Regulatory Impact Review for an Emergency Rule to Exempt Custom Processing from the Tanner Crab Individual Processing Quota Use Caps

The Council has requested that NOAA Fisheries promulgate an emergency rule to modify regulations governing individual processing quota (IPQ) use in the Bering Sea tanner crab fisheries. This emergency rule would allow, for the 2015/2016 crab fishing year, Tanner crab to be custom processed without that crab being applied against the IPQ use caps of facility operators. IPQ use caps limit the amount of crab a processor can process in a season. An emergency exists because the few processors available are constrained by IPQ use caps. This results in more crab being available for harvest than can be legally processed. This means a substantial amount of Tanner crab remains unharvested. Harvesters, shoreside processors, and communities that participate in these fisheries have limited alternatives to cope with the resulting negative economic effects. A custom processing exemption would enable fishermen to harvest and deliver Tanner crab to processors able to process that crab. This document contains a Regulatory Impact Review to analyze the economic impacts of temporarily allowing a custom processing exemption for Tanner crab.