Federal Register / Vol. 87, No. 110 / Wednesday, June 8, 2022 / Rules and Regulations 34811 

PART 575—CONSUMER 

INFORMATION 

■ 11. The authority citation for part 575 

continues to read as follows: 

Authority: 49 U.S.C. 32302, 32304A, 

30111, 30115, 30117, 30123, 30166, 30181, 

30182, 30183, and 32908, Pub. L. 104–414, 

114 Stat. 1800, Pub. L. 109–59, 119 Stat. 

1144, Pub. L. 110–140, 121 Stat. 1492, 15 

U.S.C. 1232(g); delegation of authority at 49 

CFR 1.95. 

§ 575.3 [Amended] 

■ 12. Amend § 575.3 by removing and 

reserving paragraph (c)(2). 

■ 13. Amend § 575.104 by revising 

paragraphs (e)(2)(viii), and 

(e)(2)(ix)(A)(2), the note to paragraph 

(e)(2)(ix)(C), and paragraph (e)(2)(ix)(F) 

to read as follows: 

§ 575.104 Uniform tire quality grading 

standards. 

* * * * * 

(e) * * * 

(2) * * * 

(viii) Drive the convoy on the test 

roadway for 16 circuits (approximately 

6,400 miles). 

(A) After every circuit (approximately 

400 miles), rotate each vehicle’s tires by 

moving each front tire to the same side 

of the rear axle and each rear tire to the 

opposite side of the front axle. Visually 

inspect each tire for treadwear 

anomalies. 

(B) After every second circuit 

(approximately 800 miles), rotate the 

vehicles in the convoy by moving the 

last vehicle to the lead position. Do not 

rotate driver positions within the 

convoy. In four-car convoys, vehicle one 

shall become vehicle two, vehicle two 

shall become vehicle three, vehicle 

three shall become vehicle four, and 

vehicle four shall become vehicle one. 

(C) After every second circuit 

(approximately 800 miles), if necessary, 

adjust wheel alignment to the midpoint 

of the vehicle manufacturer’s 

specification, unless adjustment to the 

midpoint is not recommended by the 

manufacturer; in that case, adjust the 

alignment to the manufacturer’s 

recommended setting. In all cases, the 

setting is within the tolerance specified 

by the manufacturer of the alignment 

machine. 

(D) After every second circuit 

(approximately 800 miles), if 

determining the projected mileage by 

the 9-point method set forth in 

paragraph (e)(2)(ix)(A)(1) of this section, 

measure the average tread depth of each 

tire following the procedure set forth in 

paragraph (e)(2)(vi) of this section. 

(E) After every fourth circuit 

(approximately 1,600 miles), move the 

complete set of four tires to the 

following vehicle. Move the tires on the 

last vehicle to the lead vehicle. In 

moving the tires, rotate them as set forth 

in paragraph (e)(2)(viii)(A) of this 

section. 

(F) At the end of the test, measure the 

tread depth of each tire pursuant to the 

procedure set forth in paragraph 

(e)(2)(vi) of this section. 

(ix) * * * 

(A) * * * 

(2) Two-point arithmetical method. (i) 

For each course monitoring and 

candidate tire in the convoy, using the 

average tread depth measurements 

obtained in accordance with paragraphs 

(e)(2)(vi) and (e)(2)(viii)(F) of this 

section and the corresponding mileages 

as data points, determine the slope (m) 

of the tire’s wear in mils of tread depth 

per 1,000 miles by the following 

formula: 

Where: 

Yo = average tread depth after break-in, mils. 

Y1 = average tread depth after 16 circuits 

(approximately 6,400 miles), mils. 

Xo = 0 miles (after break-in). 

X1 = Total mileage of travel after 16 circuits 

(approximately 6,400 miles). 

(ii) This slope (m) will be negative in 

value. The tire’s wear rate is defined as 

the slope (m) expressed in mils per 

1,000 miles. 

* * * * * 

(C) * * * 

Note 1 to paragraph (e)(2)(ix)(C): The 

ASTM F2493 standard reference test tire is 

the course monitoring tire (CMT). The base 

wear rate for the CMTs will be obtained by 

the Government by running the course 

monitoring tires for 16 circuits over the San 

Angelo, Texas, UTQGS test route 4 times per 

year, then using the average wear rate from 

the last 4 quarterly CMT tests for the base 

course wear rate calculation. Each new base 

course wear rate will be published in Docket 

No. NHTSA–2001–9395. The course 

monitoring tires used in a test convoy must 

be no more than one-year-old at the 

commencement of the test and must be used 

within four months after removal from 

storage. 

