[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 121 (Thursday, June 23, 2011)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 36892-36895]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-15641]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

50 CFR Part 635

[Docket No. 110527309-1307-01]
RIN 0648-BA90


Atlantic Highly Migratory Species; 2011 North and South Atlantic 
Swordfish Quotas

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

ACTION: Proposed rule; request for comments.

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SUMMARY: This proposed rule would adjust the North and South Atlantic 
swordfish quotas for the 2011 fishing year to account for 2010 
underharvests and landings. This proposed rule incorporates 
International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) 
recommendations 10-02 and 09-03 into the quota adjustments for the 2011 
fishing year. These recommendations extend, through the 2011 fishing 
year, the previously established baseline quotas for North and South 
Atlantic swordfish. Without this rule, the United States would be out 
of compliance with ICCAT recommendations.

DATES: Comments on this proposed rule may be submitted by July 25, 
2011.

[[Page 36893]]


ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by RIN 0648-BA90, by any 
one of the following methods:
     Electronic Submissions: Submit all electronic public 
comments via the Federal eRulemaking Portal at http://www.regulations.gov.
     Fax: 301-713-1917, Attn: Jennifer Cudney.
     Mail: 1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910.
    Instructions: All comments received are a part of the public record 
and will generally be posted to http://www.regulations.gov without 
change. All Personal Identifying Information (for example, name, 
address, etc.) voluntarily submitted by the commenter may be publicly 
accessible. Do not submit Confidential Business Information or 
otherwise sensitive or protected information.
    NMFS will accept anonymous comments (enter N/A in the required 
fields, if you wish to remain anonymous). You may submit attachments to 
electronic comments in Microsoft Word, Excel, WordPerfect, or Adobe PDF 
file formats only.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Jennifer Cudney or Karyl Brewster-
Geisz by phone (301-713-2347) or by fax (301-713-1917).
    Copies of the supporting documents--including the 2007 
Environmental Assessment (EA), Regulatory Impact Review (RIR), Final 
Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (FRFA), and the 2006 Consolidated 
Atlantic Highly Migratory Species (HMS) Fishery Management Plan (FMP)--
are available from the HMS Web site at http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sfa/hms/.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The U.S. Atlantic swordfish fishery is 
managed under the 2006 Consolidated HMS FMP. Implementing regulations 
at 50 CFR part 635 are issued under the authority of the Magnuson-
Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act), 
16 U.S.C. 1801 et seq., and the Atlantic Tunas Convention Act (ATCA), 
16 U.S.C. 971 et seq. As an active member of ICCAT, the United States 
implements the binding recommendations of ICCAT to comply with this 
international treaty. Under ATCA, Congress granted the authority to 
promulgate regulations as may be necessary and appropriate to implement 
binding recommendations of ICCAT.

North Atlantic Swordfish Quota

    ICCAT recommendation 06-02 established a western North Atlantic 
swordfish total allowable catch (TAC) of 14,000 metric tons (mt) whole 
weight (ww) (10,526 mt dressed weight (dw)) through 2008. Of this TAC, 
the United States baseline quota was 2,937.6 mt dw (3,907.3 mt ww) per 
year. ICCAT recommendation 08-02 extended recommendation 06-02 through 
2009, and maintained the U.S. previous years' quota allocation of 
2,937.6 mt dw. ICCAT recommendation 09-02 reduced the western North 
Atlantic TAC to 13,700 mt ww (10,300.8 mt dw) through 2010. Of the 
13,700 mt ww TAC, the United States continued to be allocated 2,937.6 
mt dw (3,907.3 mt ww). At the 2010 ICCAT meeting, recommendation 10-02 
was adopted for North Atlantic Swordfish for one year. Recommendation 
10-02 included a total TAC of 13,700 mt ww, maintained the previous 
years' U.S. quota allocation of 2,937.6 mt dw, and maintained an 18.8 
mt dw annual transfer to Canada. ICCAT recommendation 10-02 also 
limited the amount of North Atlantic swordfish underharvest that can be 
carried forward by all Contracting Parties, non-Contracting Cooperating 
Parties, Entities and Fishing Entities (CPCs) to 50 percent of the 
baseline quota allocation. Therefore, the United States may carry over 
a maximum of 1,468.8 mt dw of underharvests from the previous year 
(2010) to be added to the 2011 baseline quota.
    This proposed rule would adjust the U.S baseline quota for the 2011 
fishing year to account for the 2010 underharvests. The 2011 North 
Atlantic swordfish baseline quota is 2,937.6 mt dw. The preliminary 
North Atlantic swordfish underharvest for 2010 was 2,921.10 mt dw, 
which exceeds the maximum carryover cap of 1,468.8 mt dw. Therefore, 
NMFS proposes to carry forward the capped amount per the ICCAT 
recommendation 10-02. The baseline quota plus the underharvest 
carryover maximum of 1,468.8 mt dw equals 4,406.4 mt dw, which is the 
proposed adjusted quota for the 2011 fishing year. From that proposed 
adjusted quota, the directed category would be allocated 3,677.1 mt dw 
that would be split equally into two seasons in 2010 (January through 
June, and July through December). The reserve category would be reduced 
from a quota of 448.1 mt dw to 429.3 mt dw due to the transfer of 18.8 
mt dw to Canada per recommendation 10-02 (Table 1). This proposed rule 
would also allocate 300 mt dw to the incidental category, which 
includes recreational landings for the 2011 fishing season, per Sec.  
635.27 (c)(1)(i)(B). These landings are based on preliminary data. As 
late reports are received and the data go through a quality control 
process, some data may change. Any changes will be described in the 
final rule, as appropriate.

