Amendment 80 Permit Program

The Amendment 80 Program was adopted by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) in June 2006. The final rule implementing Amendment 80 published in the Federal Register on September 14, 2007. This action allocates several Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI) non-pollock trawl groundfish species among trawl fishery sectors, and facilitate the formation of harvesting cooperatives in the non-American Fisheries Act (non-AFA) trawl catcher/processor sector. The Council adopted Amendment 80 to meet the broad goals of: (1) improving retention and utilization of fishery resources by the non-AFA trawl catcher/processor fleet by extending the groundfish retention standard (GRS) to non-AFA trawl catcher/processor vessels of all lengths; (2) allocating fishery resources among BSAI trawl harvesters in consideration of historic and present harvest patterns and future harvest needs; (3) authorizing the allocation of groundfish species to harvesting cooperatives and establishing a limited access privilege program (LAPP) for the non-AFA trawl catcher/processors to reduce potential GRS compliance costs, encourage fishing practices with lower discard rates, and improve the opportunity for increasing the value of harvested species; and (4) limiting the ability of non-AFA trawl catcher/processors to expand their harvesting capacity into other fisheries not managed under a LAPP. The groundfish species in the BSAI directly affected by Amendment 80 include: - Atka mackerel - Aleutian Islands Pacific ocean perch - Flathead sole - Pacific cod - Rock sole - Yellowfin sole In addition, Amendment 80 would modify the management of halibut and crab prohibited species catch (PSC) limits.

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  "https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inportserve/waf/noaa/nmfs/akro/dmp/pdf/10584.pdf"
]