Amendment 21: Housekeeping” FMP Amendment

In April 2022, the Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) initiated a Coastal Pelagic Species Management Team (CPSMT) recommended administrative or “housekeeping” amendment of the CPS Fishery Management Plan (FMP). This idea had initially been proposed in June 2019 by the CPSMT when the Council was developing the management categories action (Amendment 20: Agenda Item F.4.a, Supplemental Revised CPSMT Report 1, June 2019).

In November 2022, the CPSMT provided an underline/strikethrough of proposed housekeeping changes to the CPS FMP. The proposed changes were not intended to change the policy framework described in the FMP, change management, or otherwise be substantive changes, but rather to: remove or update descriptions that have become out of date, reflect current fishery management practice as described in National Standard 1 Guidelines, and reorganize and revise the text to be more clear and concise. As much as possible, descriptive information is provided to make the FMP less likely to become dated in the future. The Council adopted these proposed changes for public review with an additional edit proposed by the CPS Advisory Subpanel in Section 4.6.  The underline/strikethrough as adopted by the Council can be found here with a clean copy here.

After the November Council meeting, the CPSMT, National Marine Fisheries Service, and Council staff reviewed the public review draft to ensure that all proposed changes were in fact “housekeeping.” Through that review, some proposed changes were found to be unnecessary or beyond a “housekeeping” action, while other new items were identified for potential change. In April 2023, the CPSMT presented a revised public review draft based on those discussions (Agenda Item H.3, Attachment 3, April 2023) and provided rationale in Agenda Item H.3, CPSMT Report 1 for all changes including those from the public review draft and changes recommended to be undone or added since then.  The Council adopted the proposed changes in Agenda Item H.3. Attachment 3 as well as the two additional recommendations noted in Supplemental CPSMT Report 2.

NMFS issued a notice of availability of the FMP Amendment on February 20, 2024 (89 FR 12810) and approved the amendment on May 20, 2024.