70054 Federal Register / Vol. 70, No. 223 / Monday, November 21, 2005 / Proposed Rules 

owners and operators to comply with 

your recommendations? 

5. If you recommend the Coast Guard 

adopt certain regulatory measures, what 

would be the economic impact to small 

entities, if any? ‘‘Small entities’’ is 

defined by the Regulatory Flexibility 

Act [5 U.S.C. 601 et seq.], and generally 

refers to an enterprise or business that 

‘‘is independently owned and operated 

and is not dominant it its field * * *’’

5 U.S.C. 601. 

Comments are not limited to the 

preceding questions and are invited on 

any aspect of navigation safety within 

the Bays. 

Dated: November 10, 2005. 

Mark J. Campbell, 

Captain, U.S. Coast Guard, Acting 

Commander, First Coast Guard District. 

[FR Doc. 05–22951 Filed 11–18–05; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4910–15–P 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration 

50 CFR Part 660 

[I.D. 111505A] 

Pacific Fishery Management Council; 

Notice of Intent 

AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries 

Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 

Commerce. 

ACTION: Notice of intent to prepare an 

environmental impact statement (EIS); 

request for comments; preliminary 

notice of public scoping meetings. 

SUMMARY: NMFS and the Pacific Fishery 

Management Council (Pacific Council) 

announce their intent to prepare an EIS 

in accordance with the National 

Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 

1969 to analyze proposals to allocate 

groundfish among various sectors of the 

non-tribal Pacific Coast groundfish 

fishery. 

DATES: Public scoping meetings will be 

announced in the Federal Register at a 

later date. Written comments will be 

accepted at the Pacific Council office 

through February 8, 2006. 

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, 

on issues and alternatives, identified by 

111505A by any of the following 

methods: 

• E-mail: 

##GFAllocationEIS.nwr@noaa.gov. 

Include [111505A] and enter ‘‘Scoping 

Comments’’ in the subject line of the 

message. 

• Federal eRulemaking Portal: http:// 

www.regulations.gov. 

• Fax: 503–820–2299. 

• Mail: Dr. Donald McIsaac, Pacific 

Fishery Management Council, 7700 NE 

Ambassador Pl., Suite 200, Portland, 

OR, 97220. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. 

John DeVore, Pacific Fishery 

Management Council, phone: 503–820–

2280, fax: 503–820–2299 and email: 

john.devore@noaa.gov; or Yvonne de 

Reynier NMFS, Northwest Region, 

phone: 206–526–6129, fax: 206–526–

6426 and email: 

yvonne.dereynier@noaa.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Electronic Access 

This Federal Register document is 

available on the Government Printing 

Office’s website at: www.gpoaccess.gov/ 

fr/index/html. 

Description of the Proposal 

The proposed action, which will be 

the subject of the EIS and considered by 

the Pacific Council for recommendation 

to NMFS, would establish new 

allocations among sectors of the 

groundfish fishery. Existing allocations 

may or may not be revised as part of the 

proposed action. These allocations are 

needed to support recent Pacific 

Council decisions to use sector-specific 

total catch limits (sector caps) to control 

bycatch (Bycatch Mitigation Program 

Final Environmental Impact Statement), 

would be useful in supporting the 

Pacific Council’s biennial management 

decisions, and would be needed to 

support the trawl individual quota 

program currently under consideration 

in a separate, but closely related EIS. 

General Background 

The Pacific Council implemented a 

Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery 

Management Plan (FMP) in 1982. 

Groundfish stocks are harvested in 

numerous commercial, recreational, and 

tribal fisheries in state and Federal 

waters off the West Coast. The nontribal commercial seafood fleet taking 

groundfish is generally regulated as 

three sectors: Limited entry trawl, 

limited entry fixed gear, and directed 

open access. Groundfish are also 

harvested incidentally in nongroundfish commercial fisheries, most 

notably fisheries for pink shrimp, spot 

and ridgeback prawns, Pacific halibut, 

California halibut, and sea cucumbers 

(incidental open access fisheries). The 

recreational fleet also takes groundfish 

as targeted catch, as well as incidentally 

in, for example, salmon and halibut 

fisheries. 

