Change request to existing PRA submission OMB Control No. 0648-0203

SUBJECT:

Change Request to Existing PRA Submission
OMB Control Number 0648-0203

Recently, the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) requested that the National
Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Northwest Region (NWR) collect ownership interest
information about business entities that either own or uniquely hold (i.e; lease) a trawl
endorsed Pacific Coast Groundfish permit. The PFMC is currently developing
alternatives for a groundfish individual fishing quota program and will begin to analyze
those alternatives shortly. The PFMC’s request seeks to obtain information about those
individuals who have ownership interest in a business entity (i.e.; corporation) that either
owns or otherwise uses a trawl endorsed Pacific Coast limited entry permit. The Pacific
Fishery Management Council seeks this information to assess and characterize the nature
of ownership in the groundfish trawl fishery in order to develop appropriate policy for a
trawl individual fishing quota program.
We propose to mail the attached form as part of our annual groundfish limited entry
permit renewal process. This information collection would not involve publishing
regulations. On a voluntary basis, an authorizing representative for the company would
be asked to characterize the nature of the business entity (corporation, partnership, etc)
and provide names and business addresses for every individual who has an ownership
interest in the business entity, and the percentage of ownership in that entity for each
individual. The estimated time required to complete the form is 15 minutes. At present,
there are a total of 398 Pacific Coast Groundfish limited entry permits, of which 178 are
trawl endorsed. We estimate that there are about 145 business entities that own or
uniquely hold a trawl endorsed permit. If all of the estimated 145 business entities
completed this form, the incremental time burden for the existing information collection
would be 36.25 hours.
This form would be mailed to the 145 business entities as part of the annual Pacific Coast
Groundfish limited entry permit renewal process. Respondents would return this form
with their renewal form. There would be no additional mailing costs associated with this
collection. NMFS NWR will implement this information collection without regulation at
this time. However, when the Council decides on an ITQ program alternative, it may be
necessary to require this information on a mandatory basis. If this becomes part of the
Council’s alternative, NMFS would require this collection in regulation and submit a
PRA collection for this.
Our current PRA collection allows for NMFS NWR to collect ownership interest
information from sablefish endorsed permit owners and holders both as part of the annual
renewal process and anytime a permit is transferred. This allows NMFS to enumerate the
number of permits owned or otherwise held by a particular individual and to enforce the
limits of owning and/or holding sablefish permits.