Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

The Department of Commerce will submit to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for clearance the following proposal for collection of information under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. Chapter 35).

Agency: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Title: Groundfish Tagging Program.

OMB Control Number: 0648-0276.

Form Number(s): None.

Type of Request: Regular (extension of a currently approved information collection).

Number of Respondents: 440.

Average Hours per Response: Return of a regular tag, 5 minutes; return of an internal archival tag, 20 minutes.

Burden Hours: 89.

Needs and Uses: This request is for extension of a currently approved information collection.

The groundfish tagging program provides scientists with information necessary for effective conservation, management, and scientific understanding of the groundfish fishery off Alaska and the Northwest Pacific. The program area includes the Pacific Ocean off Alaska (the Gulf of Alaska, the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Area, and the Alexander Archipelago of Southeast Alaska), California, Oregon, and Washington. Fish movement information from recovered tags is used in population dynamics models for stock assessment. There are two general categories of tags. Simple plastic tags (spaghetti tags) are external tags approximately two inches long, printed with code numbers. When a tag is returned, the tag number is correlated with databases of released, tagged fish to determine the net movement and growth rate of the tagged fish. Archival tags are microchips with sensors encased in plastic cylinders that record the depth, temperature or other data, which can be downloaded electronically from the recovered tags. The groundfish tagging and tag recovery program is part of the fishery resource assessment and data collection that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) conducts under the Magnuson-Stevens Act authority as codified in 16 U.S.C. 1801 (a)(8).

Affected Public: Not-for-profit institutions; state, local, or tribal government; business or other for-profit organizations.

Frequency: On occasion.

Respondent's Obligation: Voluntary.

This information collection request may be viewed at reginfo.gov. Follow the instructions to view Department of Commerce collections currently under review by OMB.

Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information collection should be sent within 30 days of publication of this notice to OIRA_Submission@omb.eop.gov or fax to (202) 395-5806.