As part of its fishery management responsibilities, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) collects certain information to determine whether a respondent complies with regulations that pertain to the issuance, transfer, ownership interest, or renewal of a Pacific Coast Groundfish limited entry permit or exempted fishing permit. Also, NMFS collects information from permit owners and vessel owners to assist NMFS with its enforcement responsibilities. Exempted fishing permit holders may be required to provide descriptions of planned fishing activities, periodical data reports, preseason plans and summary reports. The respondents are mainly groundfish fishermen or fishing companies and partnerships. Other respondents include state fisheries agencies, non profit groups, or fishing associations who sponsor research carried out under exempted fishing permits.
Program Change
The estimated number of transfers has been reduced from 150 to 130 responses per year. A major reason for the reduction there is a proposed regulation that would allow a vessel to be registered simultaneously to both a trawl endorsed permit and fixed gear permits (up to 3 sablefish endorsed permits). Currently, there are about six permit owners who own both a trawl permit and up to 3 sablefish permits. Typically, at the start of the year these permit owners will their vessel will be registered to a trawl permit, and then in the spring, move the vessel off the trawl permit and register the vessel to sablefish permit(s). In the fall, they remove the sablefish permits and request that the vessel be re-registered to trawl permit to the end of the year. Once both types (trawl and fixed gear) of permits are allowed to be registered simultaneously to a single vessel, for those who own both types of permits, there will be no need to request such transfers in the future.
Also, the estimated number of responses for ownership interest forms due to transfer has been reduced by 10 (from 40 to 30). This reduction is anticipated because the joint registration regulation (which allows for simultaneous registration of a vessel to both trawl and sablefish endorsed permits) will eliminate the need to submit transfer requests for those who own both types of permits. Some of the reduced number transfers will involve sablefish permits, which would have required the submission of ownership interest forms.
The cost burden has been reduced slightly due to the elimination of the notary requirement for the transfer form and the ownership interest form. Previously, we estimated the cost of the notary to be $10 per document and the overall estimate of the cost of notarization to be $2,400. Also, the ownership interest form and transfer form previously included as part of the response required five minutes to have the form notarized. As such, in this collection, the time burden has been reduced from 10 minutes to 5 minutes for the ownership interest form and from 30 minutes to 25 minutes for transfer forms.
Total Program Changes: Decrease of 30 responses, 29 hours, $2408.
Adjustment
The previous costs reported for EFPs was -0-. In this submission, there are costs for mailing (certified) data from electronic technology trips resulting in an estimated cost of $2,635.
The estimated annual burden hours for EFPs has been increased. We estimate that several vessels will test electronic technologies (i.e.; video cameras) under an EFP. These are EFPs applications that are beyond the scope of those normally received for various research purposes. The purpose of these additional EFPs is to test the effectiveness and costs of such technologies to inform potential regulations that would allow use of such electronic systems is lieu of observers (which are currently required of all trawl IFQ vessels). Specifically, the number of EFP proposals is estimated to increase from 10 to 15 each year. Similarly, we anticipate the number of harvest plans and data report to increase from 5 to 15 each year and summary reports to increase from 5 to 7. Of significance is the increase in the estimated number of total annual responses for data reports which increase from 60 to 375. Data reports from vessels testing electronic technologies will require submission of video hard drives after several fishing trips and logbooks after every trip. The number trips can vary by vessel and by year.
Total Adjustments: Increase of 334 responses, 1046 hours and $2,589.
$12,281
No
No
No
No
No
Uncollected
Kevin Ford 2065266115
Reginfo record details
No
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that the collection of information encompassed by this request complies with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR 1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding the proposed collection of information, that the certification covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.
Mothership/Catcher Vessel Pacific Coast Groundfish Limited Entry Permit
0203 rev_ext ss_070816.docx
0203 FR 81 12473 Notice 030916.pdf
Limited Entry Permit Renewal