Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 249 / Tuesday, December 30, 2014 / Rules and Regulations 78311 

system. The fitting may be either ‘‘T’’ or 

inline, with a female 1⁄4 threaded 

National Pipe Thread (NPT) port, to 

enable connection to the pressure 

transducer (a component of the EM 

system). 

Before the scheduled date of 

installation, the NMFS-approved 

contractor may contact vessel operators 

in person or by phone to ask questions 

to help them determine power supply, 

vessel configuration, and other 

considerations necessary to facilitate 

installation of the EM system and to 

ensure the system’s compatibility with 

the vessel. The vessel owner and/or 

operator should be present on the day 

of installation to facilitate equipment 

installation and provide access to the 

vessel and information to Saltwater, 

Inc., about the power supply and other 

vessel infrastructure and other 

information as needed. The dates and 

locations of the EM installations are 

listed below in Table 1. These dates and 

locations were chosen based on several 

factors to reduce the potential for the 

installation schedule to interfere with 

fishing trips and to minimize the 

distances vessel may have to travel. In 

order to provide as much flexibility as 

possible for the locations of a limited 

number of installations, NMFS will 

announce any additional locations or 

changes in locations, if warranted, in a 

future notice (‘‘To Be Determined’’). 

TABLE 1—DATES AND LOCATIONS OF

ELECTRONIC MONITORING INSTALLATIONS

Date range (2015) Name of port 

January 16 through 

25.

Cape Canaveral, FL. 

Panama City, FL. 

February 14 through 

23.

Cape Canaveral, FL. 

Dulac, LA. 

March 16 through 25 Wanchese, NC. 

Beaufort, NC. 

April 14 through 23 ... Wanchese, NC. 

Dulac, LA. 

May 11 through 17, 

and 19 through 25.

To Be Determined. 

Barnegat Light, NJ. 

Other Installations 

If a vessel owner and/or operator of an 

eligible vessel is not able to coordinate 

installation with Saltwater, Inc., on one 

of the dates and locations listed in Table 

1, the vessel operator should contact 

Saltwater, Inc., at 800–770–3241 to 

determine whether another mutuallyagreed upon location and date before 

June 1, 2015, is feasible for installation 

and training. NMFS cannot guarantee 

that an alternate location or date will be 

provided given the limited funding and 

time available to complete installation 

of the EM equipment and training. 

Therefore, vessel owners and/or 

operators should make a concerted 

effort to make plans to adhere to the EM 

installation schedule in Table 1. 

Authority: 16 U.S.C. 971 et seq. and 1801 

et seq. 

Dated: December 23, 2014. 

Alan D. Risenhoover, 

Director, Office of Sustainable Fisheries, 

National Marine Fisheries Service. 

[FR Doc. 2014–30521 Filed 12–24–14; 11:15 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–22–P 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration 

50 CFR Part 648 

[Docket No. 140117052–4402–02] 

RIN 0648–XD651 

Fisheries of the Northeastern United 

States; 2015 Summer Flounder, Scup, 

and Black Sea Specifications and 2015 

Commercial Summer Flounder Quota 

Adjustments 

AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries 

Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 

Commerce. 

ACTION: 2015 Summer Flounder, Scup, 

and Black Sea Specifications and 2015 

commercial summer flounder state 

quotas. 

SUMMARY: NMFS is announcing revised 

commercial quotas and recreational 

harvest limits for the 2015 summer 

flounder, scup, and black sea bass 

fisheries, as well as the commercial 

summer flounder state quotas for fishing 

year 2015. This is necessary to 

incorporate adjustments to the quotas 

due to the suspension of the Research 

Set-Aside program, implement an 

accountability measure for the 

commercial black sea bass fishery, and, 

for summer flounder state quotas, 

account for any previously unaccounted 

for overages from fishing year 2013 and 

any known overages to date from fishing 

year 2014. The intent of this action is to 

modify the established harvest levels to 

ensure that these species are not 

overfished or subject to overfishing in 

2015. 

