

• Goal 1: Conserve the bluefish 

resource through stakeholder 

engagement to maintain sustainable 

recreational fishing and commercial 

harvest. 

Æ Objective 1.1: Achieve and 

maintain a sustainable spawning stock 

biomass and rate of fishing mortality. 

Æ Objective 1.2: Promote practices 

that reduce release mortality within the 

recreational and commercial fishery. 

Æ Objective 1.3: Maintain effective 

coordination between the National 

Marine Fisheries Service, Council, 

Commission, and member states by 

promoting compliance and to support 

the development and implementation of 

management measures. 

Æ Objective 1.4: Promote compliance 

and effective enforcement of 

regulations. 

Æ Objective 1.5: Promote science, 

monitoring, and data collection that 

support and enhance effective 

ecosystem-based management of the 

bluefish resource. 

• Goal 2: Provide fair and equitable 

access to the fishery across all user 

groups throughout the management 

unit. 

Æ Objective 2.1: Ensure the 

implementation of management 

measures provides fair and equitable 

access to the resource across all user 

groups within the management unit. 

Æ Objective 2.2: Consider the 

economic and social needs and 

priorities of all groups that access the 

bluefish resource in the development of 

new management measures. 

Æ Objective 2.3: Maintain effective 

coordination with stakeholder groups to 

ensure optimization of economic and 

social benefits. 

Quota Reallocation Between the 

Commercial and Recreational Fishery 

Sectors 

The existing FMP allocated quota 

between the commercial and 

recreational fishery sectors based on 

landings data from 1981–1989. This 

action proposes to re-allocate quota 

between the sectors to better represent 

recent trends in the fishery. Amendment 

7 would allocate 14 percent of the 

annual catch limit (ACL) to the 

commercial fishery, and 86 percent to 

the recreational fishery, representing a 

3-percentage point shift from the 

existing 17/83 split. These revised 

sector allocations are based on updated 

catch data from 1981–2018, and 

landings data from 2014–2018 and 

2009–2018, as all three time series 

resulted in the same allocation. 

Commercial Quota Reallocation Among 

the States 

The coastwide commercial quota for 

bluefish is allocated annually to each 

state within the management unit from 

Maine to Florida based on a percentage 

determined in the FMP. As with the 

sector allocation percentages, the 

existing state-by-state commercial quota 

allocations have not been updated since 

their implementation as a part of 

Amendment 1 (65 FR 45844; July 26, 

2000), and are based on landings data 

from 1981–1989. Amendment 7 would 

revise the state-by-state quota 

allocations based on a recent, 

representative 10 years of landings data 

(2009–2018) for the commercial fishery 

to better capture how the stock and 

fishing activity have shifted over the 

years. The proposed allocations also 

include a 0.1-percent minimum default 

allocation to ensure that no state in the 

management unit is excluded from the 

commercial fishery entirely. To allow 

industry and state managers to adjust 

more easily to these changes in 

commercial quota allocation, this action 

proposes to phase in the changes over 

a period of seven years. The percent 

shift in allocation for each state would 

be divided evenly over the phase-in 

period, so each state would only 

experience 1/7th of the change in 

allocation each year through 2028. 

Rebuilding Plan 

The 2019 operational stock 

assessment determined that bluefish is 

overfished but not subject to 

overfishing. Amendment 7 would 

implement a rebuilding plan that uses a 

constant fishing mortality model (F = 

0.154) to rebuild the stock in seven 

years. This rebuilding plan was selected 

because it allows for least disruption to 

industry and minimizes negative socioeconomic impacts while still rebuilding 

within the 10-year period required by 

the Magnuson-Stevens Act. However, 

because this model projects acceptable 

biological catch (ABC) values during 

rebuilding that are higher than those 

generated by the Council’s risk policy 

(5-year rebuilding alternative), an 

exemption to the FMP’s ‘‘most 

restrictive ABC’’ requirement needs to 

be included with this amendment. This 

would allow the Council’s Scientific 

and Statistical Committee to 

recommend higher ABCs than the risk 

policy would typically generate during 

a rebuilding plan as long as they are 

consistent with the rebuilding plan, and 

the plan is projected to rebuild within 

the necessary time period. This 

proposed rebuilding plan has been 

developed to begin in 2022, and would 

be reviewed and revised as necessary 

every two years, as required by section 

304(e)(7) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. 

