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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 60 / Wednesday, March 31, 2021 / Proposed Rules
through a process consistent with the Administrative Procedure Act.
Each sector is required to ensure that it does not exceed its ACE during the fishing year. Sector vessels are required to retain all legal-sized allocated Northeast multispecies stocks, unless a sector is granted an exemption allowing its member vessels to discard legal-sized unmarketable fish at sea. Catch defined as landings and discards of all allocated Northeast multispecies stocks by a sectors vessels count against the sectors allocation. Groundfish catch from a sector trip targeting nongroundfish species would be deducted from the sectors ACE because these are groundfish trips using gear capable of catching groundfish. Catch from a nonsector trip in an exempted fishery does not count against a sectors allocation and is assigned to a separate ACL subcomponent to account for any groundfish bycatch that occurs in nongroundfish fisheries.
Each sector contract details the method for initial ACE sub-allocation to sector members. For fishing years 2021
and 2022, each sector has proposed that each active sector member could harvest an amount of fish equal to the amount each individual members permit contributed to the sector, as modified by the sector for reserves or other management measures. Each sector operations plan submitted for fishing years 2021 and 2022 states that the sector would withhold an initial reserve from the sectors ACE sub-allocation to each individual member to prevent the sector from exceeding its ACE. A sector and sector members can be held jointly and severally liable for ACE overages, discarding legal-sized fish, and/or misreporting catch landings or discards. Each sector contract provides procedures for sector enforcement of its rules, explains sector monitoring and reporting requirements, provides sector managers with the authority to issue stop fishing orders to sector members
who violate provisions of the operations plan and contract, and presents a schedule of penalties that managers may levy on members for sector plan violations.
Sectors are required to monitor their allocations and catch. To help ensure that a sector does not exceed its ACE, each sector operations plan explains sector monitoring and reporting requirements, including a requirement to submit weekly catch reports to us. If a sector reaches an ACE threshold specified in the operations plan, the sector must provide us with sector allocation usage reports on a daily basis.
Once a sectors allocation for a particular stock is caught, that sector is required to cease all sector fishing operations in that stock area until it acquires more ACE, likely by an ACE
transfer between sectors. Within 60 days of when we complete year-end catch accounting, each sector is required to submit an annual report detailing the sectors catch landings and discards, sector enforcement actions, and pertinent information necessary to evaluate the biological, economic, and social impacts of each sector.
Industry-Funded Monitoring Programs Sectors are responsible for designing, implementing, and funding a monitoring program that will provide the level of ASM coverage specified by NMFS for that year. We are required to determine a level of ASM coverage using a process described in Framework 55 81 FR 26412; May 2, 2016 that provides a reliable estimate of overall catch by sectors needed for monitoring ACEs and ACLs while minimizing the cost burden to sectors and NMFS to the extent practicable. Sectors are responsible for the at-sea portion of costs associated with the sectors monitoring programs, even in years when reimbursement funds are available.
In fishing years 2010 and 2011, we funded an ASM program with a target
ASM coverage level of 30 percent of all trips. In addition, we provided 8percent observer coverage through the Northeast Fishery Observer Program NEFOP, which helps to support the Standardized Bycatch Reporting Methodology SBRM and stock assessments. This resulted in an overall target coverage level of 38 percent for fishing years 2010 and 2011, from the combined ASM and NEFOP. Beginning in fishing year 2012, we have conducted an annual analysis to determine the total target coverage level. Table 5
depicts the annual target coverage levels. Industry has been required to pay for their ASM coverage costs since 2012, while we continued to fund NEFOP
coverage. However, we were able to fund the industrys portion of ASM
costs and NEFOP coverage in fishing years 2012 through most of 2015.
Industry paid for their portion of the ASM program beginning in March 2016.
In June 2016, after determining that the SBRM monitoring program could be fully funded with additional funding remaining, we announced that we had funds available to offset some of industrys costs of the groundfish ASM
program in 2016. We reimbursed sectors for 85 percent of their ASM costs for 10
months of the fishing year, distributed through a grant by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. In fishing year 2017, using leftover funds from the 2016 grant, we reimbursed sectors for 60
percent of industry costs in fishing year 2017. Fishing effort was lower than expected in the first few months of the fishing year, and we were ultimately able to retroactively reimburse sectors for an additional estimated 25 percent of industrys 2017 costs, which exhausted the remaining available SBRM funds. In fiscal years 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, Congress appropriated $10.3 million for groundfish ASM. With these funds, we were able to fully reimburse industry costs in fishing years 2018, 2019, and 2020.

TABLE 5HISTORIC TARGET COVERAGE LEVEL FOR MONITORING
Total target coverage level percent
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Fishing year 2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019

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ASM target coverage level percent
38
38
25
22
26
16
14
16
15
31

E:FRFM31MRP1.SGM

30
30
17
14
18
12
10
8 10

31MRP1

NEFOP target coverage level percent 8
8 8
8 8
4 4
8 5