DATES: Effective January 1, 2015, 

through December 31, 2015. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Moira Kelly, Fishery Policy Analyst, 

(978) 281–9218. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Background 

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery 

Management Council and the Atlantic 

States Marine Fisheries Commission 

cooperatively manage the summer 

flounder, scup, and black sea bass 

fisheries. Specifications for these 

fisheries include the acceptable 

biological catch (ABC) limit, various 

catch and landing subdivisions (such as 

the commercial and recreational sector 

annual catch limits (ACLs)), annual 

catch targets (ACTs), sector-specific 

landing limits (i.e., the commercial 

fishery quotas and recreational harvest 

limits), and research set-aside quotas 

established for one or more fishing 

years. Typically, these specifications are 

set on an annual or multi-year basis and 

announced in the Federal Register in 

December. The specifications 

rulemaking for 2014 was delayed 

because of a summer flounder stock 

assessment. This delay allowed the 

Council to establish the 2015 

specifications in May 2014, in 

conjunction with the revised 2014 

specifications (May 22, 2014; 79 FR 

29371). The 2015 specifications were 

based on recommendations that the 

Council made in October 2013, and 

included commercial quotas and 

recreational harvest limits as adjusted 

for a 3-percent reduction in landings to 

accommodate the Research Set-Aside 

program. 

Research Set-Aside Quota Restoration 

The Research Set-Aside program has 

recently been the subject of significant 

debate regarding its effectiveness in 

providing useful research and for 

enforcement concerns. At its August 

2014 meeting, the Council voted to 

suspend the Research Set-Aside 

program for fishing year 2015 and to 

conduct a comprehensive review of the 

program. As a result, the previously 

deducted Research Set-Aside amounts 

will be redistributed to the respective 

commercial quota and recreational 

harvest limits, as follows: 

TABLE 1—PREVIOUSLY DEDUCTED

RESEARCH SET-ASIDE QUOTA

lb mt 

Commercial Summer 

Flounder ................ 332,898 151 

Recreational Summer 

Flounder ................ 220,462 100 

Commercial Scup ..... 637,136 289 

Recreational Scup .... 205,030 93 

Commercial Black 

Sea Bass ............... 70,548 32 

Recreational Black 

Sea Bass ............... 66,139 30 


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78312 Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 249 / Tuesday, December 30, 2014 / Rules and Regulations 

Commercial Black Sea Bass 

Accountability Measure 

For each fishery, the ABC is equal to 

the sum of the commercial and 

recreational ACLs. Based on 

recommendations from the Council’s 

Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea 

Bass Monitoring Committees, the ACT 

was set equal to the ACL for the 

commercial and recreational sectors for 

all three species for the 2015 fishing 

year. However, there was an overage of 

the 2013 black sea bass commercial ACL 

because discards were higher than 

projected. The non-landings 

accountability measure, specified at 50 

CFR 648.143(b), requires the exact 

amount, in pounds, by which the 

commercial ACL was exceeded to be 

deducted, as soon as possible, from the 

applicable subsequent single fishing 

year commercial ACL. As such, the 

commercial black sea bass ACL of 2.60 

million lb (1,180 mt) is reduced by the 

overage amount (22,564 lb (10 mt)), 

resulting in a commercial ACT of 2.58 

million lb (1,170 mt). Projected 

discards, calculating using recent 

discard information, consistent with the 

requirements of the FMP, are then 

deducted from the ACT for each fishery 

in order to establish the commercial 

quota or recreational harvest limit, 

respectively. 

Revised 2015 Specifications 

Table 2 shows the revised 

specifications for the 2015 fishing year, 

including the sector-specific projected 

discards used to calculate the landings 

limits. These specifications include the 

restoration of the Research Set-Aside 

program quotas, as well as the 

commercial black sea bass 

accountability measure described above. 