Sector Quota Transfer 

Currently, the FMP allows a quota 

transfer from the recreational sector to 

the commercial sector up to a maximum 

final commercial quota of 10.5 million 

lb (4,763 mt) per year if the recreational 

fishery is not expected to attain the full 

recreational harvest limit in that given 

year. This action proposes to revise the 

measures regarding this sector transfer 

to allow quota to be transferred in either 

direction (from commercial to 

recreational or vice versa). This 

amendment would also revise the 

maximum transfer to be up to 10 

percent of the acceptable biological 

catch, allowing the size of the transfer 

to scale with the current biomass of the 

stock. A restriction would also be added 

to disallow sector transfers when the 

bluefish stock is overfished or subject to 

overfishing. 

Management Uncertainty in the 

Specifications Process 

This amendment would revise how 

management uncertainty can be 

accounted for during the specifications 

process. In the current FMP, the fisherylevel ACL may be reduced by a buffer 

to account for sources of management 

uncertainty before quota is allocated to 

the commercial and recreational fishery 

sectors. This action proposes to revise 

the specifications process so that the 

management uncertainty buffer is 

applied separately within each sector. 

This targeted approach would provide 

more management flexibility, and allow 

for the identification of sources of 

management uncertainty that are 

specific to one sector and are not 

present in the other. 


lotter on DSK11XQN23PROD with PROPOSALS1
50868 Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 174 / Monday, September 13, 2021 / Proposed Rules 

Classification 

Pursuant to section 304(b)(1)(A) of the 

Magnuson-Stevens Act, the NMFS 

Assistant Administrator has determined 

that this proposed rule is consistent 

with the Atlantic Bluefish FMP, other 

provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens 

Act, and other applicable law, subject to 

further consideration after public 

comment. 

The Council reviewed the proposed 

regulations for this action and deemed 

them necessary and appropriate to 

implement consistent with section 

303(c) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. 

This proposed rule has been 

determined to be not significant for 

purposes of Executive Order 12866. 

This proposed rule contains no 

information collection requirements 

under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 

1995. 

The Mid-Atlantic Council prepared an 

EA for this action that analyzes the 

impacts of the measures contained in 

this proposed rule. This EA includes an 

initial regulatory flexibility analysis 

(IRFA), as required by section 603 of the 

Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA), which 

is supplemented by information 

contained in the preamble of this 

proposed rule. The IRFA describes the 

economic impact that this proposed 

rule, if adopted, would have on small 

business entities, as well as the 

comparative possible impacts of the 

other alternatives considered. A copy of 

the detailed RFA analysis is available 

from the Council (see ADDRESSES). A 

summary of the Amendment 7 IRFA 

analysis follows. 

Description of the Reasons Why Action 

by the Agency Is Being Considered, and 

the Statement of the Objectives of, and 

Legal Basis for, This Proposed Rule 

This action is taken under the 

authority of the Magnuson-Stevens Act 

and regulations at 50 CFR part 648. This 

action proposes a range of management 

measures for the Atlantic bluefish 

fishery. A complete description of the 

action, why it is being considered, and 

its legal basis, are contained in the EA 

(see ADDRESSES) and in this rule’s 

preamble, and are not repeated here. 

Description and Estimate of the Number 

of Small Entities to Which This 

Proposed Rule Would Apply 

This proposed rule affects those small 

entities engaged in commercial fishing 

operations in the Atlantic bluefish 

fishery (those with commercial bluefish 

permits), and those with Federal party/ 

charter recreational permits for bluefish. 

Private recreational anglers are not 

considered ‘‘entities’’ under the RFA, 

thus economic impacts on private 

anglers are not considered here. For the 

purposes of the RFA analysis, the 

ownership entities (or firms), not the 

individual vessels, are considered to be 

the regulated entities. Ownership 

entities are defined as those entities or 

firms with common ownership 

personnel as listed on the permit 

application. Because of this, some 

vessels with bluefish permits may be 

considered to be part of the same firm 

because they may have the same 

owners. To identify these small and 

large firms, vessel ownership data from 

the permit database were grouped 

according to common owners and sorted 

by size. In terms of RFA, a business 

primarily engaged in commercial fishing 

is classified as a small business if it has 

combined annual receipts not in excess 

of $11 million, for all its affiliated 

operations worldwide. A business 

primarily engaged in for-hire (party/ 

charter) fishing is classified as small 

business if it has combined annual 

receipts not in excess of $8 million. 

