Federal Register / Vol. 74, No. 103 / Monday, June 1, 2009 / Proposed Rules 26183 

B. IBCs 

1. Potential Management Options and 

Issues 

Applicability. IBCs refer to a part of a 

total allowable amount of interaction 

with bycatch species (which may 

include both non-target and protected 

species) that may be encountered during 

fishing activity. The total allowable 

amount of interaction with bycatch 

species may be established through 

mechanisms such as stock assessments 

that establish a TAC for overfished 

species, incidental take statements 

issued under the ESA, or other 

mechanisms. Examples of bycatch 

species may be an overfished species for 

which overfishing is occurring or a 

listed species. By distributing the 

allowable amount of interaction with 

bycatch species to vessels, either 

individually or grouped, or on a 

regional basis, the ability to individually 

or regionally manage interactions may 

be achieved. The advantages of this 

management approach may include: 

increased individual responsibility for 

interactions in a fishery; increased 

ability for individuals that avoid 

interactions to continue to fish; and 

more regionally applicable 

consequences of interactions if bycatch 

caps are applied on a regional basis. 

IBCs represent a significant change from 

the way that bycatch issues in most 

HMS fisheries are managed because 

allowable limits of bycatch would be 

assigned to individual participants, 

groups of participants, or regions. The 

biological, social or economic impacts 

associated with such a change in the 

management of bycatch in HMS 

fisheries could vary greatly, depending 

on the specifics of the provisions 

implemented. All such impacts would 

be analyzed in a separate rulemaking 

with appropriate supporting 

documentation should such provisions 

be further considered. 

2. Request for Comments Regarding 

IBCs 

The preceding section provided 

information on the options and issues 

regarding IBCs in HMS fisheries. The 

public is encouraged to submit 

comments related to any aspect of this 

topic. NMFS is also specifically seeking 

comments to the following questions. 

How might an IBC system in HMS 

fisheries affect the status of bycatch 

species? What aspects of an IBC system 

in HMS fisheries might be advantageous 

to fishery participants? What aspects of 

an IBC system would not be 

advantageous to fishery participants? 

What efficient and effective ways of 

monitoring IBCs are there? What social, 

biological, or economic impacts might 

be associated with implementation of 

IBCs in HMS fisheries? What should 

NMFS consider when evaluating IBCs 

for HMS fisheries? 

V. Submission of Public Comments 

NMFS reminds the public that there 

are two deadlines for the submission of 

written comments. The comment period 

for items discussed in Section II of this 

ANPR closes on June 30, 2009. The 

comment period for items discussed in 

Sections III and IV of this ANPR closes 

on August 31, 2009. Please see the 

ADDRESSES section of this ANPR for 

additional information regarding the 

submission of written comments. 

All written comments received by the 

due dates will be considered in drafting 

proposed changes to the HMS 

regulations. In developing any proposed 

regulations, NMFS must consider and 

analyze ecological, social, and economic 

impacts. Therefore, NMFS encourages 

comments that would contribute to the 

required analyses, and respond to the 

questions presented in this ANPR. 

Public Meetings 

NMFS will hold five public meetings 

to receive comments from fishery 

participants and other members of the 

public regarding this ANPR. These 

meetings will be physically accessible to 

people with disabilities. Request for 

sign language interpretation or other 

auxiliary aids should be directed to 

Sarah McLaughlin at 978–281–9260 or 

Randy Blankinship at 727–824–5399, at 

least 7 days prior to the meeting. For 

individuals unable to attend a meeting, 

NMFS also solicits written comments on 

the ANPR (see DATES and ADDRESSES). 

The meeting dates, times, and 

locations follow. All meetings will be 

held from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. All 

meetings will begin with an opportunity 

for individuals to view information on 

the issues raised in this ANPR and ask 

questions at 5:00 p.m. followed by a 

presentation and opportunity for public 

comment beginning at 6:00 p.m. 