South Atlantic Swordfish Quota

    ICCAT recommendation 06-03 established the South Atlantic swordfish 
TAC at 17,000 mt ww for 2007, 2008, and 2009. Of this, the United 
States received 75.2 mt dw (100 mt ww). As with the North Atlantic 
swordfish recommendation, ICCAT recommendation 06-03 established a cap 
on the amount of underharvest that can be carried forward. For South 
Atlantic swordfish, the United States is limited to carrying forward 
100 percent (75.2 mt dw). The most recent South Atlantic swordfish 
measure, recommendation 09-03, is a 3-year measure that reduced the TAC 
to 15,000 mt dw but maintains the previous years' U.S. quota share of 
75.2 mt dw (100 mt ww) through 2012.
    ICCAT recommendation 09-03 also requires that a total of 75.2 mt dw 
(100 mt ww) of the U.S. South Atlantic swordfish quota be transferred 
to other countries. These transfers are 37.6 mt dw (50 mt ww) to 
Namibia, 18.8 mt dw (25 mt ww) to Cote d'Ivore, and 18.8 mt dw (25 mt 
ww) to Belize. In 2010, the 75.2 mt dw that was transferred to these 
countries came entirely from the 2009 U.S. underharvested quota. In 
2010, U.S. fishermen landed 0.2 mt dw of the U.S. quota. As such, due 
to 2010 landings of 0.2 mt dw, the United States only has 75.0 mt dw of 
the 2010 underharvest available for transfer and must transfer the 
remaining 0.2 mt dw from the 2011 baseline quota. Therefore, the 2011 
adjusted quota for South Atlantic swordfish is 75.0 mt dw (Table 1).

Impacts

    In recent years, the United States has not caught its entire 
swordfish quota. Beginning in 2007, the amount of underharvest that was 
available for carryover was capped at 50 percent of the quota for North 
Atlantic swordfish, and 100 percent for South Atlantic swordfish. The 
proposed adjusted quota for the North Atlantic swordfish, after 
accounting for the 2010 underharvests and annual transfer to Canada, 
would be the same in 2011 as the 2007 adjusted quota specifically 
examined in the Environmental Assessment (EA) that was prepared for the 
2007 Swordfish Quota Specification Final Rule published on October 5, 
2007 (72 FR 56929). While the 2011 baseline quota for South Atlantic 
swordfish is the same as that examined in the above mentioned EA, the 
proposed adjusted quota for the South Atlantic swordfish, after 
accounting for the 2010 landings

[[Page 36894]]

and the transfer to other countries, would be 0.2 mt dw less than the 
adjusted quota examined in the EA. The quota adjustments would not 
increase overall quotas and are not expected to increase fishing 
effort, protected species interactions, or environmental effects beyond 
those considered in the EA mentioned above. Therefore, because there 
would be no changes to the swordfish management measures in this 
proposed rule, or the affected environment or any environmental effects 
that have not been previously analyzed, NMFS has determined that the 
proposed rule and impacts to the human environment as a result of the 
quota adjustments are not significant and therefore additional NEPA 
analysis beyond that discussed in the 2007 EA is not required.

