[Federal Register Volume 71, Number 40 (Wednesday, March 1, 2006)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 10459-10461]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E6-2892]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

50 CFR Part 600

[Docket No. 050520139-6034-03; I.D. 030305A]
RIN 0648-AS46


Magnuson-Stevens Act Provisions; Fishing Capacity Reduction 
Program; Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands King and Tanner Crabs; Industry 
Fee System for Fishing Capacity Reduction Loan

AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce.

ACTION: Proposed rule; request for comments.

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SUMMARY: NMFS publishes this proposed rule to exempt any crab landed 
under the Community Development Quota (CDQ) Program from the fee 
regulations for the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands King and Tanner Crab 
Fishing Capacity Reduction Program, to provide that crab buyers 
disburse fee collections to NMFS not later than the 7th calendar day of 
each month, and to provide that the annual report from each crab buyer 
shall be submitted to NMFS by July 1 of each calendar year. The fee 
regulations otherwise remain unchanged. The intent of this proposed 
rule is to modify the fee rules so that they do not apply to any crab 
allocated pursuant to the CDQ Program, and to ease the fee collection 
burden for crab buyers.

[[Page 10460]]


DATES: Written comments on this proposed rule must be received by March 
31, 2006.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments by any of the following methods:
     E-mail: [email protected]. Include in the subject line 
the following identifier: BSAI Crab Buyback RIN 0648-AS46. E-mail 
comments, with or without attachments, are limited to 5 megabytes.
     Federal e-Rulemaking Portal: http:www.regulations.gov.
     Mail: Michael A. Sturtevant, Financial Services Division, 
National Marine Fisheries Service, 1315 East-West Highway, Silver 
Spring, MD 20910-3282.
     Fax: (301) 713-1306.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Michael A. Sturtevant, Financial 
Services Division, NMFS headquarters, at 301-713-2390.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Electronic Access

    This Federal Register document is also accessible via the Internet 
at the Office of the Federal Register's Web site at http://www.access.gpo.gov/su-docs/aces/aces140.html.

Background

    Sections 312(b)-(e) of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation 
and Management Act (16 U.S.C. 1861a(b) through (e)) generally 
authorized fishing capacity reduction programs. In particular, section 
312(d) authorized industry fee systems for repaying the reduction loans 
which finance reduction program costs.
    Subpart L of 50 CFR part 600 is the framework rule generally 
implementing sections 312(b)-(e).
    Sections 1111 and 1112 of the Merchant Marine Act, 1936 (46 App. 
U.S.C. 1279f and 1279g) generally authorized reduction loans.
    The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2001 (Public Law 106-554) 
directed the Secretary of Commerce to establish a $100 million fishing 
capacity reduction program in the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands king and 
Tanner crab fishery. Congress amended the authorizing act twice (Public 
Law 107-20 and Public Law 107-117), once to change the crab reduction 
program's funding from a $50 million appropriation and a $50 million 
loan to a $100 million loan and once to clarify provisions about crab 
fishery vessels.
    NMFS published the crab reduction program's proposed implementation 
rule on December 12, 2002 (67 FR 76329) and its final rule on December 
12, 2003 (68 FR 69331). Anyone interested in the program's full 
implementation details should refer to these two documents. NMFS 
initially proposed and adopted the program's implementation rule as 
section 600.1018 of Subpart L of 50 CFR part 600, but NMFS has since, 
without other change, re-designated the rule as section 600.1103 in a 
new subpart M of part 600.
    NMFS allocated the prospective $97,399,357.11 million reduction 
loan to the six reduction endorsement fisheries involved, as the 
following sub-amounts:
    1. Bristol Bay red king, $17,129,957.23,
    2. BSAI C. opilio and C. bairdi, $66,410,767.20,
    3. Aleutian Islands brown king, $6,380,837.19,
    4. Aleutian Islands red king, $237,588.04,
    5. Pribilof red king and blue king, $1,571,216.35, and
    6. St. Matthew blue king, $5,668,991.10.
    On November 24, 2004, NMFS published another Federal Register 
notice (69 FR 68313) advising the public that NMFS would, beginning on 
December 27, 2004, tender the crab reduction program's reduction 
payments to the 25 accepted bidders. On December 27, 2004, NMFS 
required all accepted bidders to then permanently stop all further 
fishing with the reduction vessels and permits.
    Subsequently, NMFS:
    1. Disbursed $97,399,357.11 in reduction payments to 25 accepted 
bidders;
    2. Revoked the relinquished reduction permits;
    3. Revoked each reduction vessel's fishing history;
    4. Notified the National Vessel Documentation Center to revoke the 
reduction vessels' fishery trade endorsements and appropriately 
annotate the reduction vessel's document; and
    5. Notified the U.S. Maritime Administration to prohibit the 
reduction vessel's transfer to foreign ownership or registry.
    On July 28, 2005, NMFS published a Federal Register document (70 FR 
43673) proposing regulations to implement the crab buyback program's 
industry fee system.
    On September 16, 2005, NMFS published a Federal Register document 
(70 FR 54652) implementing the crab buyback program's industry fee 
system regulations. Fee collection and payment began on October 17, 
2005.
    NMFS proposes to exempt any crab landed by the recipients of the 
CDQ allocations from the fee regulations because they did not vote in 
the crab buyback program's fee referendum, NMFS did not include the ex-
vessel value of crab landed under the CDQ allocations in the required 
formula for establishing the reduction loan sub-amounts for whose 
repayment the reduction fishery was responsible, and the recipients of 
the CDQ allocations do not directly benefit from the crab buyback.
    NMFS has been informed by crab buyers that requiring fee principal 
disbursement to NMFS on the last business day of the month presents 
problems in properly accounting for crab landings in a timely fashion. 
Crab buyers are unable to complete their accounting process prior to 
the end of that business day. Therefore, in order to allow crab buyers 
sufficient time to disburse fee principal, NMFS proposes that deposit 
principal disbursement shall be made to NMFS not later than the 7th 
calendar day of each month.
    NMFS also proposes that the annual report from each crab buyer 
shall be submitted to NMFS by July 1 of each calendar year. This should 
allow ample time for the State of Alaska to publish average crab price 
data for the previous calendar year.