The Pacific Council has previously 

established a number of formal 

allocations among sectors. 

• An allocation of sablefish between 

the fixed gear and trawl sectors was first 

established by emergency regulation in 

1986. An adjustment was made on April 

26, 1989, and the allocation has 

remained stable since then. 

• Amendment 6 to the FMP (fully 

implemented in 1994 established rules 

for allocating any groundfish species 

between the limited entry and open 

access commercial fisheries based on 

relative catch histories of the two fleets 

from July 11, 1984 through August 1, 

1988. Numerous groundfish species and 

species groups are allocated on the basis 

of this allocation rule. 

• An allocation of whiting among 

domestic segments of the fleet was first 

established in 1991, when the joint 

venture fleet was entirely displaced by 

domestic processors. Several 

adjustments were made before the 

current allocation was established. The 

current allocation is among vessels 

delivering whiting shoreside, vessels 

delivering to motherships and catcher 

processors, and was first implemented 

for the 1997 fishery. 

Other allocations are indirect and 

result from the preseason planning 

process. The management measures 

developed during the preseason process 

are intended to: achieve, but not exceed, 

optimum yields (OYs); prevent 

overfishing; rebuild overfished species; 

reduce and minimize the bycatch and 

discard of overfished and depleted 

stocks; provide equitable harvest 

opportunity for the recreational and 

commercial fishing sectors; and, within 

the commercial fisheries, achieve 

harvest guidelines and limited entry and 

open access allocations to the extent 

practicable. When this preseason 

process is complete, a table is developed 

(called the ‘‘score card’’) which 

summarizes the expected harvest of 

overfished species for each segment of 

the fleet. During the year, the catch by 

each sector is estimated, and 

adjustments to the score card are made 

using inseason information. If it appears 

the OY for an overfished species may be 

exceeded, the Pacific Council 

recommends changes to the 

management measures based on the 

same criteria used during the preseason 

process. As part of this inseason 

process, the expected harvests on the 

scorecard for each sector may be 

adjusted upwards or downwards. The 

explicit allocations that would be 

established under the proposed action 

would replace some or all of those that 

are currently the indirect result of the 

preseason planning process and 

management regulations flowing from 

that process. 

Federal Register / Vol. 70, No. 223 / Monday, November 21, 2005 / Proposed Rules 70055 

Allocations among sectors will be 

needed to support Pacific Council 

policies for managing bycatch. In 

September 2004, NMFS released the 

Bycatch Mitigation Program Final 

Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS), 

containing the Pacific Council’s 

preferred alternative. The Pacific 

Council is developing Amendment 18 to 

the groundfish FMP to implement this 

alternative. Among other things, 

Amendment 18 will add language to 

authorize the use of sector-specific and 

vessel-specific total catch limit 

programs to reduce bycatch in 

appropriate sectors of the fishery and 

support the future use of individual 

fishing quota (IFQ) programs as bycatch 

reduction tools for appropriate fishery 

sectors. 

The Pacific Council embarked on its 

most recent consideration of individual 

quotas for the trawl fishery (a kind of 

dedicated access privilege) in 

September 2003. After conducting 

preliminary internal scoping, the Pacific 

Council announced its intent to prepare 

an EIS on dedicated access privileges in 

a Federal Register document published 

on May 24, 2004 (69 FR 29482–29485). 

The comment period on scoping for that 

EIS was closed on August 2, 2004, and 

the Pacific Council and its advisory 

bodies began their review of comments 

received. At its June 2005 meeting, the 

Pacific Council adopted a range of 

alternatives for an EIS. These 

alternatives focus on IFQs as the main 

kind of dedicated access privilege the 

Pacific Council will be considering. The 

Pacific Council may or may not 

eventually adopt an IFQ program; 

however, before such a program can be 

implemented, allocations will need to 

be established between the trawl fleet 

and other segments of the fishery. 

