Comments closed September 19
Support recovered Pacific rockfish keeping their protected status
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration · Pacific Coast, California
- What
- Two Pacific rockfish species have fully rebuilt and need official recognition to protect those hard-won gains.
- Where
- Pacific Coast, California, CA
- How much
- Yelloweye rockfish and California quillback rockfish populations recovered after years of strict management limits.
- Decided
- Comments closed September 19, 2026. No decision document is on file yet.Date from Federal Register ↗, read July 23, 2026.
Where these four lines come from
- WhatOur plain-English read of the Federal Register 2026-14694 ↗. Check it against the agency’s own words under Case.
- WhereThe places and states the notice names, as PLAN read them.
- How muchThe first sentence of our What’s at risk read of the notice; the whole read is under Case.
- DecidedSeptember 19, 2026, from Federal Register, the document’s comment close date (federalregister.gov) ↗. Read July 23, 2026. The decision document is the one on file in PLAN’s record.
- Read from PLAN’s record November 9, 2026.
Shannon Bettridge
Acting Director, Office of Sustainable Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service
A person signed this, not an agency. The window has closed and the signature stands, which is exactly when accountability matters.
NOAA Fisheries Directorate
Assistant Administrator of Fisheries
Short is better. You are asking the Assistant Administrator of Fisheries to answer for a decision their office made.
My name is [your name] and I'm calling from [your city and state]. Shannon Bettridge, Acting Director, Office of Sustainable Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service, signed the decision on Support recovered Pacific rockfish keeping their protected status. I'm asking the NOAA Fisheries Directorate to withdraw that decision and require full environmental review before anything proceeds. Please record that I called and tell me what the office intends to do.
Official channels only, about this decision. No personal phone numbers, no home addresses, no personal social accounts, and nothing abusive. The point is to make the office answer, and an abusive call is the one thing that lets it off the hook.
What the proposal said, and what the decision did
No figure from the proposal has been checked against the decision on this fight yet. What the record does hold is the issues ledger below.
No decision document is on PLAN’s record for this fight yet. When the agency’s decision lands, what it answered goes here.
Protective action worth supporting
Two Pacific rockfish species have fully rebuilt and need official recognition to protect those hard-won gains.
What’s at risk
If we stay silent
Our plain-English read of the official notice ↗. Check it against the agency’s own words below.
The agency’s own analysis
What the notice says, and what it leaves out
The window has closed; the record of what was missing stays.
The agency says
“the ACL for Sub-option 2b would be set higher than the SSC's recommended OFL for widow rockfish. Therefore, this sub-option conflicts with the National Standard 1 Guidelines at 50 CFR 600.310(f)(3), which states 'ABC may not exceed OFL.'”
The agency set the widow rockfish ACL for Alternative 2 Sub-option 2b at 6,720 mt for both 2027 and 2028, which its own analysis acknowledges exceeds the SSC-recommended OFL of 6,239 mt.
The agency says
“A key difference between the Alternatives is that the ABC and ACL under Alternative 2 is set one metric ton lower than the OFL for 2027.”
For yellowtail rockfish north of 40 degrees 10 minutes N.
The agency says
“The high amount of sablefish that is expected to continue to be landed in Oregon and Washington ports in the 2027-28 biennium may reduce these adverse socioeconomic impacts.”
The sablefish ACL drops by approximately 59 percent relative to No Action (from 26,688 mt to 10,962 mt north of 36 degrees N.
The agency says
“as a number of the prior NEPA documents that this EA tiers to are more than 5 years old, we have reevaluated the underlying assumptions and analysis in those documents and determined that both remain valid.”
Section 1.3 states that the agency reevaluated the 2015 EIS and found its assumptions 'remain valid,' but the 2015 EIS was prepared before the fishery experienced the dramatic widow rockfish stock collapse now driving a 59 percent ACL reduction, before yelloweye and quillback rockfish were declared rebuilt, and before sablefish ACLs hit historic highs and then fell by nearly 60 percent.
The agency says
“It is uncertain whether any mitigation measures identified in the TRP may be implemented during the 2027-28 biennium.”