TABLE 2—2015 SUMMER FLOUNDER, SCUP, AND BLACK SEA BASS SPECIFICATIONS

Summer Flounder Scup Black Sea Bass 

million lb mt million lb mt million lb mt 

ABC .......................................................... 22.57 10,239 33.77 15,320 5.50 2,494 

Commercial ACL ...................................... 13.34 6,049 26.35 11,950 2.60 1,180 

Commercial ACT ...................................... 13.34 6,049 26.35 11,950 2.58 1,170 

Commercial Discards ............................... 2.67 1,028 5.11 2,318 0.37 166 

Commercial Quota ................................... 11.07 5,021 21.23 9,632 2.21 1,004 

Recreational ACL/ACT ............................. 9.44 4,280 7.43 3,370 2.90 1,314 

Recreational Discards .............................. 2.06 933 0.63 286 0.57 258 

Recreational Harvest Limit ....................... 7.38 3,347 6.80 3,084 2.33 1,056 

Summer Flounder State Quotas and 

Overages 

An important component of the 

annual specifications rulemaking is the 

notification of the commercial summer 

flounder state quotas and overages. 

Overages are calculated using final 

landings data from the previous fishing 

year and landings from the current 

fishing year through October 31. In this 

case, previously unaccounted for 

overages from fishing year 2013 are 

combined with known overages through 

October 31, 2014. The 2015 summer 

flounder state quotas, adjusted for these 

overages, are as follows: 

TABLE 3—2015 COMMERCIAL SUMMER FLOUNDER STATE QUOTAS

State FMP percent 

share 

2015 Initial quota Quota overages 

(through 10/31/14) 1

Adjusted 2015 quota, 

less overages 

lb kg 2

lb kg 2 lb kg 2

...........

ME ......... 0 .04756 5,265 2,390 0 0 5,265 2,388 

NH ......... 0 .00046 51 20 0 0 51 23 

MA ......... 6 .82046 754,985 342,460 ¥5,050 ¥2,291 749,935 340,165 

RI ........... 15 .68298 1,736,013 787,440 0 0 1,736,013 787,442 

CT .......... 2 .25708 249,845 113,330 0 0 249,845 113,328 

NY ......... 7 .64699 846,477 383,960 0 0 846,477 383,955 

NJ .......... 16 .72499 1,851,358 839,760 0 0 1,851,358 839,762 

DE3 ....... 0 .01779 1,969 890 ¥51,430 ¥23,328 ¥49,461 ¥22,435 

MD ......... 2 .03910 225,716 102,380 0 0 225,716 102,383 

VA .......... 21 .31676 2,359,640 1,070,310 0 0 2,359,640 1,070,315 

NC ......... 27 .44584 3,038,093 1,378,060 0 0 3,038,093 1,378,056 

Total 100 .00 11,069,410 5,021,000 ¥56,450 ¥25,619 4 11,062,392 4 5,017,817 

1 2014 quota overage is determined by comparing landings for January through October 2014, plus any landings in 2013 in excess of the 2013 

quota (that were not previously addressed in the 2014 specifications) for each state. 2Kilograms are as converted from pounds and may not necessarily add due to rounding. 

3For Delaware, this includes continued repayment of overharvest from previous years. 

4Total quota is the sum for all states with an allocation. A state with a negative number has a 2015 allocation of zero (0). 

Delaware Summer Flounder Closure 

Table 3 shows that, for Delaware, the 

amount of overharvest from previous 

years is greater than the amount of 

commercial quota allocated to Delaware 

for 2015. As a result, there is no quota 

available for 2015 in Delaware. The 

regulations at § 648.4(b) state that 

Federal permit holders, as a condition of 

their permit, must not land summer 

flounder in any state that the 

Administrator, Greater Atlantic Region, 

NMFS, has determined no longer has 

commercial quota available for harvest. 

Therefore, effective January 1, 2015, 


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Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 249 / Tuesday, December 30, 2014 / Rules and Regulations 78313 

landings of summer flounder in 

Delaware by vessels holding commercial 

Federal summer flounder permits are 

prohibited for the 2015 calendar year, 

unless additional quota becomes 

available through a quota transfer and is 

announced in the Federal Register. 

Federally permitted dealers are advised 

that they may not purchase summer 

flounder from federally permitted 

vessels that land in Delaware for the 

2015 calendar year, unless additional 

quota becomes available through a 

transfer, as mentioned above. 

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

Dated: December 23, 2014. 

Alan D. Risenhoover, 

Director, Office of Sustainable Fisheries, 

National Marine Fisheries Service. 

[FR Doc. 2014–30500 Filed 12–29–14; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–22–P 


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