Preliminary Identification of 

Alternatives 

NEPA requires preparation of an EIS 

for major Federal actions significantly 

affecting the quality of the human 

environment. The Pacific Council and 

NMFS are seeking information from the 

public on the range of alternatives and 

on the environmental, social, and 

economic issues to be considered. 

Alternatives should meet the need for 

allocations to support the Pacific 

Council’s biennial allocation decisions, 

implementation of Amendment 18 

sector caps to control bycatch, and 

implementation of a potential trawl IFQ 

program. Allocation alternatives should 

promote the goals and objectives 

contained in the groundfish FMP, 

available from the Pacific Council 

website (www.pcouncil.org), and should 

be consistent with the national 

standards established under the 

Magnuson-Stevens Fishery 

Conservation and Management Act. 

The Pacific Council’s Groundfish 

Allocation Committee (Allocation 

Committee) has met twice to conduct 

some preliminary scoping on the issue 

(January 26–27, 2005 and May 2–3, 

2005). The Allocation Committee has 

recommended that initial analyses of 

sector total catch limits should be done 

using the following ten sectors: limited 

entry trawl, limited entry fixed gear 

longline, limited entry fixed gear pot/ 

trap, whiting motherships, whiting 

catcher/processors, whiting shore-based, 

open access directed groundfish, open 

access incidental groundfish, tribal, and 

recreational. However, with respect to 

the allocations needed to support the 

trawl IQ decisions, the Allocation 

Committee recommended examination 

of the following sectors: limited entry 

trawl, limited entry fixed gear, open 

access, recreational, and tribal. 

Allocations to the tribal sector would 

not be set as part of an intersector 

allocation formula or schedule. Tribal 

allocation would be set according to the 

case law interpreting the treaties 

between the United States and the 

Northwest treaty Indian tribes. The 

amounts eventually set aside for the 

tribes would be deducted from the totals 

before applying rules for allocation 

among sectors. 

At its meetings, the Allocation 

Committee requested additional data on 

harvest history by segments of the 

fishery. These data will likely be 

available for a tentatively scheduled 

November 14–15, 2005, meeting and 

will be available to any person who 

would like to take the data into 

consideration when providing 

comments. 

The Allocation Committee is 

considering use of a 5–year outlook 

when considering the shape of the 

fishery that the allocations would be 

intended to support. It is also 

considering a recommendation that 

allocations be reviewed every four to six 

years. However, allocations of some 

target species, especially target species 

that are predominant in a single sector, 

may be of longer duration than 

allocations of more constraining species, 

such as the overfished species. Different 

approaches may be used for different 

species. Allocations based on a 

percentage of the OY may make the 

most sense for target species, while a 

sliding scale structure (e.g., the 

allocation percentage by sector varies 

with biomass) may make the most sense 

for allocating overfished species. 

The EIS will identify and evaluate 

reasonable alternatives that might be 

used to achieve the needed allocations. 

The Pacific Council is interested in 

public comment on alternatives that it 

should consider. 

Preliminary Identification of 

Environmental Issues 

A principal objective of this scoping 

and public input process is to identify 

potentially significant impacts to the 

human environment that should be 

analyzed in depth in the intersector 

allocation EIS. Concomitant with 

identification of those impacts to be 

analyzed in depth is identification and 

elimination from detailed study of 

issues that are not significant or which 

have been covered in prior 

environmental reviews. This narrowing 

is intended to allow greater focus on 

those impacts that are potentially most 

significant. Impacts on the following 

components of the biological and 

physical environment will be evaluated: 

(1) essential fish habitat and ecosystems; 

