The Council took final action to amend three existing Economic Data Reporting (EDR) Programs, and remove one. Currently four data collection programs exist which represent mandatory annual data reporting requirements for regulated entities participating in the BSAI Crab Rationalization fisheries, the BSAI American Fisheries Act pollock fishery, the BSAI Amendment 80 fisheries, and the GOA Trawl fisheries.
EDR Form
The Council’s final action recommends removing reporting requirements for the GOA trawl EDR, as well as removing the requirements for third-party data verification audits for the remaining data collections and changing the procedures for data aggregation and blind formatting for the crab EDR, to make those data aggregation and confidentiality protections comparable to the requirements under other data collection programs.
Given the latitude to make changes to the content of the three remaining programs without a regulatory amendment, the Council reiterated its request to the Alaska Fisheries Science Center staff to consider changes to the EDR identified in the stakeholder workshops, March 2021 SSPT report, and/or others in consultation with stakeholders, with the expectation that changes should take effect prior to the 2023 data submissions. The Council requested an update of those changes in a future AFSC/NMFS management report including a comprehensive listing of the recommended changes from the workshops, SSPT report and consultations, and contain the rationale for the treatment of each of the recommended changes, describing whether the EDRs were modified to incorporate them or if they were not implemented.
As a separate item under staff tasking, the Council tasked staff with developing a discussion paper identifying a few economic data components that 1) are not currently collected across all sectors but that could improve FMP and regulatory impact analyses if collected from all sectors, and/or 2) should continue to be collected from catch share programs and could inform potential revisions to current EDR requirements. The paper should also evaluate the appropriate data collection mechanism and frequency, which could include surveys, annual reports, or other tools that can collect consistent, useable data in a clear format that minimizes submittal burden and collection cost.
Staff contact is Sarah Marrinan.