* * * * * 

(F) Compute the grade (P) of the of the 

NHTSA nominal treadwear value for 

each candidate tire by using the 

following formula: 

Where base course wear raten = new base 

course wear rate, i.e., average treadwear of 

the last 4 quarterly course monitoring tire 

tests conducted by NHTSA. 

Round off the percentage to the nearest 

lower 20-point increment. 

* * * * * 

Issued in Washington, DC, under authority 

delegated in 49 CFR 1.95 and 501.7. 

Steven S. Cliff, 

Administrator. 

[FR Doc. 2022–12243 Filed 6–7–22; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4910–59–P 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration 

50 CFR Part 622 

[RTID 0648–XB046] 

Fisheries of the Caribbean, Gulf of 

Mexico, and South Atlantic; Reef Fish 

and Red Drum Fisheries of the Gulf of 

Mexico; Amendments 48/5 

AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries 

Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 

Commerce. 

ACTION: Notice of Agency decision. 

SUMMARY: NMFS announces the 

approval of Amendment 48 to the 

Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for 

Reef Fish Resources of the Gulf of 

Mexico and Amendment 5 to the FMP 

for the Red Drum Fishery of the Gulf of 

Mexico (Amendments 48/5), which are 

combined in a single document as 

submitted by the Gulf of Mexico (Gulf) 

Fishery Management Council (Gulf 

Council). Amendments 48/5 establish or 

modify maximum sustainable yield 

(MSY) proxies, maximum fishing 

mortality thresholds (MFMTs), 

minimum stock size thresholds 

(MSSTs), and optimum yield (OY) for 

stocks in the Reef Fish and Red Drum 

FMPs. The need for this action is to 


khammond on DSKJM1Z7X2PROD with RULESER08JN22.012</GPH> ER08JN22.013</GPH>

(Yl - Yo) 

m = 1000 (Xl _ Xo) 

Projected mileage x base course wear raten 

p = 304 
34812 Federal Register / Vol. 87, No. 110 / Wednesday, June 8, 2022 / Rules and Regulations 

have biological reference points that can 

be used for determining status of the 

stocks or stock complexes consistent 

with the requirements of the MagnusonStevens Fishery Conservation and 

Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens 

Act). 

DATES: The amendment was approved 

June 3, 2022. 

ADDRESSES: Electronic copies of 

Amendments 48/5 may be obtained 

from www.regulations.gov or the 

Southeast Regional Office website at 

http://sero.nmfs.noaa.gov. Amendments 

48/5 include an environmental 

assessment and fishery impact 

statement. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Peter Hood, NMFS Southeast Regional 

Office, telephone: 727–824–5305, or 

email: peter.hood@noaa.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: NMFS and 

the Gulf Council manage the Gulf reef 

fish fishery and the red drum fishery 

under the respective FMPs. The Gulf 

Council prepared the FMPs and NMFS 

implements the FMPs through 

regulations at 50 CFR part 622 under the 

authority of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. 

Amendments 48/5 were prepared by the 

Gulf Council and will be incorporated 

into the management of Gulf reef fish 

and red drum through the respective 

FMPs. 

Background 

On March 9, 2022, NMFS published 

a notice of availability (NOA) for 

Amendments 48/5 and requested public 

comment (87 FR 13274). NMFS did not 

receive any public comments on the 

NOA. 

The Magnuson-Stevens Act and the 

National Standard 1 Guidelines require 

that FMPs specify a number of reference 

points for managed fish stocks, 

including maximum sustainable yield 

(MSY) or MSY proxy, and optimum 

yield, as well as status determination 

criteria (SDC), including an MFMT or an 

overfishing limit (OFL), and an MSST. 

These SDC represent the point at which 

a stock is determined to be overfished 

(i.e., below MSST) or experiencing 

overfishing (i.e., above MFMT or OFL). 

In 1999, the Gulf Council submitted the 

Generic Sustainable Fisheries Act (SFA) 

Amendment, which proposed 

definitions of MSY, OY, MFMT, and 

MSST for all reef fish stocks. NMFS 

approved most of the MFMT criteria, 

but disapproved all of the definitions for 

MSY, OY, and MSST because they were 

not based on biomass. 

While NMFS refers to the document 

as ‘‘Amendments 48/5’’ in this notice of 

Agency decision, each amendment 

applies separately to the stocks in the 

respective FMPs. Amendment 5 applies 

to the red drum stock. Amendment 48 

applies to several reef fish stocks and 

stock complexes that either have not 

been assessed or were assessed but still 

require stock status determinations. 

