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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 106 / Friday, June 4, 2021 / Proposed Rules commercial salmon fishing in a given year if a Federal catch limit is reached sooner than predicted. Therefore, NMFS
expects that Alternative 3 would pose significant challenges to achieving optimum yield OY on a continuing basis.
Finally, the Council acknowledged that neither the Council nor NMFS
currently has the expertise or infrastructure to optimally manage salmon fisheries in the EEZ off Alaska independent of the State. Federal managers would be dependent on a high degree of voluntary cooperation from State managers for successful management of Cook Inlet salmon stocks under Alternative 3. For a commercial salmon fishery to occur in a given year under Alternative 3, the conservation and management conditions described in Section 2.5.3 of the Analysis must be met. These include a Federal salmon data gathering process for Cook Inlet that is adequately supported with data from State salmon fisheries in Cook Inlet, a harvestable surplus of salmon available in the EEZ
that could support directed fishery openings, and salmon harvest reporting tools that allow the Federal catch accounting system to adequately monitor harvest and bycatch such that overfishing can be prevented. While management capacity could be developed over time, independent Federal management could nonetheless result in annual closures of the Cook Inlet EEZ due to separate Federal and State management Section 2.5.3 of the Analysis. Developing expertise would require significant agency resources, and new Federal infrastructure would increase the burden of regulatory compliance on participants. Even with an established Federal infrastructure and experienced managers, it is expected that EEZ harvests would be reduced over the long term for the reasons stated above without significant anticipated conservation and management benefits.
Amendment 14 and This Proposed Rule With Amendment 14 and this proposed rule, the Council and NMFS
are proposing to amend the Salmon FMP and Federal regulations to comply with the Ninth Circuits decision, the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and other applicable law. Amendment 14 and this proposed rule would incorporate the Cook Inlet EEZ Subarea into the Salmon FMPs West Area, thereby bringing the Cook Inlet EEZ Subarea and the commercial salmon fisheries that occur within it under Federal management by the Council and NMFS. With Amendment 14, most existing FMP

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provisions that apply to the West Area, including the prohibition on commercial salmon fishing, would also apply to the Cook Inlet EEZ Subarea.
The reference points of maximum sustainable yield MSY and OY would be separately specified for the Cook Inlet salmon fishery. Additionally, an annual catch limit ACL would be separately specified for the commercial salmon fishery in the Cook Inlet EEZ
Subarea, reflecting the fact that Cook Inlet salmon stocks have historically been harvested in both State and Federal waters. This action would not modify reference points already established for the rest of the existing West Area. MSY would be established for the Cook Inlet salmon fishery as the maximum amount of harvest possible under the States escapement goals, which is the largest long-term average catch that can be taken by the fishery under prevailing ecological, environmental conditions and fishery technological characteristics e.g., gear selectivity, and the distribution of catch among fishery sectors 50 CFR
600.310e1i. This includes the use of indicator stocks to manage where escapement is not directly known.
Escapement goals account for biological productivity and ecological factors Sections 3.1 and 11 of the Analysis.
The Cook Inlet salmon fishery includes the stocks of salmon harvested by all sectors within State and Federal waters of Cook Inlet.
The OY range for the Cook Inlet salmon fishery would be the combined catch from all salmon fisheries occurring within Cook Inlet State and Federal water catch, which results in a post-harvest abundance within the escapement goal range for stocks with escapement goals, and below the historically sustainable average catch for stocks without escapement goals, except when management measures required to conserve weak stocks necessarily limit catch of healthy stocks. This OY is derived from MSY, as reduced by relevant economic, social, and ecological factors. These factors include annual variations in the abundance, distribution, migration patterns, and timing of the salmon stocks; allocations by the Alaska Board of Fisheries;
traditional times, methods, and areas of salmon fishing; ecosystem needs; and inseason indices of stock strength.
The Council and NMFS determined that the proposed OY would be fully achieved in Cook Inlet State water salmon fisheries because compensatory fishery effort among various sectors in State waters is expected to make up for closing the Cook Inlet EEZ to commercial salmon fishing. Therefore,
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Amendment 14 would establish an ACL
of zero for the commercial salmon fishery in the Cook Inlet EEZ Subarea.
The proposed management measure of closing the Cook Inlet EEZ Subarea to commercial salmon fishing would achieve the proposed ACL. Given that the Cook Inlet EEZ Subarea management measure is fishery closure, additional reference points and accountability measures are not necessary and therefore would not be specified.
This proposed rule would revise the definition of Salmon Management Area at 50 CFR 679.2 to redefine the Cook Inlet Area as the Cook Inlet EEZ Subarea and incorporate it into the West Area.
This proposed rule would also revise Figure 23 to 50 CFR part 679 consistent with the revised definition of the Salmon Management Area at 679.2. As part of the West Area, the Cook Inlet EEZ Subarea would be subject to the prohibition on commercial fishing for salmon at 679.7h2.
Objectives and Rationale for Action The primary objective of this action is to apply Federal management to the commercial salmon fishery in the Cook Inlet EEZ in accordance with the Magnuson-Stevens Act. In recommending Amendment 14, the Council ultimately concluded that managing the Cook Inlet EEZ by prohibiting commercial salmon fishing optimized conservation and management of Cook Inlet salmon fisheries when considering the costs and benefits of the available management alternatives. Through this proposed action, the Council would continue to apply its longstanding salmon management policy for the West Area, which is to facilitate State salmon management in accordance with the Magnuson-Stevens Act and applicable Federal law. As with the rest of the West Area, this policy would be achieved by prohibiting commercial fishing for salmon in the Cook Inlet EEZ Subarea so that the State can manage Alaska salmon stocks as a unit within State waters. NMFS determined that salmon fishery resources in Cook Inlet can be fully utilized by salmon fisheries occurring within State waters and that the State manages its salmon fisheries based on the best available information using the States escapement goal management system. This proposed rule would not modify existing State management measures, nor would it preclude the State from adopting additional management measures that could provide additional harvest opportunities for harvesters, including commercial drift gillnet fishermen, within State waters.

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