Omnibus Amendment to Simplify Vessel Baselines

Amendment 19 to the Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish FMP / Amendment 18 to the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass FMP / Amendment 18 to the Surfclam and Ocean Quahog FMP / Amendment 7 to the Monkfish FMP

Overview

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Implementation

The Omnibus Amendment to Simplify Vessel Baselines was developed to simplify and streamline the administration of vessel baselines, upgrades, and replacements for vessel owners and NMFS, while maintaining the function they provide for maintaining fleet diversity and limiting capacity. This action eliminates the one-time limit on vessel upgrades and removes gross and net tonnages from the vessel baseline specifications that NMFS considers when determining a vessel’s baseline for replacement purposes. These measures reduces the administrative burden to permit holders and NMFS and has little effect on fleet capacity. This rule also removes the requirement for vessels to send in negative fishing reports (i.e., ‘‘did not fish’’ reports) during months or weeks when vessels were inactive. NMFS no longer needs these reports due to improved trip-level matching.

Status

On August 26, 2015 NMFS published a final rule announcing the approval of the Omnibus Vessel Baseline Amendment and the implementation of the amendment’s approved
management measures. Read the final rule. 

Documents