The current ownership data set used 

in this analysis is based on calendar 

years 2018–2020 (the most recent and 

complete data available). According to 

the vessel ownership database, 526 

commercial fishing affiliate firms 

landed bluefish during the 2018–2020 

period, with 521 of those entities 

categorized as small businesses, and 5 

categorized as large businesses. The 

three-year average (2018–2020) 

combined gross receipts (all species 

combined) for all small entities only 

was $197,251,017 and the average 

bluefish receipts was $899,490; this 

indicates that bluefish revenues 

contributed approximately 0.46 percent 

of the total gross receipts for these small 

entities. 

For the recreational for-hire (party/ 

charter) fishery, 361 for-hire affiliate 

firms reported revenue from recreational 

fishing for various species from 2018– 

2020. All 361 of those firms are 

categorized as small businesses. It is not 

possible to derive what proportion of 

the overall revenues for these for-hire 

firms came from fishing activities for an 

individual species. Nevertheless, given 

the popularity of bluefish as a 

recreational species in the Mid-Atlantic 

and New England, it is likely that 

revenues generated from bluefish may 

be somewhat important for many of 

these firms at certain times of the year. 

The 3-year average (2018–2020) 

combined gross receipts (all for-hire 

fishing activity combined) for these 

small entities was $49,916,903, ranging 

from less than $10,000 for 105 entities 

(lowest value $46) to over $1,000,000 for 

8 entities (highest value $3.6 million). 

Description of the Projected Reporting, 

Recordkeeping, and Other Compliance 

Requirements of This Proposed Rule 

There are no new reporting, 

recordkeeping, or other compliance 

requirements contained in this proposed 

rule, or any of the alternatives 

considered for this action. 

Federal Rules Which May Duplicate, 

Overlap, or Conflict With This Proposed 

Rule 

NMFS is not aware of any relevant 

Federal rules that may duplicate, 

overlap, or conflict with this proposed 

rule. 

Description of Significant Alternatives 

to the Proposed Action Which 

Accomplish the Stated Objectives of 

Applicable Statutes and Which 

Minimize Any Significant Economic 

Impact on Small Entities 

The proposed amendment would 

implement several measures that could 

potentially impact small businesses in 

both the commercial and recreational 

sectors of the bluefish fishery; most 

notably the reallocation of quota among 

the sectors and states, the rebuilding 

plan, and the revision of sector transfer 

of quota. While the revised FMP goals 

and objectives and the sector-specific 

accounting of management uncertainty 

during the specifications process could 

have an indirect economic impact on 

businesses, these alternatives are largely 

administrative and not discussed here. 

On average, bluefish revenues 

contributed approximately 0.46 percent 

to the total gross receipts for the small 

businesses and 0.02 percent for the large 

businesses. Due to the slightly higher 

dependence on bluefish for the small 

businesses compared to the large 

businesses, the small businesses may 

feel the effects of this action to a greater 

extent than the large businesses. Even 

so, the small businesses did not rely on 

bluefish for a substantial amount of 

their annual income either; although 

when considered individually, some 

businesses may be more dependent on 

this species than others. 

Several alternatives were considered 

for the sector quota allocations based on 

different time series of catch and 

landings data; however, all of these 

alternatives resulted in quota shifting 

from the commercial sector to the 

recreational sector by varying degrees. 

The No Action alternative would 

continue to allocate 83-percent of the 

fishery-level ACL to the recreational 

fishery, and 17 percent to the 

commercial fishery, while the 

alternatives considered shift this 

distribution by 1, 3, 4, and 6 percentage 


lotter on DSK11XQN23PROD with PROPOSALS1
Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 174 / Monday, September 13, 2021 / Proposed Rules 50869 

points to the recreational sector, with 

the preferred alternative being the 3- 

point shift. None of these alternatives 

affect the total ABC or ACL available to 

harvest each year, rather how 

opportunity to do so is distributed 

between commercial and recreational 

entities. The 3-point shift to the 

recreational sector is better 

representative of how the overall fishery 

operates, and while it may have a slight 

negative impact on commercial 

businesses, it would comparably benefit 

recreational businesses. 

Some potential negative impact sector 

allocation from the prior proposed 

measure may be mitigated further by the 

proposed alternative to revise the sector 

transfer. The proposed sector transfer 

provisions would allow quota (in an 

amount up to 10-percent of the ABC) to 

be transferred from either sector to the 

other (from commercial to recreational 

or vice versa). This management tool 

would allow for supplementation of 

quota to either sector in a year when the 

assigned allocations may not support 

the business needs of the sector. 

