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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 60 / Wednesday, March 31, 2021 / Proposed Rules right whales, which are critically endangered and are present in the requested area during certain times of year. We may reevaluate this exemption request in a future action, should further information become available.
Additional Sector Operations Plan Provisions Inshore GOM Restrictions
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Several sectors have proposed an operations plan provision to limit and more accurately document a vessels behavior when fishing in an area they define as the inshore portion of the GOM BSA, or the area to the west of 70
15 W. long. As in fishing years 2019
and 2020, we are approving this provision, but a sector may elect to remove this provision in the final version of its operations plan, and it is not a requirement under NMFS
regulations.
Under this provision, a vessel that is carrying an observer or ASM would remain free to fish in all areas, including the inshore GOM area, without restriction. If a vessel is not carrying an observer or ASM and fishes any part of its trip in the GOM west of 70 15 W.
long., the vessel would be prohibited from fishing outside of the GOM BSA.
Also, if a vessel is not carrying an observer or ASM and fishes any part of its trip outside the GOM BSA, this provision would prohibit a vessel from fishing west of 70 15 W. long. within the GOM BSA. The approved provision includes a requirement that a vessel declare whether it intends to fish in the inshore GOM area through the trip start hail using its VMS unit prior to departure. We provide sector managers with the ability to monitor this provision through the Sector Information Management Module, a website where we also provide roster, trip, discard, and observer information to sector managers. A sector vessel may use a federally-funded NEFOP observer or ASM on these trips because we believe this option will not create bias in discard estimates, as fishing behavior is expected to be consistent with the standard fishery requirements such as minimum gear and fish sizes as a result of exercising this option.
Prohibition on a Vessel Hauling Another Vessels Trap Gear To Target Groundfish Several sectors have requested a provision to allow a vessel to haul another vessels fish trap gear, similar to the current exemptions that allow a vessel to haul another vessels gillnet gear or hook gear. These exemptions have generally been referred to as
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community gear exemptions.
Regulations at 648.84a require a vessel to mark all bottom-tending fixed gear, which includes fish trap gear used to target groundfish. This requirement helps protect against illegal hauling of gear by vessels that do not own the gear and are not authorized to tend it. To facilitate enforcement of 648.84a and use of this exemption, we are requiring each vessel authorized to haul anothers gillnet gear to tag that gear, similar to how this sector operations plan provision was implemented in fishing years 2014 through 2020. This allows one vessel to deploy the trap gear and another vessel to haul the trap gear, provided both vessels tag the gear prior to deployment. This requirement is included in the sectors operations plan to provide the opportunity for the sector to monitor the use of this provision and facilitate the Office of Law Enforcement and the U.S. Coast Guards enforcement of the marking requirement. We do not expect this provision to increase effort or the amount of fish trap gear used.
Instead, it would provide an efficiency and would allow a vessel to retrieve gear as a convenience.
Classification Pursuant to section 304b1A of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act Magnuson-Stevens Act, the NMFS
Assistant Administrator has preliminarily determined that this proposed rule is consistent with the Northeast Multispecies FMP, other provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and other applicable law, subject to further consideration after public comment.
This proposed rule has been determined to be not significant for purposes of 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.
This action proposes to approve measures submitted in 16 Northeast multispecies sector operations plans, including sector regulatory exemptions intended to provide additional operational flexibility, at-sea and electronic monitoring programs, and the allocation of ACE to sectors. Sectors must have an approved operations plan in order to operate, receive ACE
allocations, and authorize member vessels to fish. Sectors operate under a series of universal regulatory exemptions that exempt sector vessels
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from some of the effort controls in the fishery management plan, as well as sector-specific exemptions, which grant additional operational flexibilities to sector vessels. Universal exemptions include exemptions from DAS, seasonal closures, and trip limits. These exemptions allow sector participants to maximize per-trip yields, more fully harvest healthy stocks, and time the market.
The Regulatory Flexibility Act RFA
requires Federal agencies to consider disproportionality and profitability to determine the significance of regulatory impacts. For RFA purposes only, NMFS
established a small business size standard for businesses, including their affiliates, whose primary industry is commercial fishing see 50 CFR 200.2.
A business primarily engaged in commercial fishing NAICS code 11411
is classified as a small business if it is independently owned and operated, is not dominant in its field of operation including its affiliates, and has combined annual receipts less than $11
million for all its affiliated operations worldwide. The determination of whether the entity is large or small is based on the average annual revenue for the most recent 3 years for which data are available from 2017 through 2019.
To participate in the Northeast Multispecies Sector Program, vessels must possess a limited access multispecies permit and operate as part of a sector. Entities holding one or more limited access multispecies permits are potentially impacted by this action.
According to the commercial database, there were 627 entities that had at least one valid limited access permit during 2019, the last year for which affiliation information is available. Of these entities, 100 did not have revenues.
There were 527 entities that reported revenues during 2019. Of these, 6 were classified as large and 521 were classified as small businesses.1
The proposed approval of fishing years 2021 and 2022 operations plans and the allocation of fishing year 2021
ACE to groundfish sectors will have a positive impact on all 627 entities, as it will allow them to participate in the sector groundfish fishery rather than fish under the common pool effort control regulations. Common pool regulations include limits on DAS, trip limits, gear restrictions, size limits, and closures intended to control overall 1 For purposes of this analysis, groundfish limited access eligibilities held as Confirmation of Permit History CPH are not included because although they may generate revenue from ACE leasing, they do not generate any gross sales from fishing activity and thus would not be classified as commercial fishing entities.

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