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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 127 / Wednesday, July 7, 2021 / Rules and Regulations
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American Samoa based longline fleet, an average of 15 vessels recorded landings during 20172019 with average vessel revenue of approximately $339,000 per vessel estimate calculated using data from the 2019 Pelagic Fishery Ecosystem Plan Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation Report and Annual Reports of the American Samoa Longline Fishery. None of the other potentially directly regulated fishing sectors had total fishery revenue of all vessels combined that exceeded the small entity threshold.
Recordkeeping, Reporting, and Other Compliance Requirements The reporting, recordkeeping and other compliance requirements of this final rule are described earlier in the preamble. The classes of small entities subject to the requirements and the expected costs of complying with the requirements are described above in the Classification section of this final rule.
As described in the Paperwork Reduction Act PRA subsection below, this final rule contains a revised collection-of-information requirement subject to review and approval by the Office of Management and Budget OMB under the PRA.
Fulfillment of the requirements under the final rule is not expected to require any professional skills that affected vessel owners and operators do not already possess.
1 Reporting requirements when carrying a WCPFC observer: This requirement is part of a proposed collection of information subject to approval by OMB under the PRA. It would apply to about 195 small business entities, derived from subtracting the six vessels that do not qualify as small business entities from 201, the number of fishing vessels affected by this rule as estimated from vessels with WCPFC area endorsements. Complying would require that owners and operators of purse seine, longline and troll vessels to contact NMFS in the event of serious illness, assault, intimidation, threats, interference, or harassment of a WCPFC
observer. NMFS estimates the cost of compliance as the cost of a five minute phone call though the cost of compliance could vary depending on the directions given by NMFS. NMFS
cannot project how many calls would occur, but from 20152019, NOAA
Office of Law Enforcement charged a total of six cases of harassment against purse seine and longline vessels in the Pacific Islands Region. Thus, NMFS
expects events of serious illness, assault, intimidation, threats, interference, or harassment of a WCPFC observer to
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occur very rarely average of one per year and thus the cost of reporting to be very small. The Commission has indefinitely deferred implementation of placing WCPFC observers on troll vessels, and for the foreseeable future, NMFS does not believe that this requirement would add any new compliance costs for troll vessels. If the Commission were to change its position on placing WCPFC observers on troll vessels, troll operators may incur compliance costs similar to those described above. Fulfillment of this requirement is not expected to require any professional skills that the vessel owners and operators do not already possess.
2 Requirement to ensure observer safety: This requirement is outside of the proposed collection of information under the PRA. In the event of serious illness, assault, intimidation, threats, interference or harassment of a WCPFC
observer, the proposed rule would require the owner or operator of the fishing vessel to: 1 Immediately cease fishing operations; 2 take all reasonable actions to care for the observer and provide any medical treatment available and possible on board the vessel; 3 where directed by the observer provider, if not already directed by the appropriate U.S.
Government contact, facilitate the disembarkation and transport of the observer to a medical facility equipped to provide the required care, as soon as practicable; and 4 cooperate fully in any official investigations into the cause of the illness. NMFS cannot project how often this would occur, but anticipates these events to occur rarely. As mentioned above, NOAA Office of Law Enforcement has charged six cases of harassment against purse seine and longline vessels over 20152019 in the Pacific Islands Region, which equates to approximately one per year. If such an event does occur, the impacts could vary depending on when the event occurs and what foregone opportunity is lost. For illustrative purposes, the average gross revenue of a U.S. purse seine fishing trip from 20172019 was a little under $1.4 million per trip calculated by multiplying Bangkok fish prices by average catch per trip using NMFS data so if an event occurred near the start of a fishing trip, the vessel could potentially forgo much of that revenue along with any trip costs already incurred. For U.S. longline vessels the average gross revenue from 20172019 calculated using nominal revenue and trip information from the 2019 Pelagic Fishery Ecosystem Plan Stock Assessment and Fishery
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Evaluation Report was around $664,000
per Hawaii-based deep-set trip, $64,000
per Hawaii-based shallow-set trip, and $39,000 per American Samoa-based trip so if an event occurred near the start of a fishing trip, the vessel could potentially forgo much of that revenue along with any trip costs already incurred.
3 Notification requesting a WCPFC
Observer: This requirement is part of a proposed collection of information subject to approval by OMB under the PRA. It would apply to about 199 small business entities. Vessels are already required to provide notification prior to trip departure if they intend to transship at sea, and this proposed requirement would expand notification requirements to purse seine vessels requesting a WCPFC observer and departing from American Samoa.
The proposed requirement may result in compliance costs for purse seine vessels requesting a WCPFC observer when departing from American Samoa.
It is estimated that each notification would require 1 minute of labor and about $1 in communication costs. The value of the required labor is estimated to be $24.42 per hour. The estimated cost of compliance is less than $2 per notification. The number of requests and notifications cannot be predicted with any certainty, but for the purpose of this analysis, each purse seine vessel is expected to make 3.57 requests or notifications per year related to WCPFC
observers estimate based on the average number of trips per year from 2016
2020 divided by 20, the number of expected potential respondents. The estimated cost of compliance is therefore expected to be $4.96 for a vessel that makes 3.57 pre-trip notifications per year.
Duplicating, Overlapping, and Conflicting Federal Regulations NMFS has not identified any Federal regulations that conflict with these regulations. NMFS has identified several Federal regulations that overlap with the final rule:
As mentioned above, the U.S. Coast Guard has regulations at 46 CFR part 4
relating to marine casualties. This final rule implements the requirements of CMM 201703 that are not marine casualties covered by the existing U.S.
Coast Guard regulations.
IATTC adopted Resolution C 1807
on Observer Safety, and NMFS
published a final rule on May 18, 2020
85 FR 29666 related to actions required in the event of loss of life, serious illness or injury and assault, intimidation, threats or harassment to observers on vessels that are on fishing
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