These include: cubera snapper, lane 

snapper, goliath grouper, the shallowwater grouper complex (scamp, black 

grouper, yellowmouth grouper, and 

yellowfin grouper), the deep-water 

grouper complex (yellowedge grouper, 

warsaw grouper, snowy grouper, and 

speckled hind), the tilefish complex 

(golden tilefish, blueline tilefish, and 

goldface tilefish), the jacks complex 

(lesser amberjack, almaco jack, and 

banded rudderfish), and the mid-water 

snapper complex (wenchman, silk 

snapper, blackfin snapper, and queen 

snapper). Amendments 48/5 also 

addresses four reef fish stocks that have 

been assessed and have known stock 

status determinations: hogfish, mutton 

snapper, yellowtail snapper, and black 

grouper. Amendment 43 to the Reef Fish 

FMP established references points and 

SDC for hogfish. However, OY for 

hogfish was not defined there and is 

addressed in Amendments 48/5. Mutton 

snapper, yellowtail snapper, and black 

grouper, which occur in both the Gulf 

Council and South Atlantic Fishery 

Management Council areas of 

jurisdiction but are managed separately 

under each Council’s FMPs, have 

reference points and SDC specified in 

the South Atlantic Snapper-Grouper 

FMP, but not in the Gulf Reef Fish FMP. 

With respect to black grouper, that 

species is managed by the South 

Atlantic Council as a single stock but is 

managed by the Gulf Council as part of 

the shallow-water grouper complex. 

The NOA includes a detailed 

description of the biological references 

points and status determination criteria 

established in Amendments 48/5. A 

summary is provided below. 

Maximum Sustainable Yield 

The MSY is the largest long-term 

average catch or yield that can be taken 

from a stock or stock complex under 

prevailing ecological, environmental 

conditions and fishery technological 

characteristics (e.g., gear selectivity), 

and the distribution of catch among 

fleets. However, the actual MSY can 

rarely be estimated with certainty 

because of the difficulty in accurately 

estimating the relationship between the 

size of the spawning stock and the 

subsequent annual recruitment. As a 

result, proxies for MSY are typically 

used because they are easier to measure. 

Generally, MSY proxies used for fish 

species in the Gulf are based on some 

percentage of spawning potential ratio 

(SPR) and are expressed as the yield 

when fishing at FPROXY (where F is 

fishing mortality rate). In using SPR, 

NMFS assumes that a certain amount of 

fish must survive and spawn in order to 

replenish the stock, thus SPR represents 

the average number of eggs per fish over 

its lifetime when the stock is fished, 

compared to the average number of eggs 

per fish over its lifetime when the stock 

is not fished. 

For reef fish stocks and stock 

complexes with the exception of goliath 

grouper, the MSY proxy selected by the 

Gulf Council is the yield when fishing 

at F30% SPR. For goliath grouper, the Gulf 

Council selected a more conservative 

MSY proxy because this species is more 

vulnerable to overfishing because of its 

long life-span and slow growth rate. The 

goliath grouper MSY proxy is the yield 

when fishing at F40% SPR. 

The harvest of red drum is prohibited 

in Federal waters, but fishing is allowed 

in state waters under management 

measures developed by the respective 

Gulf state marine fisheries agencies. 

These agencies manage the stock to 

achieve a 30 percent escapement rate 

from state to Federal waters. Thus, 

Amendment 5 defines the red drum 

MSY proxy as the yield that provides for 

an escapement rate of juvenile fish to 

the spawning stock biomass (SSB) 

equivalent to 30 percent of those that 

would have escaped had there been no 

inshore state-waters fishery. 

Amendments 48/5 also adopt a 

streamlined procedure for future 

specification of the MSY proxies for reef 

fish stocks and red drum that will allow 

the Gulf Council to adopt an MSY proxy 

recommended by the SSC by including 

a discussion of the change in a plan 

amendment. If the Gulf Council chooses 

to use this procedure, which would not 

include the consideration of alternatives 

to the MSY proxy recommended by the 

SSC, NMFS expects the Gulf Council to 

document its rationale for that decision. 

If more than one MSY proxy is 

supported by the best scientific 

information available, NMFS expects 

the Gulf Council to provide an 

appropriate analysis of these 

alternatives. 

Maximum Fishing Mortality Thresholds 

MFMT is the rate of fishing mortality 

above which a stock is experiencing 

overfishing. To keep MFMT consistent 

with the proposed MSY proxies, 

Amendments 48/5 set this threshold for 

the relevant stocks equal to the F at the 

MSY proxy for each stock or stock 

complex as discussed above. 