Similar to the sector reallocations, 

several alternatives were considered for 

the reallocation of commercial quota to 

the states, based on different time series 

of landings data. Because these 

alternatives do not affect the total 

amount of quota available in the fishery, 

but rather how it is distributed 

geographically, it is unlikely that they 

would have a direct economic impact 

on commercial businesses as a whole; 

however, they may have a 

disproportionate, indirect impact on 

some businesses more than others. To 

mitigate potential negative effects on 

entities in states that would experience 

the largest degree of change in 

commercial allocation, the Council and 

Board proposed to phase in the 

allocation changes equally over seven 

years. This would make the difference 

in quota allocation that each state would 

experience each year much smaller, and 

thus minimize the magnitude of any 

potential negative effects as a result. 

There were three main rebuilding 

plan strategies considered in this 

amendment: (1) A plan using constant 

harvest model to rebuild the stock in 

four years; (2) a plan based on the 

Council’s risk policy to rebuild the stock 

in five years; and (3) a plan using a 

constant fishing mortality model to 

rebuild the stock in seven years. A ‘‘No 

Action’’ alternative was not possible 

because of the Magnuson-Stevens Act 

requirement to rebuild an overfished 

stock. Even though the constant harvest 

and risk policy plans would rebuild the 

stock more quickly, the constant fishing 

mortality rebuilding plan was preferred 

because the more gradual changes it 

proposes provides the most economic 

stability and least disruption of business 

operations while still rebuilding the 

stock within 10 years. 

All alternatives have the potential to 

impact businesses in the commercial 

sector; whereas all alternatives except 

the commercial quota allocation to the 

states may affect recreational 

businesses, which comprise the majority 

of the fishery overall. However, most of 

the alternatives in this action affect 

small businesses indirectly and have 

minimal direct economic impacts. For 

example, they dictate the process for 

developing future landings limits, or 

shift the distribution of quota/effort, but 

do not change the overall annual 

amount. That being said, public input 

was solicited and considered 

throughout the development of this 

amendment, and the economic impact 

on small businesses was minimized 

wherever possible. Section 7.4 of the EA 

contains a more detailed discussion on 

the economic impacts of each of the 

alternatives considered in this 

amendment, and the full RFA analysis 

can be found in section 8.10. 

List of Subjects in 50 CFR Part 648 

Fisheries, Fishing, Reporting and 

recordkeeping requirements. 

Dated: September 7, 2021. 

Samuel D. Rauch III, 

Deputy Assistant Administrator for 

Regulatory Programs, National Marine 

Fisheries Service. 

For the reasons set out in the 

preamble, 50 CFR part 648 is proposed 

to be amended as follows: 

PART 648—FISHERIES OF THE 

NORTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 

■ 1. The authority citation for part 648 

continues to read as follows: 

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

■ 2. In § 648.21, revise paragraph (c)(1) 

and add paragraph (c)(3) to read as 

follows: 

§ 648.21 Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management 

Council risk policy. 

* * * * * 

(c) * * * 

(1) Unless otherwise allowed in 

paragraph (c)(2) or (3) of this section, for 

instances in which the application of 

the risk policy approaches in paragraph 

(b) of this section using OFL 

distribution results in a more restrictive 

ABC recommendation than the 

calculation of ABC derived from the use 

of FREBUILD at the MAFMC-specified 

overfishing risk level as outlined in 

paragraph (a) of this section, the 

Scientific and Statistical Committee 

(SSC) shall recommend to the MAFMC 

the lower of the ABC values. 

* * * * * 

(3) The SSC may specify higher ABCs 

for bluefish based on FREBUILD, as 

outlined in paragraph (a) of this section, 

instead of the risk policy approaches in 

paragraph (b) of this section in order to 

implement a rebuilding program that 

would rebuild this stock by 2028. 

* * * * * 

■ 3. In § 648.161, revise the section 

heading and paragraph (a) to read as 

follows: 

§ 648.161 Bluefish Sector ACLs and 

Annual Catch Targets (ACTs). 

(a) Sector ACLs and ACTs. As a part 

of the bluefish specifications process, 

the Bluefish Monitoring Committee 

shall allocate a specified percentage of 

the fishery-level ACL to the commercial 

and recreational fishery sectors, and 

identify and review the relevant sources 

of sector-specific management 

uncertainty to recommend ACTs for 

each sector. 

