Notice2023-26661
Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment Request; West Coast Groundfish Trawl Economic Data
Primary source
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Published
December 5, 2023
Issuing agencies
Commerce DepartmentNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 88 Issue 232 (Tuesday, December 5, 2023)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 232 (Tuesday, December 5, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 84307-84308]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2023-26661]
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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment
Request; West Coast Groundfish Trawl Economic Data
The Department of Commerce will submit the following information
collection request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for
review and clearance in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of
1995, on or after the date of publication of this notice. We invite the
general public and other Federal agencies to comment on proposed, and
continuing information collections, which helps us assess the impact of
our information collection requirements and minimize the public's
reporting burden. Public comments were previously requested via the
Federal Register on March 23, 2023 during a 60-day comment period. This
notice allows for an additional 30 days for public comments.
Agency: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
Commerce.
Title: West Coast Groundfish Trawl Economic Data.
OMB Control Number: 0648-0618.
Form Number(s): None.
Type of Request: Regular (extension of a currently approved
information collection).
Number of Respondents: 361.
Average Hours per Response: 8 hours for catcher processors, catcher
vessels, and motherships, 1 hour for quota share permit owners, and 20
hours for first receivers and shore-based processors.
Total Annual Burden Hours: 2,236.
Needs and Uses: This request is for revision and renewal of a
currently approved information collection. This information collection
is needed in order to meet the monitoring requirements of the Magnuson-
Stevens Act (MSA). In particular, the Northwest Fisheries Science
Center (NWFSC) needs economic data on all harvesters, quota share
permit owners, first receivers, shore-based processors, catcher
processors, and motherships participating in the West Coast groundfish
trawl fishery. Data will be collected from all catcher vessels
registered to a limited entry trawl endorsed permit, quota share permit
owners, catcher processors registered to catcher processor permits,
motherships registered to mothership permits, first receivers, and
shore based processors that received round or head-and-gutted IFQ
groundfish or whiting from a first receiver to provide the necessary
information for analyzing the effects of the West Coast Groundfish
Trawl Catch Share Program.
Changes are being proposed to three forms: the quota share owner
form, the first receiver and shore-based processor form, and the
catcher vessel form. Two changes are proposed for the quota share owner
form. First, the question ``Is this permit owned solely by a non-
profit?'' will be removed from the survey as it was determined that
sufficient information is available from other sources to make this
question redundant. The second proposed change is to replace the
survey's third question with a series of shorter questions guiding the
participant to provide the correct information. This change will
clarify which information should be reported for each type of
respondent and will reduce the need for lengthy instructions section
describing how the participant should answer. The series of questions
are:
A. ``Which types of quota transactions were associated with QSXXXX
in 20XX? Check all that apply'' This question helps the participant
determine whether any earnings need to be reported on the survey. If
appropriate categories are checked, they will be asked question B.
B. ``How much did this quota share account earn from leasing quota
in year 20XX?'' Participants will answer this question with a dollar
amount. To ensure there is no duplicate reporting, participants will be
asked question C:
C. ``Did you record any earnings from 20XX quota leasing on an EDC
form?'' If participants answer ``No,'' they will be prompted to affirm
that their response to question B was correct and submit the survey. If
they answer ``Yes,'' they will be asked to respond to question D.
D. ``How much in quota lease earnings did you record on your EDC
form(s)? Participants will answer with a numerical value and proceed to
question E.
E. ``Please confirm your total quota lease earnings in 20XX was
`Response to question B + `Response to question D.' After confirming,
participants will then submit the survey.
We anticipate no additional burden with this change because the new
structure of the survey will generate fewer incorrect responses and
survey administrators will no longer need to contact participants
outside of the survey to confirm that they did not provide duplicate
responses across survey forms.
First receiver and shore-based processor form changes are more
extensive. The purpose of the changes is fivefold: remove requests for
information that are not used in development of a Pacific Fishery
Management Council Fishery Management Plan, consolidate questions where
additional detail is no longer required, clarify handling of
intercompany transfers and inventory, collect more accurate information
about hourly wages, obtain information about services provided by first
receivers to vessels.
First, we propose a complete removal of Question 18: ``Provide the
following information about the landing origin of groundfish received
at this facility.'' Throughout the eleven years of the program, these
data have not been used in the Council process and we do not anticipate
using this information in the future.
