Justification for change

JUSTIFICATION FOR CHANGE

SOUTHEAST REGION PERMIT FAMILY OF FORMS

OMB CONTROL NO. 0648-0205

The National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) Highly Migratory Species (HMS) Management Division is preparing a final rule (RIN 0648-AW83) that would, among other things, create an open access HMS Commercial Caribbean Small Boat permit (CCSB). This permit would authorize the retention of bigeye, albacore, yellowfin, and skipjack (BAYS) tunas, swordfish, and sharks by vessels operating in the U.S. Caribbean commercial HMS fisheries. The federal HMS CCSB would be a new permit administered by the Southeast Regional Office (SERO) which currently administers many other HMS vessel and dealer permits. The prerequisites to obtaining a HMS CCSB include vessel overall length that is less than 45 feet and that the vessel may not have any other valid Atlantic HMS vessel permits.

As part of the creation of this new permit, NMFS requests to add the CCSB to the SERO Federal Permit Application for Vessels Fishing in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) form, which is covered by OMB Control No. 0648-0205. The CCSB will be added to the list of Open Access Commercial Permits, followed by check boxes (New; Renewal; Duplicate).

Reporting burden:

New application for the HMS Caribbean Handgear Vesssel Permit:

The collection of information under the modified application form is anticipated to result in an estimated 100 new responses for fishermen who may wish to apply for the new permit. NMFS estimates that it will take approximately 20 minutes for fishermen to fill out the modified Federal Permit Application for Vessels Fishing in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) form. Therefore, the burden associated with the new permit application form will be approximately 34 burden hours (100 respondents x 20 minutes = 2,000 minutes/60 minutes = 34 hours).

Under this modification to OMB Control No. 0648-0205, the total number of responses would be 21,980 (current 21,880 plus 100 new responses). The total time burden would be 3,927 hours (current 3,893 plus 34 additional hours).

There would be a $25.00 permit application charge for the HMS CHP that is administered by SERO. The application charges for 100 applicants would total $2,500 (100 responses x $25.00 = $2,500). Additionally, fishermen would incur postage costs. The total annual cost to the public for mailing in the form would be $45.00 (100 applications x $0.45 = $45.00). The current total annual cost to the public under OMB Control No. 0648-0205 is $691,640. The new combined total annual costs under this modification would be $694,185.00 ($691,640 + $2,500 + 45).

NOTE: The mockup of the permit form with the CCSB permit checkbox added is temporary, as other changes may be made to the form before this particular rule is implemented. The software for the permit form is very cumbersome, so we decided just to take the currently approved permit and neatly write in the new label and checkbox.

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