(1) Sectors. The sum of the 

commercial and recreational sectorspecific ACLs shall be less than or equal 

to the fishery level ACL. A total of 86 

percent of the fishery-level ACL will be 

allocated to the recreational fishery. A 

total of 14 percent of the fishery-level 

ACL will be allocated to the commercial 

fishery. 

(2) Management uncertainty. The 

Bluefish Monitoring Committee shall 

recommend any reduction in catch 

necessary to address management 

uncertainty and recommend ACTs for 

each sector, consistent with paragraph 

(a) of this section, after the sector 

allocation described in paragraph (a)(1) 

of this section. The Bluefish Monitoring 

Committee recommendations shall 

identify any sector-specific sources of 

management uncertainty affecting the 

fishery, technical approaches to 

mitigating these sources of uncertainty, 

and any additional relevant information 

considered in the ACT recommendation 

and adjustment process. 

(3) Periodicity. ACTs may be 

established on an annual basis for up to 

3 years at a time, dependent on whether 

the SSC provides single or multiple-year 

ABC recommendations. 

* * * * * 

■ 4. In § 648.162, revise paragraphs (b), 

(d), (f), and (g) to read as follows: 

§ 648.162 Bluefish specifications. 

* * * * * 

(b) TAL. The Bluefish Monitoring 

Committee shall recommend sectorspecific TALs less than or equal to the 


lotter on DSK11XQN23PROD with PROPOSALS1
50870 Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 174 / Monday, September 13, 2021 / Proposed Rules 

ACTs through the specifications 

process. 

(1) Recreational harvest limit and 

commercial quota. If research quota is 

specified as described in paragraph (g) 

of this section, the recreational harvest 

limit and commercial quota will be 

based on the respective sector TALs 

remaining after the deduction of the 

applicable research quota. 

(2) Sector quota transfer. During the 

specifications process, the Bluefish 

Monitoring Committee may recommend 

a transfer of quota from the commercial 

fishery to the recreational fishery or 

from the recreational fishery to the 

commercial fishery; based on a review 

and comparison of expected landings 

for each sector and the recreational 

harvest limit and commercial quota. The 

amount of quota transferred between 

sectors may not exceed 10-percent of the 

ABC for that fishing year. No transfer 

may occur when the bluefish stock is 

overfished or subject to overfishing. 

* * * * * 

(d) Distribution of annual commercial 

quota. (1) The annual commercial quota 

will be distributed to the states, based 

upon the following percentages; state 

each followed by its allocation in 

parentheses: ME (0.1091); NH (0.2154); 

MA (10.1150); RI (9.6079); CT (1.0872); 

NY (19.7582); NJ (13.8454); DE (0.4945); 

MD (1.9175); VA (5.8657); NC (32.0278); 

SC (0.1034); GA (0.1023); and FL 

(4.7788). Note: The sum of all state 

allocations does not add to 100 because 

of rounding. This distribution includes 

a minimum allocation of 0.1 to every 

state in the management unit. 

(2) The allocation percentages in 

paragraph (d)(1) of this section will be 

phased in over a 7-year period 

beginning in 2022. The percent change 

in allocation from those prior to 2022 

for each state is divided equally by 

seven, and will be applied 

incrementally each year until the final 

allocations listed in paragraph (d)(1) are 

in full effect for fishing year 2028. 

* * * * * 

(f) Revision of state allocation. Based 

upon any changes in the landings data 

available from the states for the base 

years 2009–2018, the Atlantic States 

Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) 

and the MAFMC may recommend to the 

Regional Administrator that the states’ 

shares specified in paragraph (d)(1) of 

this section be revised. The MAFMC’s 

and the ASMFC’s recommendation must 

include supporting documentation, as 

appropriate, concerning the 

environmental and economic impacts of 

the recommendation. The Regional 

Administrator shall review the 

recommendation of the ASMFC and the 

MAFMC. After such review, NMFS will 

publish a proposed rule in the Federal 

Register to implement a revision in the 

state shares. After considering public 

comment, NMFS will publish a final 

rule in the Federal Register to 

implement any warranted changes in 

allocation. 

(g) Research quota. See § 648.22(g). 

[FR Doc. 2021–19620 Filed 9–10–21; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–22–P 


lotter on DSK11XQN23PROD with PROPOSALS1