60 Adjustments to the License Limitation Program
Purpose and Need
Following the approval of the original LLP program, industry members requested that the Council revise several of the provisions and qualification criteria, including adding a recent participation criteria for crab. BSAI Amendment 60, GOA Amendment 58, and BSAI Crab Amendment 10 encompass a package of changes focusing primarily on further capacity reductions and transferability restrictions, to tighten up the License Limitation Program before implementation.
Analysis
A 203-page EA/RIR/IRFA (final draft dated July 1999) was prepared for these amendments. Six proposed actions were analyzed along with the status quo for each alternative, and the five changes outlined above were adopted. The change that was not approved would have clarified the Council’s intent that catch history transfers be recognized, except those occurring after June 17, 1995, and where the owner of the vessel at that time was unable to document a vessel under Chapter 121, Title 46, U.S.C. NOAA General Counsel advised the Council that this action may violate foreign reciprocity agreements listed in the Magnuson-Stevens Act; therefore, the Council decided not to proceed with this proposed action.
Regulation Summary
Five changes were adopted and approved under these amendments: 1) a requirement that the vessel itself would be a specific characteristic of the license and could not be severed (i.e., the license could not be used on any other vessel); 2) license designations for the type of gear authorized to harvest LLP groundfish as either "trawl" or "non-trawl" gear (or both); 3) rescission of the Community Development Quota (CDQ) exemption and thus the requirement that CDQ vessels hold a crab or groundfish license; 4) the addition of a crab recency requirement which requires one landing during 1/1/96-2/7/98 in addition to the general license and area endorsement qualifications; and 5) allowance of limited processing (1 mt) for vessels <60' LOA with catcher vessel designations. The most significant addition under these amendments was the recent participation requirement of at least one landing in the king and Tanner crab fisheries between January 1, 1996 and February 7, 1998, which applied only to the base qualifying period under the crab LL
Results
Amendment 60 reduced the number of vessels eligible to participate in the overcapitalized crab fisheries, and provided further capacity restrictions in the groundfish fisheries.