1. June 23, 2009, Holiday Inn, 151 

Route 72 East, Manahawkin, NJ 08050 

2. June 25, 2009, Roanoke Island 

Festival Park, 1 Festival Park, Manteo, 

NC 27954 

3. June 29, Radisson Hotel Plymouth 

Harbor, 180 Water Street, Plymouth MA 

02360 

4. July 21, Belle Chasse Auditorium, 

8398 Hwy. 23, Belle Chasse, LA 70037 

5. July 28, Broward County Main 

Library, 100 S. Andrews Ave., Fort 

Lauderdale, FL 33301 

Classification 

This action is not significant pursuant 

to Executive Order 12866. 

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

et seq. 

Dated: May 26, 2009. 

Samuel D. Rauch, III, 

Deputy Assistant Administrator for 

Regulatory Programs, National Marine 

Fisheries Service. 

[FR Doc. E9–12652 Filed 5–29–09; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–22–S 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration 

50 CFR Part 679 

RIN 0648–XL60 

Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic 

Zone Off Alaska; Loan Program for 

Crab Quota Share; Amendment 33 

AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries 

Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 

Commerce. 

ACTION: Notice of availability of a 

proposed amendment to a fishery 

management plan; request for 

comments. 

SUMMARY: The North Pacific Fishery 

Management Council (Council) has 

submitted Amendment 33 to the Fishery 

Management Plan for Bering Sea/ 

Aleutian Islands King and Tanner Crabs 

(FMP). If approved, Amendment 33 

would allow NMFS to reduce the 

amount of fees collected under the Crab 

Rationalization Program to the amount 

needed to finance the Federal loan 

program for quota share purchase. The 

amendment would allow NMFS to 

reserve only the amount of fees 

necessary to support the loan program, 

including no fees if none are needed. 

This action is necessary to ensure that 

fishery participants do not pay fees for 

loan program financing in excess of the 

fees needed to support the loan 

program. This FMP amendment would 

not result in modifications to Federal 

regulations. 

DATES: Comments on Amendment 33 

must be received on or before July 31, 

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– 

XL60‘‘, by any one of the following 

methods: 

26184 Federal Register / Vol. 74, No. 103 / Monday, June 1, 2009 / Proposed Rules 

• Electronic Submissions: Submit all 

electronic public comments via the 

Federal eRulemaking Portal website at 

http://www.regulations.gov. 

• Mail: P. O. Box 21668, Juneau, AK 

99802. 

• Fax: (907) 586–7557. 

• Hand delivery to the Federal 

Building: 709 West 9th Street, Room 

420A, Juneau, AK. 

Instructions: All comments received 

are a part of the public record and will 

generally 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 will be accepted in Microsoft 

Word, Excel, WordPerfect, or Adobe 

portable document file (pdf) formats 

only. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Jeff 

Hartman, 907–586–7442. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The 

Magnuson-Stevens Fishery 

Conservation and Management Act 

(Magnuson-Stevens Act) requires that 

each regional fishery management 

council submit any fishery management 

plan or fishery management plan 

amendment that it prepares to NMFS for 

review and approval, disapproval, or 

partial approval by the Secretary of 

Commerce. 

In 2005, NMFS implemented the Crab 

Rationalization Program (Program) for 

Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands (BSAI) crab 

fisheries by allocating exclusive fishing 

and processing privileges (March 25, 

2005, 70 FR 10174). Programs that 

allocate exclusive fishing privileges are 

commonly known as limited access 

privilege programs (LAPPs). At its most 

basic, the Program recommended by the 

Council: (1) allocated long term harvest 

privileges known as quota share (QS) 

that were based on the catch history of 

vessel owners and captains during a 

specific period, and can yield exclusive 

annual harvest privileges for QS 

holders, (2) allocated long term 

processing privileges known as 

processor quota share (PQS) to 

processors that were based on their 

processing history during a specific time 

period, and can yield exclusive annual 

processing privileges from PQS holders, 

and (3) included provisions to limit the 

delivery of much of the catch to specific 

geographic regions and required 

linkages with communities that have 

been historically dependent on the crab 

fisheries. The Program also includes a 

suite of other measures limiting the 

amount of QS and PQS a person can 

hold, specific catch accounting and 

monitoring requirements, mechanisms 

for transferring QS and PQS, price and 

delivery negotiation standards, 

economic data collection provisions, 

and other measures. 