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Federal Register / Vol. 87, No. 110 / Wednesday, June 8, 2022 / Rules and Regulations 34813 

Minimum Stock Size Thresholds 

The MSST is a biomass reference 

point that measures how many fish are 

left in the water rather than how many 

fish are caught, and determines at what 

biomass level a stock or stock complex 

is overfished. The MSST can be 

specified in terms of pounds of fish, 

numbers of fish, or the expected egg 

production from the SSB of the adult 

stock. The long-term average size of a 

stock that results from harvesting at 

MSY is called the biomass at MSY 

(BMSY). The MSST is generally set at 

some level below BMSY, but cannot be 

set lower than 50 percent of BMSY. The 

greater the difference between BMSY and 

MSST, the less likely a stock is to be 

declared overfished, but the more 

difficult it may be to rebuild the stock 

back to BMSY should the stock size fall 

below MSST. 

In Amendments 48/5 the Gulf Council 

set MSST at 0.75*BMSY (or proxy) for all 

of the stocks and stock complexes for 

which the Council also established an 

MSY and MFMT. The Gulf Council also 

considered and selected an additional 

alternative that would apply only to 

those individual stocks that span both 

the South Atlantic and Gulf Councils’ 

areas of jurisdiction and would set 

MSST consistent with the MSST 

specified by the South Atlantic Council. 

These stocks are goliath grouper, black 

grouper, mutton snapper, and yellowtail 

snapper. The MSST specified by the 

South Atlantic Council is 0.75*BMSY (or 

proxy) for black grouper, mutton 

snapper, and yellowtail snapper, and 

(1–M)*BMSY (or proxy) for goliath 

grouper. 

As discussed previously, and unlike 

the South Atlantic Council, the Gulf 

Council manages black grouper as part 

of the shallow water grouper complex, 

not as a single stock. Therefore, 

although black grouper was included in 

preferred alternative 5 that addressed 

the other three stocks that span both the 

South Atlantic and Gulf Councils’ areas 

of jurisdiction, Amendment 48 does not 

consider specifying an MSY for black 

grouper as a single stock. Instead, 

consistent with the Gulf Council’s 

current management of this stock, 

Amendment 48 specifies an MSY for the 

entire shallow-water grouper complex, 

which includes black grouper. 

NMFS is approving the MSST for the 

shallow-water grouper complex as well 

as the MSST for black grouper, both of 

which are specified in Amendment 48 

as 0.75*BMSY (or proxy). However, 

because Amendment 48 did not 

establish an MSY or MFMT for black 

grouper, NMFS encourages the Gulf 

Council to do so. Having the complete 

suite of biological reference points and 

SDC for black grouper in both the South 

Atlantic and Gulf FMPs would help 

inform the next stock assessment, which 

is scheduled to be complete in 2025. 

Optimum Yield 

Amendment 48 sets set OY at 90 

percent of the MSY or MSY proxy for 

all reef fish stocks addressed in the 

amendment with the exception of 

goliath grouper. For goliath grouper, the 

Council set OY at zero, which reflects 

that harvest is prohibited. 

For red drum, the Gulf Council 

decided to keep the existing OY 

definition, which is based on a 1987 

SEFSC stock assessment that concluded 

under certain escapement rates of 

juveniles, the stock could rebuild. This 

OY definition is: (1) all red drum 

commercially and recreationally 

harvested from Gulf state waters landed 

consistent with state laws and 

regulations under a goal of allowing 30 

percent escapement of the juvenile 

population; and (2) all red drum 

commercially or recreationally 

harvested from the Primary Area 

(Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama) 

of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) 

under the total allowable catch (TAC) 

level and allocations specified under the 

provisions of the Red Drum FMP, and 

a zero-retention level from the 

Secondary Areas (Florida and Texas) of 

the EEZ. The red drum TAC for the Gulf 

EEZ has been zero since 1988 with the 

implementation of Amendment 2 to the 

Red Drum FMP and harvest in the EEZ 

is prohibited (53 FR 34662; June 29, 

1988). Therefore, to achieve the OY, the 

Gulf states have independently and 

cooperatively implemented red drum 

regulations to achieve a 30 percent or 

greater escapement rate to the spawning 

stocks for each year class. 

Procedural Aspects of Amendments 

48/5 

Because none of the measures 

included in the amendments involve 

regulatory changes, no proposed or final 

rule was prepared. The provisions of 

Amendments 48/5 are not specified in 

Federal regulations but are considered 

an amendment to the respective FMPs. 

Comments and Responses 

NMFS did not receive any public 

comments on the NOA, either in favor 

of, or in opposition to approving 

Amendments 48/5. There have been no 

changes to Amendments 48/5 based on 

NOA public comment. 

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

Dated: June 3, 2022. 

Samuel D. Rauch, III, 

Deputy Assistant Administrator for 

Regulatory Programs, National Marine 

Fisheries Service. 

[FR Doc. 2022–12339 Filed 6–7–22; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–22–P 


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