Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Petition for Rulemaking for Redistribution of the Summer Flounder Quota

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

50 CFR Part 648

[I.D. 052097C]

Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Petition for

Rulemaking for Redistribution of the Summer Flounder Quota

AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce.

ACTION: Notice of receipt of petition for rulemaking; request for

comments.

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SUMMARY: NMFS announces receipt of, and requests public comment on, a

petition for rulemaking on the distribution to the states of the annual

commercial quota for summer flounder. The State of Connecticut,

Commissioner of Environmental Protection, has petitioned the Secretary

of Commerce (Secretary) to adopt a commercial allocation of either 2

winter coastwide periods and a state-by-state summer period or a

coastwide allocation system for all three periods (two winter periods

and a summer period).

DATES: Comments on the petition are requested on or before August 1,

1997.

ADDRESSES: Copies of the petition for rulemaking are available upon

request from Gary C. Matlock, Ph.D., Director, Office of Sustainable

Fisheries, NMFS, 1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910.

Comments on the petition should be directed to Dr. Gary C. Matlock at

the above address. Please mark the outside of the envelope ``State of

Connecticut Petition for Rulemaking.''

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mark R. Millikin, 301-713-2341.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The fishery affected by this petition for

rulemaking is the summer flounder fishery, which is managed under the

Fishery Management Plan for the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea

Bass Fisheries. The Secretary has management authority for this species

group under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management

Act. The management unit for this fishery is summer flounder

(Paralichthys dentatus) in U.S. waters of the Atlantic Ocean from the

southern border of North Carolina northward to the U.S.-Canada border.

Implementing regulations for the fishery are found at 50 CFR part 648,

subparts A and G.

The current method of allocating the annual commercial quota for

summer flounder is on a state-by-state basis. The quota is apportioned

among the states based on historical commercial landings averaged over

the period 1980-89. The quota applies throughout the management unit;

that is, all commercial landings in a state are attributed to that

state's quota for a given year, regardless of where the summer flounder

are harvested. The proportion of the coastwide quota that an individual

state receives is the same each year, but the total amount varies from

year to year, as the coastwide quota varies. Overages in a state's

quota allocation in the prior year are deducted from that state's

allocation in the following year.

The Connecticut petition proposes that the current state-specific

allocation of the commercial quota for summer flounder be eliminated

and that a

[[Page 29695]]

``Coastal Commercial Quota System'' be adopted. One proposed system

would establish a system similar to that approved recently for the scup

fishery under a regulatory amendment for that fishery (62 FR 27978, May

22, 1997). That system would allocate the commercial quota into three

unequal periods--two winter coastwide periods (January-April and

November-December) and a state-by-state summer period (May-October).

The second proposed system would allocate the annual quota into the

same three unequal periods (January-April, May-October, and November-

December); however, a coastwide system would be implemented for all

three periods in conjunction with a system of coastwide landing limits.

Connecticut's petition states that either of these two coastwide

systems would be acceptable. However, Connecticut's petition prefers

the commercial quota system that combines two coastwide winter periods

with a state-by-state summer period. Connecticut further petitions that

any regulation adopting a state-by-state allocation system have the

percent shares for each state based upon landings data for the period

1990 through 1992.

NMFS requests interested persons to submit comments on the petition

for rulemaking submitted by Connecticut. NMFS will consider this

information in determining whether to proceed with the development of

regulations suggested by the petition.

Authority: 16 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.

Dated: May 27, 1997.

Gary C. Matlock,

Director, Office of Sustainable Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries

Service.

[FR Doc. 97-14217 Filed 5-30-97; 8:45 am]

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