The EA dismisses impacts on protected resources by stating that 'management-induced changes in the distribution and intensity of groundfish fishing are unlikely to discernibly affect food web dynamics' and finds no significant impact, yet Section 4.2.1 confirms that a Take Reduction Team for humpback whales in the sablefish pot fishery was established in November 2025 and its draft Take Reduction Plan had not been finalized as of the document's preparation.
The agency says
“The Council selected Alternative 1 as the FPA for chilipepper, however, following new information that indicates that there may be additional opportunity for chilipepper harvest, due to changing market conditions.”
The agency chose Alternative 1 (higher ACL) over Alternative 2 for chilipepper, stating that 'new information indicates that there may be additional opportunity for chilipepper harvest, due to changing market conditions.' Section 8.2 cites this market information as the basis for departing from the preliminary preferred alternative.
The agency says
“Tribal comments and participation at the Council played a role in developing and analyzing the Proposed Action, therefore it is consistent with E.O. 13175.”
The EA's Tribal consultation section (Section 9.1) states only that 'Tribal comments and participation at the Council played a role in developing and analyzing the Proposed Action' and declares compliance with Executive Order 13175.
The agency says
“there are no reasonably foreseeable environmental effects that, when combined with the effects of the Proposed Action, would cause significant impact to socioeconomics.”
Section 5.1.2 states flatly that 'there are no reasonably foreseeable environmental effects that, when combined with the effects of the Proposed Action, would cause significant impact to socioeconomics.' Yet Section 6.4.2 shows coastwide commercial community income falling by $19.6 million relative to No Action, with Astoria-Tillamook alone losing $10.6 million and Newport losing $4.1 million.
The agency says
“Factors contributing to impacts on genetic structure have not materially changed from what is disclosed in the 2015 EIS (Section 4.1.3), so resulting impacts are not further discussed in this Analysis.”
The document states in Section 3.1 that 'factors contributing to impacts on genetic structure have not materially changed from what is disclosed in the 2015 EIS' and therefore drops any further genetic structure analysis.
The agency says
“The harvest specifications and routine management measures considered in this action are not expected to result in additional regulatory costs for any directly regulated entity.”
The EA's RIR section (Section 6.6) states that 'the harvest specifications and routine management measures considered in this action are not expected to result in additional regulatory costs for any directly regulated entity' and that 'there are no impacts with respect to direct compliance, reporting, or recordkeeping costs.' This sweeping no-cost conclusion conflicts with Section 7.3, which acknowledges that within the trawl sector smaller entities may be at a competitive disadvantage if quota pound prices increase for canary rockfish or shortspine thornyhead, and that sablefish allocation decreases will negatively affect profitability.
In the agency’s own words
NMFS announces that the Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) submitted amendment 38 to the Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan (Groundfish FMP) to the Secretary of Commerce for review. If approved, amendment 38 would revise the Groundfish FMP to reflect the rebuilt status of yelloweye rockfish and the California stock of quillback rockfish, removing all references to their respective rebuilding plans from the FMP. In accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969, NMFS also announces the availability of a draft EA that analyzes the potential effects of the action. NMFS r…
The groups on this fight
4 groups predicted likely to care in California
Predicted likely to care is a guess from the group's sourced work in California, with no link to this decision. Give straight to them; nothing routes through us.
- California Wilderness Coalition
Predicted likely to care · a guess
Chuckwalla National Monument, California: Spent years building the designation campaign with Tribal nations and now defends the monument as an intervenor in federal court.
- Joshua Tree National Park Association
Predicted likely to care · a guess
Joshua Tree National Park, California: A nonprofit partner of Joshua Tree National Park.
- Los Padres ForestWatch
Predicted likely to care · a guess
Los Padres National Forest, California: Has led opposition to oil drilling in the Los Padres region for two decades and is fighting the plan to reopen 400,000 acres to leasing.
- Yosemite Conservancy
Predicted likely to care · a guess
Yosemite National Park, California: A nonprofit partner of Yosemite National Park.
Every group above is on STAND for Public Lands, with its court record, its filings and who backs it.
Who signs it
Shannon Bettridge
Acting Director, