Regulatory Impact Review / Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis Proposed Amendment 41 to the Fishery Management Plan for Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands King and Tanner Crabs Emergency Exemptions from Regional Landing Requirements

In the spring of 2007, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (the Council) established a committee to address certain concerns with the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands crab rationalization program (the program). In the course of the committee’s meetings, members expressed concern that at times of extreme icing and other uncontrollable circumstances, the regional landing requirements applicable to Class A individual fishing quota (IFQ) could pose safety risks, loss of resource (such as excessive deadloss), or extreme economic hardships to participants in the crab fisheries. At its October 2008 meeting, after receiving a staff discussion paper, an advisory panel recommendation, and public testimony, the Council directed staff to prepare an analysis of alternatives to provide an emergency exemption from regional landing requirements. To avoid potential insurmountable administrative burdens the Council identified for analysis a system of civil contracts between harvesters, processors, and regional representatives as the means of defining the exemption from the regional landing requirements. The analysis contains a Regulatory Impact Review and an Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis. 2012 NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) Submitted Public Domain 1862