(2) protected species listed under the 

Endangered Species Act and Marine 

Mammal Protection Act and their 

habitat; and (3) the fishery management 

unit, including target and non-target fish 

stocks. Socioeconomic impacts are also 

considered in terms of the effect 

changes will have on the following 

groups: (1) those who participate in 

harvesting the fishery resources and 

other living marine resources (for 

commercial, subsistence, or recreational 

purposes); (2) those who process and 

market fish and fish products; (3) those 

who are involved in allied support 

industries; (4) those who rely on living 

marine resources in the management 

area; (5) those who consume fish 

products; (6) those who benefit from 

non-consumptive use (e.g., wildlife 

viewing); (7) those who do not use the 

resource, but derive benefit from it by 

virtue of its existence, the option to use 

it, or the bequest of the resource to 

future generations; (8) those involved in 

managing and monitoring fisheries; and 

(9) fishing communities. Analysis of the 

effects of the alternatives on these 

groups will be presented in a manner 

that allows the identification of any 

disproportionate impacts on low income 

and minority segments of the identified 

groups, impacts on small entities, and 

cumulative impacts. Additional 

comment is sought on other types of 

impacts that should be considered or 

specific impacts to which particular 

attention should be paid within these 

categories. 

Related NEPA Analyses 

The proposed allocation action is 

necessary to fully implement the 

bycatch management policy decision 

70056 Federal Register / Vol. 70, No. 223 / Monday, November 21, 2005 / Proposed Rules 

made under the Bycatch Mitigation 

Program FEIS. The allocations proposed 

are necessary to implement the sector 

cap policies adopted and information in 

the bycatch EIS may be used to support 

the allocation action. 

The intersector allocation EIS is also 

expected to support the Pacific 

Council’s biennial process for managing 

groundfish. The intersector allocations 

will reduce the scope of actions that 

must be covered by the biennial 

management decisions, and analysis 

produced in this EIS will contribute 

information in support of the 

environmental assessments or EISs 

developed for those actions. 

Finally, the intersector allocation EIS 

is complementary and closely related to 

the EIS for dedicated access privileges, 

and the proposed allocation action 

would be necessary for full 

implementation of an IFQ or other type 

of dedicated access privilege program. 

As described in the notice of intent to 

prepare an EIS on dedicated access 

privileges for the trawl fishery (69 FR 

29482), implementation of an IFQ 

program or an alternative dedicated 

access privilege program for the trawl 

fishery will be a two-step process. The 

first step was to design the basic 

program and its major elements (e.g., 

allocation of shares among participants, 

monitoring and reporting requirements, 

and species to be allocated). The Pacific 

Council has selected a set of alternatives 

for analysis in a dedicated access 

privilege EIS, and drafting of that EIS is 

expected to commence shortly. With 

this notice, the Pacific Council and 

NMFS are seeking comments on the 

second step: determination of the 

amounts of each species that are to be 

allocated to the trawl and other sectors. 

Scoping and Public Involvement 

Scoping is an early and open process 

for identifying the scope of notable 

issues related to proposed alternatives 

(including status quo and other 

alternatives identified during the 

scoping process). A principal objective 

of the scoping and public input process 

is to identify a reasonable set of 

alternatives that, with adequate 

analysis, sharply define critical issues 

and provide a clear basis for 

distinguishing among those alternatives 

and selecting a preferred alternative. 

The public scoping process provides the 

public with the opportunity to comment 

on the range of alternatives. The scope 

of the alternatives to be analyzed should 

be broad enough for the Pacific Council 

and NMFS to make informed decisions 

on whether an alternative should be 

developed and, if so, how it should be 

designed, and to assess other changes to 

the FMP and regulations necessary for 

the implementation of the alternative. 

To provide additional preliminary 

information for the public scoping 

document, the Pacific Council’s 

Allocation Committee has been 

tentatively scheduled to meet November 

14–15, 2005. Information presented at 

this meeting will be available to the 

general public for review and may be 

requested through the Pacific Council 

office (see ADDRESSES) or from the 

Pacific Council website 

(www.pcouncil.org). 

Written comments will be accepted at 

the Pacific Council office through 

February 8, 2006 (see ADDRESSES). 

Public scoping meetings will be 

announced in the Federal Register at a 

later date and posted on the Pacific 

Council website. 

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

Dated: November 15, 2005. 

Alan D. Risenhoover, 

Acting Director, Office of Sustainable 

Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service. 

[FR Doc. 05–22992 Filed 11–18–05; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–22–S