Administrative Change

    This proposed rule also makes a minor modification to the 
regulatory text. In the proposed rule establishing the 2003 swordfish 
quotas for the North and South Atlantic fisheries (68 FR 36967; June 
20, 2003), NMFS proposed several changes to the regulatory text. In 
that proposed rule, NMFS included the sentence ``The annual incidental 
category quota is 300 mt dw for each fishing year.'' That sentence had 
been in the regulations for several years previous to that proposed 
rule. NMFS recently noticed that that sentence was inadvertently 
removed in the final rule (69 FR 68090; November 23, 2004) that 
finalized the swordfish quotas for that fishing year. NMFS proposes to 
reinstate that sentence in the regulatory text.

                  Table 1--Landings and Quotas for the Atlantic Swordfish Fisheries (2007-2011)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
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     North Atlantic Swordfish quota (mt dw)          2007         2008         2009       ** 2010        2011
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Baseline Quota.................................      2,937.6      2,937.6      2,937.6      2,937.6      2,937.6
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Quota Carried Over.............................      1,468.8      1,468.8      1,468.8      1,468.8      1,468.8
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Adjusted quota.................................      4,406.4      4,406.4      4,406.4      4,406.4      4,406.4
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Quota Allocation.............  Directed              3,601.9      3,620.7      3,639.5      3,658.3      3,677.1
                                Category.
                               Incidental              300.0        300.0        300.0        300.0        300.0
                                Category.
                               Reserve Category        504.5        485.7        466.9        448.1        429.3
Utilized Quota...............  Landings........      1,907.3      1,752.7      2,027.0   ** 1,466.5          TBD
                               Reserve Transfer         18.8         18.8         18.8         18.8         18.8
                                to Canada.
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Total Underharvest.............................      2,480.3      2,634.9      2,360.6   ** 2,921.1          TBD
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Dead Discards..................................        109.8        149.8        106.8          TBD          TBD
Carryover Available \+\........................      1,468.8      1,468.8      1,468.8      1,468.8          TBD
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     South Atlantic Swordfish Quota (mt dw)          2007         2008         2009       ** 2010        2011
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Baseline Quota.................................         75.2         75.2         75.2         75.2         75.2
Quota Carried Over.............................         75.2         75.2         75.2        * 0.0       * -0.2
Adjusted quota.................................        150.4        150.4         75.2         75.2         75.0
Landings.......................................          0.0          0.0          0.0       ** 0.2          TBD
Carryover Available............................         75.2         75.2         75.2         75.0          TBD
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ Under harvest is capped at 50 percent of the baseline quota allocation for the North Atlantic and 75.2 dw (100
  mt ww) for the South Atlantic.
* Under 09-03, 100 mt ww of the U.S. underharvest and base quota, as necessary, was transferred to Namibia (37.6
  mt dw, 50 mt ww), Cote d'Ivore (18.8 mt dw, 25 mt ww), and Belize (18.8 mt dw, 25 mt ww).
** 2010 landings data are preliminary and are subject to change based on the 2011 ICCAT National Report.

Public Hearings

    Public hearings on this proposed rule are not currently scheduled. 
If you would like to request a public hearing please contact Jennifer 
Cudney or Karyl Brewster-Geisz by phone at 301-713-2347.

Classification

    The NMFS Assistant Administrator has determined that this proposed 
rule is consistent with the Consolidated HMS FMP, the Magnuson-Stevens 
Act, ATCA, 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 Council for Regulation of the Department of Commerce 
certified to the Chief Council for Advocacy of the Small Business 
Administration that this proposed rule, if adopted, would not have a 
significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities 
because the United States is not expected to catch its entire quota, 
and the quota adjustments are the same in 2011 as they were in 2007, 
2008, 2009, and 2010.
    The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) published a final rule 
on October 5, 2007 (72 FR 56929), that established the 2,937.6 metric 
tons (mt) dressed weight (dw) and 75.2 mt dw yearly baseline quotas for 
the North and South Atlantic swordfish, respectively; established an 
underharvest carryover cap of 50 percent of the baseline quota for 
North Atlantic swordfish and 100 percent of the baseline quota for 
South Atlantic swordfish; and transferred 18.8 mt dw of quota to Canada 
from the reserve category in the North Atlantic. These actions were 
based upon the ICCAT recommendations 06-02 for North Atlantic swordfish 
and 06-03 for South Atlantic swordfish. Under ATCA, the United States 
may promulgate regulations as necessary and appropriate to implement 
binding recommendations of ICCAT.
    At the 2010 ICCAT meeting, recommendation 10-02 was adopted for 
North Atlantic Swordfish for one year. Recommendation 10-02 maintains 
the U.S. previous years' quota allocation of 2,937.6 mt dw as well as 
an 18.8 mt dw annual transfer to Canada. As such, the proposed 2011 
adjusted quota is 4,406.4 mt dw for North Atlantic swordfish.
    This proposed rule would also adjust the 2011 baseline quota for 
the South Atlantic swordfish fisheries for the 2011 fishing year 
(January 1, 2011, through December 31, 2011) to account for 2010 
underharvests per Sec.  635.27(c) based on

