The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery
Conservation and Management Act both authorizes and requires the
collection of cost recovery fees for Limited Access Privilege (LAP)
programs and CDQ programs. Alaska currently has three cost recovery
programs in place for LAP program fisheries off Alaska's coast -
Halibut and Sablefish IFQ Program, Rockfish Program, and the Crab
Rationalization Program. With this action, additional cost recovery
fees would be collected from the American Fisheries Act
cooperatives, the Aleut Corporation, Amendment 80 cooperatives, and
six Western Alaska Community Development Quota (CDQ) groups. The
National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) proposes three methods for
collecting and aggregating volume and value data to calculate
standard prices: (1) Implement data collection using two new volume
and value reports to calculate standard prices for all fishery
species other than halibut and pollock; (2) Use data already
collected under the IFQ Buyer Report to calculate standard prices
for halibut; and (3) Use data already collected under the
Commercial Operator's Annual Report (COAR) to calculate standard
prices for pollock. For vessels that qualify, this action would
allow small catcher/processors to forgo full observer coverage and
operate with less expensive partial observer coverage, should they
choose to do so. The catcher/processors eligible for partial
coverage under this action are engaged primarily in the
hook-and-line and Pacific cod and sablefish fisheries.
US Code:
16
USC 1801 Name of Law: Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and
Management Act
Three temporary collections
have been merged into this renewal for 0648-0711. Two resulted in
changes to this collection: • Merging 0648-0727 revises the payment
methods for the cost recovery fees. o Additionally, in previous
supporting statements, the observer coverage fee was included with
the summary of the cost recovery fee programs. The observer
coverage fee has been separated out in this renewal because it is
not a cost recovery fee program. This changed the presentation of
the data but did not affect the collection totals. • Merging
0648-0758 adds one new respondent, the RQE. The RQE is responsible
for paying all cost recovery fees on its annual recreational
fishing quota. • No changes resulted from merging the third
collection (0648-0764), which requires a CDQ group to pay an IFQ
cost recovery fee on its landings of halibut IFQ received by
transfer under the IFQ Program. CDQ groups may receive halibut IFQ
by transfer only in years of extremely low halibut commercial catch
limits, and this is not expected over the next three years.
$52
No
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
Uncollected
Gabrielle Aberle 907
586-7356
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.