The Program recommended by the 

Council included provisions for a fee 

collection program consistent with the 

Magnuson-Stevens Act. The MagnusonStevens Act requires that NMFS collect 

fees on all LAPPs of not greater than 3 

percent of the exvessel value of a fishery 

to recover the actual direct management, 

enforcement, and data collection costs 

in the fishery. NMFS may reimburse 

itself and other agencies for the actual 

direct costs of Program administration. 

The Magnuson-Stevens Act also allows 

NMFS to set aside a portion of LAPP 

cost recovery fees to aid in loan 

financing if such a set aside is 

recommended by the Council. The 

Council adopted a provision under the 

Program for a loan program to aid QS 

purchases by entry-level and small boat 

captains and crew who are active in the 

fishery. The Council recommended that 

25 percent of the fees collected should 

be set aside to provide for financing a 

loan program. The Council also 

provided that NMFS should collect 133 

percent of its actual direct costs to 

ensure that NMFS could fully recover 

actual management costs and set aside 

25 percent of the fees collected, 

provided the sum of all fees collected 

does not exceed 3 percent of the 

exvessel value of the fishery. The funds 

collected for the crew and captains loan 

program were intended to compensate 

the government for the costs such as 

delinquencies, defaults, servicing fees, 

and penalties not covered by payments 

to comply with the Federal Credit 

Reform Act (FCRA) of 1990 (2 U.S.C. 

661). This amount of funds that may be 

required is referred to as the FCRA loan 

subsidy cost. 

The fee collection provisions required 

by the Magnuson-Stevens Act and 

included in the Program were 

implemented in the March 2, 2005 final 

rule (70 FR 10174). However, NMFS did 

not include a loan program for QS 

purchase as part of the March 2005 final 

rule because Congress had not provided 

NMFS with the necessary appropriation 

authority to grant a specific amount of 

Federal loans, or provided for an 

appropriation to subsidize any 

anticipated defaults or costs for 

administering a loan program that may 

not be recovered by the interest 

payments on the loans. The MagnusonStevens Act requires NMFS to 

administer loan programs under the 

credit authority of Title XI of the 

Merchant Marine Act, 1936. 

The FCRA requires that NMFS not 

issue loans unless specific authority is 

granted by Congress. In addition, the 

FCRA requires any new loan obligation 

with estimated net loan losses (FCRA 

subsidy costs) be appropriated at the 

time Congress authorizes the amount of 

the loans that can be provided (i.e., the 

annual loan ceiling). Under the 

Magnuson-Stevens Act, a portion of the 

LAPP cost recovery fees, up to 25 

percent of the amount collected and set 

aside for a loan program, could be used 

to provide the FCRA subsidy costs for 

the loan program. Alternatively, it may 

not be necessary to set aside any 

appropriation for the FCRA costs could 

be met through a direct appropriation, 

or may not be necessary if the net loan 

losses (i.e., the FCRA subsidy costs) are 

zero or negative. NMFS withheld the 

development of a loan program until 

Congress granted NMFS the necessary 

authority to provide for loans through 

the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 

2008 (Pub. L. 110–161), and the 

appropriate FCRA loan subsidy cost 

could be determined. 

Beginning in June 2006, NMFS began 

collecting fees in accordance with the 

Magnuson-Stevens Act and set aside 25 

percent of the fees collected for 

purposes of a loan program as required 

by the Program. NMFS had presumed 

that a portion of the fees that had been 

set aside for the loan program would be 

used to provide for any required loan 

subsidy as required by FCRA once 

NMFS received the necessary authority 

to grant the loans. 

During the process of developing the 

definitions of the loan program terms, it 

became clear to NMFS Financial 

Services Division (FSD) that because of 

the anticipated low default rate of loans, 

it is highly likely that the amount need 

to be set aside to provide for the FCRA 

loan subsidy coverage will not be the 

full 25 percent required by the program. 