Classification

    The Assistant Administrator for Fisheries, NOAA (AA), has 
determined that this proposed rule is consistent with the Magnuson-
Stevens Act and other applicable laws.
    This proposed rule has been determined to be not significant for 
purposes of Executive Order 12866.
    NMFS has certified to the Small Business Administration, under 
Section 605(b) of the Regulatory Flexibility Act, that this proposed 
rule would not have a significant economic impact on a substantial 
number of small entities.
    There are currently six CDQ groups that receive CDQ crab 
allocations and participate in the BSAI crab fisheries. This proposed 
rule seeks to revise the regulations to expressly exclude the 
recipients of the CDQ allocations from the crab buyback program's fee 
collection system. The CDQ groups allocations did not vote in the crab 
buyback program's fee referendum and NMFS did not include the ex-vessel 
value of crab landed under the CDQ allocations for establishing the 
reduction loan sub-amounts.
    The total fee to be collected for any given year is calculated 
based on a formula using projected landings, the interest rate, and the 
amortization schedule, and it is calculated in advance for the entire 
year. In determining the

[[Page 10461]]

annual fee, the contributions from recipients of the CDQ allocations 
were not considered in the calculation. The collection of fees on CDQ 
crab landings would result in the repayment of fees above what was 
expected for this year. As a result of the additional revenue, the 
buyback loan would be repaid slightly earlier than expected and would 
result in a slight decrease in the overall amount of interest accrued 
on the loan. Removal of the CDQ landings from the fee assessment would 
not have a negative impact on the expectations of the remaining BSAI 
crab harvesters since they were not expecting fee payments from the CDQ 
landings based on the fee calculations provided by NMFS. Furthermore, 
the contributions from CDQ landings are relatively small compared to 
the overall reduction loan amount. The contributions from the CDQ crab 
landings would represent 10 percent of the total reduction loan amount. 
This proposed rule is necessary to ensure that recipients of CDQ crab 
are excluded from the requirement to pay fees on their BSAI crab 
landings. The six CDQ groups would be positively affected by this 
proposed rule.

List of Subjects in 50 CFR Part 600

    Fisheries, Fishing capacity reduction, Fishing permits, Fishing 
vessels.

    Dated: February 24, 2006.
William T. Hogarth,
Assistant Administrator for Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries 
Service.
    For the reasons set out in the preamble, 50 CFR part 600 is 
proposed to be amended as follows:

PART 600--MAGNUSON-STEVENS ACT PROVISIONS

    1. The authority citation for part 600, Subpart M, continues to 
read as follows:

    Authority: 16 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.
    2. In Sec.  600.1104, paragraph (b), the definition of ``Reduction 
fishery'' is revised and paragraph (h)(4) is revised to read as 
follows:


Sec.  600.1104  Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI) crab species fee 
payment and collection system.

* * * * *
    (b) * * *
    Reduction fishery means the fishery for all crab rationalization 
crab, excluding CDQ allocations, in all crab rationalization fisheries.
* * * * *
    (h) * * *
    (4) Fish buyers in each reduction endorsement fishery shall in 
accordance with Sec.  600.1014, deposit and disburse, as well as keep 
records for and submit reports about, the fees applicable to each such 
fishery; except the requirements specified under paragraph (c) of this 
section concerning the deposit principal disbursement shall be made to 
NMFS not later than the 7th calendar day of each month; and the 
requirements specified under paragraph (e) of this section concerning 
annual reports which shall be submitted to NMFS by July 1 of each 
calendar year; and, * * *
* * * * *
[FR Doc. E6-2892 Filed 2-28-06; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-22-S