Commerce Department Final Rule

2016-30068: Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Crab Rationalization Program

Get alerted when the next rule lands

New rules open for comment on their own schedule. Pick how you want to hear about them — we email you when one appears.

Alert me on new Commerce Department rules or alert me on a subject

Publishing to members? Embed a live rule tracker on your own site — the proposed rules in your area and the comment deadlines closing on them, updating themselves. Free, one line of HTML.

Create a free account & build one →

Summary

NMFS issues regulations to implement Amendment 47 to the Fishery Management Plan for Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands King and Tanner Crabs (Crab FMP) and to make minor clarifications to regulations implementing the Crab FMP. This final rule addresses how individual processing quota (IPQ) use caps apply to the Bering Sea Chionoecetes bairdi Tanner crab fisheries: the eastern C. bairdi Tanner (EBT) and the western C. bairdi Tanner (WBT). This regulation exempts EBT and WBT IPQ crab that is custom processed at a facility through contractual arrangements with the processing facility owners from being applied against the IPQ use cap of the processing facility owners, thereby allowing a facility to process more crab without triggering the IPQ use cap. This exemption is necessary to allow all of the EBT and WBT Class A individual fishing quota crab to be processed at the facilities currently processing EBT and WBT crab, and will have significant positive economic effects on the fishermen, processors, and communities that participate in the EBT and WBT fisheries. This final rule is intended to promote the goals and objectives of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act), the Crab FMP, and other applicable law.

The agency’s own summary, as published.

What this changes

Amends 1 part of the Code of Federal Regulations — the standing rules this notice rewrites.

Don't miss the comment window

One Click Politics alerts you on every deadline, hearing, and rule change.

See all rules with comments due soon →