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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 150 / Monday, August 9, 2021 / Rules and Regulations Response: NMFS disagrees that this action disadvantages General category fishermen. As noted above, BFT catch rates have increased over recent years in the General category, shortening the time to fill subquotas, resulting in untimely subquota closures and unstable markets. NMFS believes that this rulemaking will benefit General category participants by spreading out fishing effort over time, which would extend fishing opportunities through a greater proportion of the subquota timeperiods. Other categories e.g., Harpoon, Purse Seine, Longline, and Trap are not experiencing these issues because of the unique characteristics including gear, timing, and participation of those fisheries. As such, at this time, NMFS
does not intend to implement RFDs for any other category.
Comment 9: NMFS received a comment supporting RFDs but expressing concern regarding the impact of RFDs on General category fishermen targeting non-BFT.
Response: General category fishermen are still allowed to fish for, retain, land, and sell non-BFT species on RFDs under the applicable General category permit restrictions and retention limits.
The RFD prohibition only applies to General category fishermen when fishing for including catch-and-release or tag-and-release fishing, possessing, retaining, landing, or selling BFT.
Comment 10: NMFS received several comments requesting that RFDs be implemented as a pilot program for 2021 and that NMFS re-evaluate RFDs for future years.
Response: Due to high landings rates in recent years and the fact that the fishery has continued to close earlier than desired, and based on the expectation that landings rates in 2021
will be similar to landings rates in recent years without additional measures, NMFS is implementing RFDs for 2021 through this final rule. While NMFS is not implementing this change as a pilot program, NMFS will continue to monitor landings rates to determine whether RFDs are necessary in future fishing years, and will take appropriate action when warranted.
Comment 11: NMFS received several comments from part-time commercial fishermen noting that this action would have negative impacts on those fishermen that work other jobs full-time during the week and supplement their income with weekend fishing trips.
Response: NMFS acknowledges that this action may affect part-time commercial fishermen who fish on the weekend. Note that NMFS manages the BFT fishery to allow equitable fishing opportunities for all participants.

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Therefore, as described in the proposed rule, and above in the response to Comment 2, NMFS developed the 2021
RFD schedule to allow for some commercial fishing activity each weekend by maintaining Sunday as an open fishing day.
Comment 12: NMFS received several comments noting that the BFT stock has rebounded and is healthy, and that, therefore, this action is unwarranted.
Additionally, some commenters noted that NMFS is overly restrictive to BFT
fishermen in New England.
Response: NMFS disagrees that this action is unwarranted. The purpose of this action, consistent with the objectives of the 2006 Consolidated HMS FMP and its amendments and other applicable laws, is to set a schedule of RFDs for the 2021 fishing year as an effort control for the General category quota, and to extend General category fishing opportunities through a greater portion of the General category time-period subquotas than have been available in recent years. NMFS does not manage the General category fishery by region. Instead, these regulations are applicable to all General category permit holders and Charter/Headboat permitted vessels that fish commercially for BFT.
Regarding the status of BFT, the western Atlantic BFT stock is assessed by ICCAT. Currently the stock status remains unknown, and, for 2021, ICCAT
continues to manage the stock under an interim conservation and management plan. In 2018, NMFS implemented a final rule that established the U.S. BFT
quota and subquotas consistent with ICCAT Recommendation 1706 83 FR
51391, October 11, 2018. In 2020, following a stock assessment update, ICCAT adopted Recommendation 20
06, which maintained the total allowable catch of 2,350 metric tons mt and the associated U.S. quota. As such, as described in 635.27a, the current baseline U.S. quota remains 1,247.86 mt not including the 25 mt ICCAT allocated to the United States to account for bycatch of BFT in pelagic longline fisheries in the Northeast Distant Gear Restricted Area. This action helps manage the BFT fisheries within that available quota and the category subquotas as established in existing regulations.
Comment 13: One commenter suggested that NMFS launch an outreach campaign to the general public regarding the importance of seafood consumption to improve domestic market conditions.
Response: This comment is outside the scope of this rulemaking, which pertains only to RFDs. Additionally, NMFS already has an outreach
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campaign, titled Eat Seafood, America!, designed to provide information about sustainable seafood and the importance of seafood consumption. More information can be found at https
www.fisheries.noaa.gov/topic/
sustainable-seafoodeat-seafood,america!.
Changes From the Proposed Rule Except for changing the 2021 RFD
schedule start date from July 20, 2021, to September 3, 2021 to accommodate the time needed to fully consider comments and prepare this final rule, this final rule contains no changes from the proposed rule.
Classification The NMFS Assistant Administrator has determined that this final rule is consistent with the 2006 Consolidated HMS FMP and its amendments, other provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, ATCA, and other applicable laws.
This final rule has been determined to be not significant for purposes of Executive Order 12866.
Pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 553d3, the NMFS Assistant Administrator has determined that there is good cause to waive the 30-day delay in the date of effectiveness for this final action.
Because the fishing year is already underway, delaying the effectiveness of these regulations could undermine the purpose of this action to implement a RFD schedule that would help manage the fishery within the existing General category subquotas and extending the duration of the fishery throughout the subquota time-periods. Waiting 30 days to make the rule effective increases the likelihood of the General category subquotas being met and exceeded, resulting in inseason closures earlier than desired.
Implementing RFDs as soon as possible provides NMFS additional inseason management flexibility.
Although the General category has a relatively large quota for the 2021
fishing year, the General and HMS
Charter/Headboat permit category have the ability to harvest a large amount of General category quota in a short period of time, specifically from late July through November. Establishing RFDs during this time span is essential to extend fishing opportunities within each subquota time-period while also preventing market gluts, which, in recent years, have resulted in an increase in the number of BFT that are landed and not sold and have resulted in lower prices for the BFT that are sold.
Additionally, establishing RFDs earlier in the fishing year provides better
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