[[Page 36895]]

ICCAT recommendation 09-03. The ICCAT South Atlantic swordfish measure, 
recommendation 09-03, is a 3-year measure that maintains the U.S. quota 
share of 75.2 mt dw (100 mt whole weight (ww)). Recommendation 09-03 
also states that a total of 75.2 mt dw (100 mt ww) of the U.S. South 
Atlantic swordfish quota be transferred to other countries. These 
transfers have been drawn from underharvests rolled over from the 
previous year. Due to 2010 landings of 0.2 mt dw, the United States can 
only transfer 75.0 mt dw of underharvest in 2011; the remaining 0.2 mt 
must be transferred from the baseline quota. These transfers are 37.6 
mt dw (50 mt ww) to Namibia, 18.8 mt dw (25 mt ww) to Cote d'Ivore, and 
18.8 mt dw (25 mt ww) to Belize. Therefore, the proposed 2011 adjusted 
quota is 75.0 mt dw for South Atlantic swordfish (Table 1).
    The commercial swordfish fishery is comprised of fishermen who hold 
a swordfish directed, incidental, or handgear limited access permit 
(LAP) and the related industries, including processors, bait houses, 
and equipment suppliers, all of which NMFS considers to be small 
entities according to the size standards set by the Small Business 
Administration. As of October 2010, there were approximately 177 
fishermen with a directed swordfish LAP, 72 fishermen with an 
incidental swordfish LAP, and 75 fishermen with a handgear LAP for 
swordfish. Based on the 2009 swordfish ex-vessel price per pound of 
$3.49, the 2011 North and South Atlantic swordfish baseline quotas 
could result in gross revenues of $22,602,050 (6,476,232 lbs dw * 
$3.49) and $577,054 (165,345 lbs dw * $3.49), respectively, if the 
quotas were fully utilized. Under the adjusted quotas, the gross 
revenues could be $33,903,080 and $577,054, respectively, for fully 
utilized quotas. Potential revenues on a per vessel basis, considering 
a total of 324 swordfish permit holders, could be $104,639 for the 
North Atlantic swordfish fishery and $1,781 for the South Atlantic 
swordfish fishery.

List of Subjects in 50 CFR Part 635

    Fisheries, Fishing, Fishing vessels, Foreign relations, Imports, 
Penalties, Reporting and recordkeeping requirements, Treaties.

    Dated: June 17, 2011.
Samuel D. Rauch III,
Deputy Assistant Administrator for Regulatory Programs, National Marine 
Fisheries Service.

    For the reasons set out in the preamble, 50 CFR part 635 is 
proposed to be amended as follows:

PART 635--ATLANTIC HIGHLY MIGRATORY SPECIES

    1. The authority citation for part 635 continues to read as 
follows:

    Authority:  16 U.S.C. 971 et seq.; 16 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.
    2. In Sec.  635.27, paragraph (c)(1)(i)(B) is revised to read as 
follows:


Sec.  635.27  Quotas.

* * * * *
    (c) * * *
    (1) * * *
    (i) * * *
    (B) A swordfish from the North Atlantic swordfish stock landed by a 
vessel for which an incidental catch permit for swordfish or an HMS 
Angling or Charter/Headboat permit has been issued, or caught after the 
effective date of a closure of the directed fishery from a vessel for 
which a directed fishery permit or a handgear permit for swordfish has 
been issued, is counted against the incidental catch quota. The annual 
incidental category quota is 300 mt dw for each fishing year.
* * * * *
[FR Doc. 2011-15641 Filed 6-17-11; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-22-P