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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 2 / Tuesday, January 5, 2021 / Proposed Rules
This proposed rule has been determined to be not significant for purposes of Executive Order 12866.
This proposed rule is not an Executive Order 13771 regulatory action because this rule is not significant under Executive Order 12866.
The Chief Counsel for Regulation of the Department of Commerce certified to the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the Small Business Administration SBA
that this proposed rule, if adopted, would not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. Under the Regulatory Flexibility Act RFA, the SBA defines a small business or small entity as one with annual revenue that meets or is below an established size standard.
On December 29, 2015, NMFS issued a final rule establishing a small business size standard of $11 million in annual gross receipts for all businesses primarily engaged in the commercial fishing industry NAICS 11411 for RFA
compliance purposes only 80 FR
81194. The $11 million standard
became effective on July 1, 2016, and is to be used in place of the U.S. SBA
current standards of $20.5 million, $5.5
million, and $7.5 million for the finfish NAICS 114111, shellfish NAICS
114112, and other marine fishing NAICS 114119 sectors of the U.S.
commercial fishing industry in all NMFS rules subject to the RFA after July 1, 2016. Id. at 81194.
The 85 small entities the proposed action would directly affect are all U.S.
commercial fishing vessels that may target e.g., coastal pelagic purse seine vessels or incidentally catch e.g., drift gillnet vessels Pacific bluefin tuna in the Convention Area; however, not all vessels that have participated in this fishery decide to do so every year, with annual participation as low as 8 vessels.
These vessels are characterized in greater detail below. U.S. commercial catch of Pacific bluefin tuna from the IATTC Convention Area is primarily made in waters off of California by the coastal pelagic small purse seine fleet, which targets Pacific bluefin tuna
opportunistically, and other fleets e.g., California large-mesh drift gillnet, surface hook-and-line, west coast longline, and Hawaiis pelagic fisheries that catch Pacific bluefin tuna in small quantities, such as incidentally.
Since 2006, the average annual revenue per vessel from all finfish fishing activities for the U.S. purse seine fleet that have landed Pacific bluefin tuna has been less than $11 million, whether considering an individual vessel or per vessel average. From 2015
2019, purse seine vessels that caught Pacific bluefin tuna had an average exvessel revenue of about $986,000 per vessel per year in inflation-adjusted 2019 dollars based on all species landed. Annually, from 2015 to 2019, the number of small coastal pelagic purse seine vessels that landed Pacific bluefin tuna to the U.S. West Coast ranged from five to nine. Table 1 below summarizes the number of coastal purse seine vessels landing Pacific bluefin tuna in each year 20152019, along with total annual landings and revenues.

TABLE 1NUMBER OF SMALL COASTAL PURSE SEINE VESSELS LANDING PACIFIC BLUEFIN TUNA TO THE U.S. WEST
COAST, ALONG WITH ANNUAL LANDINGS AND REVENUES FROM PACIFIC BLUEFIN TUNA, 20152019
Number of vessels
Year 2015
2016
2017
2018
2019

Landings mt 5
5 8
8 9

86.4
315.7
466.4
11.5
226.1

Ex-vessel revenue $74,806
351,767
516,135
11,378
258,937

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Note: Landings and ex-vessel revenue are for all small coastal purse seine vessels that landed Pacific bluefin tuna in the year. Source Pacific Fisheries Information Network.

The revenue derived from Pacific bluefin tuna is 2.4 percent of the overall revenue for coastal pelagic purse seine vessels that landed Pacific bluefin tuna annually from 20152019, with the majority of revenue in recent years from Pacific sardine, market squid, and to a lesser extent yellowfin tuna. Since implementing a 25 mt trip limit i.e., since 2015, average catch was 11.2 mt per trip. 35 of 96 trips i.e., 36 percent conducted by purse seine vessels landing Pacific bluefin tuna from 2015
2019 exceeded 15 mt. Vessels meeting the trip limit before completion of a trip or fishing after the trip limit is reduced to 2 mt will likely shift their focus and target other species, such as yellowfin tuna, if available, or coastal pelagic species. This rule is not expected to impose any direct regulatory costs on pelagic purse seine vessels, although vessels would face indirect operational costs if they approach the trip limits or the total catch approaches the annual limit. Because this rule is expected to
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affect about one third of trips of a fishery that accounts for about 2 percent of annual revenues, there is not expected to be a significant negative impact to profitability. Revenues and costs, and corresponding profitability, of coastal purse seine vessels are not expected to be significantly altered as a result of this rule, which is applicable to 2021 only.
Since 2006, the average annual revenue per vessel from all finfish fishing activities for the U.S. fleet with landings of Pacific bluefin tuna in small quantities, such as from incidental catch or hook-and-line, has been less than $11
million. These vessels include drift gillnet, surface hook-and-line, and longline gear-types. The revenues of these vessels are also not expected to be significantly altered by the rule. From 2015 to 2019, between 7 and 14 drift gillnet vessels, 40 to 80 surface hookand-line vessels, and 1 longline vessel landed Pacific bluefin tuna. During these years, vessels with gears other
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than purse seine landed an annual average of 35.2 mt of Pacific bluefin tuna, worth approximately $290,735. Of these landings, only two trips out of approximately 1,450 over 5 years exceeded 2 mt of incidental Pacific bluefin tuna catch, and three additional trips were within 25 percent of the limit. The four vessels who took these five trips close to or in excess of the 2
mt limit would be most likely to be impacted by this rule; however, these trips represented less than 1 percent of these vessels average annual revenue from all species. As a result, it is anticipated that proposed reduced trip limits will not have a significant impact on these vessels. If the fishery is closed before the end of the calendar year, regulatory discards by these fleets are likely. Such a scenario would result in a greater impact to the fleet that catches Pacific bluefin tuna in small quantities, as opposed to the coastal purse seine fleet, which would simply cease targeting of Pacific bluefin tuna. This
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