Fisheries Off West Coast States; West Coast Groundfish Electronic Monitoring Program; Service Provider Revisions

This final rule revises regulations governing the use of electronic monitoring (EM) in the Pacific Coast groundfish trawl fishery. This rulemaking modifies deadlines in Federal regulations for EM service providers to process EM data and submit vessel logbooks to NMFS. This action is intended to support the overarching goal of continually monitoring the Groundfish Trawl Rationalization Program for compliance with existing regulations in an economical and flexible manner while meeting the goals and objectives of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act; MSA), the Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan, and other applicable laws. This rulemaking also makes minor administrative changes to EM and other groundfish regulations to clarify the regulations, correct terminology, correct web addresses, and remove obsolete administrative requirements. Some aspects of this action remove duplicative requirements for mail notifications or mail-based record-keeping and reporting, which are also undertaken electronically. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many administrative notifications and reporting requirements were moved to electronic methods; this action revises the regulations to be consistent with current practice.