Second, we propose consolidating the fishery-level detail requests
from Question 19: ``Fish Received. In the table below provide the
weight and cost of fish received.'' For groundfish species, the
existing form requests weight not paid for, weight paid for, and cost
of fish by species group for three fisheries (LE Trawl, LE Fixed Gear,
and Other) as well as Non-vessel sources. In the revised form, the
table will be consolidated to only request Vessel sources and Non-
vessel sources. This will be a net reduction of 72 data entry cells on
the form (12 species groups x removal of 2 fisheries x 3 fields). We
will no longer request this information because fishery-detail
information can be obtained from other sources.
Third, we propose revising how intercompany transfers and inventory
are reported on the form. Similar to the
[[Page 84308]]
quota share owner survey, there are extensive instructions on handling
these two topics, but reporting errors are extremely common. To
facilitate accurate reporting of intercompany transfers, we will remove
a column dedicated to transfer information from Question 19 and remove
instructions about recording transfers in Question 20. Then, all of the
transfer-related information will be moved to a separate question/
table. This change will make the survey instructions easier to
understand, allow companies that do not have intercompany transfers to
skip the question entirely, and will make it easier to detect and
remedy mistakes. Similarly, there are extensive instructions on how to
record inventory in Question 20 on the existing form, but no dedicated
field for inventory. Instead, participants are currently instructed to
add inventory to the other sales categories. We propose adding a new
line for each species group to record the inventory volume and value.
Similar to the changes to transfers in Question 19 and 20, the new
structure of Question 20 clarifies how to complete the form and
facilitates identifying and resolving errors. Finally, this change will
provide new important information about inventory volumes across years,
providing better information about the status of the processing sector
to the Pacific Fishery Management Council.
A common performance metric for fisheries programs is hourly wage
payments to processing workers. In the current form, we request the
total number of workers and total hours worked for the week that
includes the 12th of each month and total annual compensation payments.
To calculate hourly wages, we must extrapolate to the total hours
worked for the year. Through conversations with participants, it has
become apparent that within-month employment can have high variability
and our extrapolations are not always accurate. We propose requesting
the equivalent compensation value for each of the one-week windows to
allow for a more accurate calculation of hourly wages. This additional
field will also allow us to generate an estimate of within-month
employment variability.
Lastly, through conversations with first receivers and vessels, it
is known that first receivers provide services to vessels such as bait,
ice, loans, moorage, and storage. We plan to add a new category to
capture whether those services are provided and whether the vessels are
charged for those services. This information will help answer questions
often posed by external reviewers when evaluating studies conducted
using the data collected in these surveys.
There are two proposed changes to the Catcher Vessel survey form.
The first is to remove two questions. In 2018, at the request of
participants in the trawl catch share program, two additional questions
were added, Question 17: ``Do you track capitalized expenditures and
expenses on fishing gear by type (e.g., midwater trawl gear, groundfish
bottom trawl gear)?'' and Question 18: ``Provide the 2021 total
capitalized expenditures and expenses associated with each type of
fishing gear used in West Coast Fisheries (Washington, Oregon, and
California).'' Since the implementation of the questions in 2018, there
has only been one ``Yes'' out nearly 700 total responses to Question 17
and therefore no further information about gear-specific costs have
been collected. Therefore, there will be no information loss associated
with removal of these two questions and there may be a small reduction
in total burden hours.
The second proposed change to the Catcher vessel survey form also
applies to the Catcher Processor and Mothership forms. This change adds
a four-part question about vessel financing. The questions are whether
there were any loans on the vessel, how much was still owed at the end
of the fiscal year, total amount paid to interest, and total amount
paid to principal. The purpose of this new question is to collect the
necessary information to comply with recent NOAA fisheries guidance on
calculation of net returns of fishing businesses.
Affected Public: Business or other for-profit organizations; not-
for-profit institutions.
Frequency: Annually.
Respondent's Obligation: Mandatory.
Legal Authority: 50 CFR 660.114.
This information collection request may be viewed at
<a href="http://www.reginfo.gov">www.reginfo.gov</a>. Follow the instructions to view the Department of
Commerce collections currently under review by OMB.
Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information
collection should be submitted within 30 days of the publication of
this notice on the following website <a href="http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain">www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain</a>.
Find this particular information collection by selecting ``Currently
under 30-day Review--Open for Public Comments'' or by using the search
function and entering either the title of the collection or the OMB
Control Number 0648-0618.
Sheleen Dumas,
Department PRA Clearance Officer, Office of the Under Secretary for
Economic Affairs, Commerce Department.
[FR Doc. 2023-26661 Filed 12-4-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-22-P
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