Justification for Change

JUSTIFICATION FOR CHANGE

SOUTHEAST REGION PERMIT FAMILY OF FORMS

OMB CONTROL NO. 0648-0205

Participants in the federally-regulated fisheries of the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic are required to obtain federal permits under the existing permit programs for the specific fishery management plans of each region. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) needs information from the application forms and associated data collections to identify fishing vessels, dealers, and participants, as well as to properly manage the fisheries and generate fishery-related data.

NMFS would like to make non-substantive changes to several application forms currently approved under OMB Control No. 0648-0205.

The NMFS Southeast Region is migrating their public facing website on June 30, 2019, from sero.nmfs.noaa.gov to fisheries.noaa.gov. All of our application forms have the old website address listed at the top of the instructions page and first page of the application forms, so NMFS has to update the website address to reflect the new location. This change would be made on all application forms.

The second change relates to the new hours the Permits Office is available to receive phone calls. NMFS has changed the hours from 8:00 am to 4:30 pm to 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, so updates to the applications are necessary to reflect the new phone office hours. This change would be made on all application forms.

The third change relates to tax identification (ID) number. In sections of the application forms where NMFS requires the applicant to provide their social security number, we currently have Tax ID Number (SSN) listed as the form field title. This was confusing some applicants who saw Tax ID Number and thought they needed to provide their business federal employee id number (FEIN). To further clarify this section, NMFS modified the form field title to state Individual Tax ID Number (SSN) for the applicants social security number and Federal Employer Tax ID Number (FEIN) for their business tax ID number. This change would be made to all applications.

In Section 1 of the Federal Permit Application for Vessels Fishing In The Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), applicants must provide Hold or Fish Box Capacity information. Some applicants who do not have a Hold or Fish Box Capacity, but instead use a cooler or ice chest to store product were leaving this form field blank. To clarify that NMFS still needs this information for coolers or ice chests, the language would be updated to the following "How many pounds of product can you bring to the dock with “a full hold or fish boxes (including ice chests)?” This change would be made to the Federal Permit Application for Vessels Fishing In The Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) form only.

In Sections 2 and 3 of the Federal Permit Application for Vessels Fishing In The Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), NMFS would like to add the following text “An Operator Card is required” after the Atlantic Commercial and Charter/Headboat Dolphin/Wahoo permits, and the Rock Shrimp - Carolinas Zone and Rock Shrimp (South Atlantic EEZ) permits to remind applicants they must possess the operator card permit if they have one of the four permits identified above. This change would only apply on this application form.

The changes for the website address and phone hours to the application forms would be made to ensure NMFS is providing the correct and most up-to-date information to our constituents. The tax ID number, hold or fish box capacity, and operator card updates would be made to further clarify the requirements and information the applicants must provide to NMFS to obtain a federal permit.

None of these changes would affect the estimated annual costs or time burden that respondents must bear to complete the affected application forms. In addition, there is no change to any fees or costs required from respondents. Therefore, the annual respondent, response, time burden and cost estimate, for OMB Control No. 0648-0205 would not change and remains at 10,311 respondents, 11,745 responses, 7,259 hours, and $345,899.