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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 60 / Wednesday, March 31, 2021 / Proposed Rules
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TABLE 5HISTORIC TARGET COVERAGE LEVEL FOR MONITORINGContinued Total target coverage level percent
Fishing year 2020

ASM target coverage level percent
40

NEFOP target coverage level percent

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Beginning in fishing year 2019, assignment of NEFOP coverage changed in a way that no longer provided a single coverage target across all sectors. As a result, the total target coverage level was no longer partitioned into fixed ASM and NEFOP target coverage levels.

On March 20, 2020, we issued a fleetwide observer waiver in response to local travel restrictions and limits on gatherings. During this time, we worked with monitoring service providers to develop observer redeployment plans, finalize internal policies to promote safe and effective redeployment, and conduct outreach to industry. We initiated the redeployment process on August 14, 2020. We are currently operating under two national level observer waivers. A vessel receives a waiver if an observer or ASM is not available for deployment; or the observer provider cannot meet the safety protocols imposed by a state on the commercial fishing crew or by the vessel or vessel company on its crew.
Service provider companies have experienced significant staff attrition this year as a result of the limited amount of work available, and will need to hire additional staff to meet future specified coverage levels. Given the circumstances, we do not expect sectors to meet the 40 percent target coverage level in fishing year 2020. We expect to work with sectors and service provider companies through the remainder of the year to increase coverage levels to the extent possible, and to ensure they meet the specified coverage level when normal operations resume.
As announced in the previous section, we have determined that the EM audit model is sufficient to be used by vessels instead of ASM to meet sector monitoring requirements. Sector vessels may choose to use either ASM or the EM audit model to meet monitoring requirements, provided that the sector has a corresponding monitoring program approved as part of its operations plans, and we will no longer implement the EM audit model using an EFP. On January 26, 2021, we announced that the total target ASM
coverage level will be 40 percent for fishing year 2021. Vessels that choose to use ASM to meet monitoring requirements would have a target coverage level of 40 percent for all sector groundfish trips. Vessels that choose to use EM to meet monitoring coverage requirements would use cameras and adhere to catch handling protocols as described in the VMP for
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all groundfish trips. Only a subset of the submitted trips would be selected for review to monitor groundfish discards for catch accounting. For fishing year 2021, NMFS would randomly select 50
percent of trips for review by a thirdparty service provider. A subset of the selected trips would undergo a secondary review by NMFS to monitor the third-party service providers performance. The vessel owner or operator and the third-party service provider must provide the EM data for any given trip to NMFS, and its authorized officers and designees, upon request including, but not limited to, trips selected for secondary review. The fishing year 2022 selection rate for third-party review would be announced during fishing year 2021. The selection rate may vary annually based on vessel performance and less than 100 percent of trips would be reviewed, consistent with regulations at 50 CFR
648.87b1vB1. Although the exact costs of groundfish monitoring for fishing year 2021 are not known at this time, we expect we will have sufficient funds to fully reimburse industrys costs for ASM and EM based on our experience in previous fishing years.
Proposed Industry-Funded Monitoring Programs The draft operations plans submitted in October 2020 include industryfunded monitoring plans for fishing year 2021. As in previous years, we gave sectors the option to design their own monitoring programs in compliance with regulations or elect to adopt the NMFS-designed ASM and/or EM audit model programs. The NMFS-designed ASM program is the same program that we have used in previous fishing years.
In the event that we cannot approve a proposed monitoring program, we asked all sectors to include an option to select a current NMFS-designed monitoring program as a fail-safe.
All active sectors submitted an ASM
plan as part of their draft operations plans. Similar to previous years, some sectors chose to use the NMFS-designed ASM program while others proposed programs of their own design. Sectordesigned ASM programs for fishing
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years 2021 and 2022 were similar to those approved in past years.
Sustainable Harvest Sectors 1, 2, and 3; the GB Cod Fixed Gear Sector, the Maine Coast Community Sector, and Northeast Fishery Sectors NEFS 5, 10, 11, and 13 have proposed to use the NMFS-designed ASM program. We propose to approve this program for these sectors because it is consistent with goals and objectives of monitoring and regulatory requirements. Sectors that operate only as permit banks, and explicitly prohibit fishing in their operations plans, are not required to include provisions for an ASM program.
We propose to approve the ASM
programs proposed by the remaining five active sectors, NEFS 2, 6, 7, 8, and 12, which state that they will: Contract with a NMFS-approved ASM provider;
meet the specified coverage level; and utilize the Pre-Trip Notification System for random selection of monitored trips and notification to providers. These ASM programs also include additional protocols for ASM coverage waivers, incident reporting, and safety requirements for their sector managers and members. We have preliminarily determined that the proposed programs are consistent with the goals and objectives of ASM and regulatory requirements.
Seven sectors also submitted an EM
plan as part of their draft operations plans. Of these sectors, six sectors, Sustainable Harvest Sectors 1, 2, and 3;
the GB Cod Fixed Gear Sector, the Maine Coast Community Sector, and Northeast Fishery Sector 5, chose to use the NMFS-designed EM audit model program. We propose to approve this program for these sectors because it is consistent with goals and objectives of monitoring and regulatory requirements.
One sector, Northeast Fishery Sector 2, proposed an EM program of its own design. The proposed program maintained key elements of the NMFSdesigned EM audit model program as the basis for its proposed EM program with modifications. We propose to approve NEFS 2s proposed program, which states that it will: Contract with an approved service provider; utilize PTNS as required; run cameras on 100
percent of groundfish trips for EM

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