Justification for change

JUSTIFICATION FOR CHANGE

NORTHEAST REGION LOGBOOK FAMILY OF FORMS

OMB CONTROL NO. 0648-0212

National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is proposing a change to the 0648-0212 family of forms to add a new information collection requirement for vessels requesting a days-at-sea (DAS) credit for a canceled trip. There would be a maximum of 89 hours and no cost associated with this change. This analysis was conducted assuming each permitted vessel will request one DAS credit per fishing year.

In response to a fishing industry request, NMFS is proposing a provision that would allow vessels that have canceled a fishing trip due to unforeseen circumstances, but have not yet conducted any fishing activity to be credited DAS upon written request of the vessels owner/operator. This provision would apply to all fisheries that operate under a DAS management system, specifically the Northeast (NE) multispecies, monkfish, and Atlantic sea scallop fisheries. Under this provision, a canceled trip DAS credit would only be approved in cases where no fishing gear was set or hauled and the vessel was, therefore, not in possession of any fish. The vessel’s monitoring system (VMS) will provide data that will help determine whether or not the vessel had set or hauled any fishing gear. To ensure the enforceability of this provision, vessels seeking a cancelled trip DAS credit would be required to notify NMFS Office of Law Enforcement to coordinate a monitored landing event. The initial notification method depends upon the reporting requirements of the vessel’s permit type. Vessels required to report using a VMS unit will be required to send a VMS email and vessels not required to use a VMS must call the interactive voice response (IVR) backup line. Additionally, after landing, both VMS and IVR vessels would have to submit a DAS credit request form. This change request addresses the IVR requirement only; the VMS notification and DAS credit request form will be submitted in a change request to the OMB Control No. 0648-0202 information collection, Northeast Region Permit Family of Forms.

As of August 2011, there were 890 NE multispecies DAS permits, 672 monkfish DAS permits, and 346 scallop DAS vessels. Thus, this new requirement could apply to a maximum of 1,908 permit holders. However, of the 1,908 permit holders, 1,063 are either expected to use the IVR system or are inactive vessels. Thus, this change request applies to a maximum of 1,063 permit holders. In practice, the number of affected vessels is expected to be substantially lower because DAS permitted fisheries are generally grouped together into a single suite of permits, however it is not possible to estimate the exact number prior to implementation of the requirement. The IVR system is a toll-free number, and therefore it will not cost vessels anything to request a DAS credit. It will take each vessel 5 minutes to request a cancelled trip DAS credit for a total of 89 hours (5 min. x 1,063 vessels).

The 0648-0212 burden table will be modified as shown below:

					Total Burden (hours)		Cost to:
	# of Entities	Items per Entity	Total # of Items	Response Time (min)	Public	Government	Public	Govt.
IVR Call	1,063	1	1,063	5	89	89	0	$2,225

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