NMFS FSD bases this assessment on the 

fact that under the existing halibut and 

sablefish IFQ program, the default rate 

on loans has been less than the revenue 

received from interest on the loans, and 

fees collected have not been required for 

loan program financing. NMFS FSD has 

indicated that it does not anticipate 

using fees collected under the Program 

to provide for loan financing because it 

anticipates a repayment history under 

the Program similar to that of the 

halibut and sablefish IFQ fishery with a 

zero or negative FCRA subsidy cost. If 

the loan program does not have a 

Federal Register / Vol. 74, No. 103 / Monday, June 1, 2009 / Proposed Rules 26185 

subsidy cost, fees would not need to be 

set aside for that purpose. 

However, the FMP requires that 133 

percent of the actual direct costs must 

be collected with 25 percent of the fees 

collected set aside for loan 

subsidization. Given recent trends of 

increasing crab total allowable catches 

(TACs) and exvessel values, it is 

possible that direct management costs 

could represent less than 3 percent of 

the exvessel value of the rationalized 

crab fisheries. In that case, NMFS would 

collect more than 100 percent of the 

management costs to fund the 

mandatory 25 percent set-aside for the 

loan program subsidization, up to 133 

percent of the actual management costs, 

as long as the total fee is under 3 percent 

of the exvessel value in the rationalized 

crab fisheries. In April 2008, NMFS 

recommended that the Council amend 

its FMP to avoid collecting LAPP cost 

recovery fees beyond the amount 

required to reimburse agency costs and 

provide for a loan program. 

To resolve this issue, in June 2008, 

the Council recommended that 

Amendment 33 be prepared and 

submitted to the Secretary for approval. 

The proposed FMP amendment 

authorizes NMFS to collect fees up to 

the amount needed to support the 

projected FCRA loan subsidy cost. If 

NMFS determines that no additional 

funds would be required to offset the 

FCRA loan subsidy, it would be 

authorized not to collect fees for the 

subsidy. The FMP text would be 

amended to authorize NMFS to collect 

a variable amount of ‘‘up to’’ 133 

percent of the actual direct cost of 

management for loan subsidies and ‘‘up 

to’’ 25 percent of the loan funds 

collected for loans, to offset the cost of 

subsidies for these loans. This variable 

amount authority in the FMP will 

replace the fixed amount requirement. 

This change would ensure that NMFS 

has the necessary flexibility to collect 

fees commensurate with the subsidy 

costs of the loan program. Amendment 

33 would not effect the funds 

appropriated by Congress to initiate and 

support crew and captains loans under 

the Program, only the amount of fees 

collected to pay for the estimated 

subsidy on those loans. 

Approval of Amendment 33 would 

not require amendment of regulations at 

50 CFR 680.2 that implement the 

general fee collection provisions of the 

program. 

The Council also considered and 

rejected two additional alternatives for 

addressing the assignment of fees to 

low-interest loans for crew and captains 

in the Program. One alternative was to 

make no amendment to the low-interest 

loan program in the FMP. That 

alternative was rejected by the Council 

because excess fees would be collected 

from the participants in the Program 

and that would not assist in meeting the 

goals of the low-interest loan program. 

The second alternative was to remove 

all references in the FMP that require a 

portion of the fees collected to be 

dedicated to a loan program set-aside. If 

no fees are set aside to offset potential 

FCRA subsidy costs, NMFS FSD would 

have to meet any FCRA subsidy cost 

requirements by receiving a direct 

appropriation from Congress. This 

alternative was rejected because it 

would effectively preclude NMFS from 

collecting fees to provide any necessary 

FCRA subsidy cost, if they were 

required. 

Public comments are being solicited 

on Amendment 33. Comments received 

by the closing date will be considered 

in the approval/disapproval decision on 

the amendment. To be considered, 

written comments must be received by 

NMFS, not just postmarked or otherwise 

transmitted, by the close of business on 

the last day of the comment period. 

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

seq., 3631 et seq.; Pub. L. 108–447. 

Dated: May 26, 2009. 

Kristen C. Koch, 

Acting Director, Office of Sustainable 

Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service. 

[FR Doc. E9–12644 Filed 5–29–09; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–22–S