Northwest Region Federal Fisheries Permits

This request is for a revision and extension of a current information collection. The revision, pursuant to final rule 0648-BN08, will add a new permit application for directed groundfish open access fishing; no other revisions are requested. This collection of information is required by National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), West Coast Region – Seattle (WCR-SEATTLE). This supporting statement addresses data collections authorized by the Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan (FMP), developed by the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC or Council) under the authority of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, U.S.C. 1801 et seq. (Magnuson-Stevens Act or MSA). The FMP governs the groundfish fishery off Washington, Oregon, and California (WOC). Section 303(b)(1) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act specifically recognized the need for permit issuance. Almost every international, federal, state, and local fishery management authority recognizes the value of and uses permits as an integral part of their management systems. Identification of the participants, their gear types, descriptions of their vessels, and expected activity levels are needed to measure the consequences of management controls, and is an effective tool in the enforcement of other fishery regulations. Experience has shown that fines for violations of specific fishery regulations are not as effective as the threat of a permit revocation that would exclude the vessel from the fishery altogether. Management of and regulations for Pacific halibut in the Pacific are developed on the international, Federal, and state levels by the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC), the Council, the NMFS West Coast Region, and the states of Washington, Oregon, and California. The IPHC and NMFS manage fishing for Pacific halibut through regulations established under authority of the Convention between the United States Halibut Fishery of the Northern Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea (Convention), the Northern Pacific Halibut Act of 1982, 16 U.S.C. 773c (Halibut Act), and Section 303(b) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Regulations for the guided sport fishery for Pacific halibut (recreational charter halibut fishery) on the West Coast are determined annually by the Council and the IPHC. NMFS publishes these regulations each year as part of the IPHC annual management measures. Regulations for the Pacific halibut fisheries are at 50 CFR 300 subpart E. Responses to the items in the supporting statement are broken out by the various type of permit function: 1) application and reporting requirements for an exempted (experimental) fishing permits (EFPs) including Letters of Acknowledgement (LOAs) for EFPs and Exempted Educational Activity Authorizations (EEAAs); 2) transfer and renewal of Pacific Coast Groundfish limited entry permits (LEPs), including other information collections necessary for the sablefish permit stacking program; (3) application and renewal of a permit for Pacific halibut commercial and recreational charter halibut fisheries in IPHC Regulatory Area 2A off of WOC; (4) application and renewal of a permit for the directed groundfish open access fishery off of WOC. For each section of the information collection, we have presented the total number of burden hours and cost burden. Currently, there are 395 LEPs, of which 164 permits have a sablefish endorsement. The number of EFPs varies from year to year depending upon the number of applications submitted to and approved by PFMC and NMFS. The number of Pacific halibut permits is 550 permits each year. The number of directed open access groundfish (DOAG) fishery permits per year is 400.

The latest form for Northwest Region Federal Fisheries Permits expires 2028-01-31 and can be found here.

Limited Entry Permit Renewal

Federal Enterprise Architecture: Natural Resources - Conservation, Marine and Land Management

Review document collections for all forms, instructions, and supporting documents - including paper/printable forms.