Subject: Federal Register Notice - East Coast.

EAST COAST

Summer Flounder

NMFS is extending the revised summer flounder total allowable landings (TAL) implemented on January 19, 2007, until December 31, 2007, the end of the 2007 fishing year. The 17.112-million-lb TAL will continue to be allocated 10.27 million lb to the commercial sector and 6.84 million lb to the recreational sector under this extension. NMFS is increasing the minimum fish size of the 2007 summer flounder precautionary default measures from 18.5 inches to 19 inches to ensure the necessary reduction levels indicated in the proposed rule and to ensure consistency with the intent of Framework 2 that the precautionary default measures achieve the necessary level of reduction required for each individual state. States that do not submit conservation equivalency proposals or for which proposals were disapproved by the Commission or NMFS, are required to adopt the precautionary default measures. Though no states are required to adopt the precautionary default measures for 2007, NMFS is modifying the precautionary default measures in this final rule from what was proposed, as outlined above, to ensure the reduction levels as outlined in Framework 2 are attained. The appropriate regulatory text modification to implement this change can be found following the classification section of this rule. In addition, the coastwide measures for summer flounder contained in the proposed rule were analyzed by the Council for their effectiveness in constraining recreational landings to the coastwide recreational harvest limit as published in the Federal Register on December 14, 2006 (71 FR 75134). Following the Council's analysis, development of measures, and vote to implement conservation equivalency in 2007, the summer flounder recreational harvest limit for 2007 was increased by emergency rule (72 FR 2458, January 19, 2007). Additional analysis conducted by NMFS following the publication of the proposed rule has shown that the proposed coastwide measures would allow only 55-percent of the increased recreational harvest limit to be landed, if implemented for 2007. Instead, as discussed below, this rule implements state-by-state conservation equivalency measures for the 2007 summer flounder fishery. As such, the summer flounder coastwide measures are superseded by the conservation equivalency measures for the 2007 fishing year. However, these coastwide measures become the default regulatory provisions effective January 1, 2008, when conservation equivalent measures expire. As such, the coastwide measures remain in place in 2008 until such time that new measures, either conservation equivalency or coastwide measures, are developed by the Council and the Commission and implemented by NMFS for the 2008 fishery. NMFS has decided to conduct separate notice and comment rulemaking for summer flounder coastwide measures that would be less restrictive than the measures of the proposed rule while still constraining landings within the increased recreational harvest limit, as published in the emergency rule (72 FR 2458, January 19, 2007). A proposed rule containing these revised coastwide measures will be published in the Federal Register as soon as possible. Based on the recommendation of the Commission, the Regional Administrator finds that the recreational summer flounder fishing measures proposed to be implemented by the states of Massachusetts through North Carolina for 2007 are the conservation equivalent of the season, minimum size, and possession limit prescribed in Sec. Sec. 648.102, 648.103, and 648.105(a), respectively. According to the regulation at Sec. 648.107(a)(1), vessels subject to the recreational fishing measures of this part and landing summer flounder in a state with an approved conservation equivalency program shall not be subject to the more restrictive Federal measures, and shall instead be subject to the recreational fishing measures implemented by the state in which they land. Section 648.107(a) has been amended accordingly. The management measures will vary according to the state of landing, as specified in the following table.

Management measures by State

\1\ Measures for the ocean waters off MD in the Atlantic Ocean and coastal bays; for the
     Chesapeake Bay, a 15.0- inch minimum fish size, a 2-fish possession limit, and a fishing
     season of January 1 through December 31 applies.

\2\ Measures for the ocean waters off NC in the Atlantic Ocean; for internal waters, a
     14.0-inch minimum fish size, a 8-fish possession limit, and a fishing season of January 1
     through December 31 applies.

Table 2 contains the coastwide Federal measures for scup and black

sea bass in effect for 2007 and codified. These measures are unchanged

from those at 50 CFR Part 648 subparts H and I. 

Table 2 - 2007 Scup and Black Sea Bass Recreational Management Measures 

As has occurred in the past 5 years, the scup fishery in state waters will be managed under a regional
conservation equivalency system developed through the Commission. Because the Federal FMP does
not contain provisions for conservation equivalency, and states may adopt their own unique measures,
the Federal and state recreational scup management measures will differ for 2007.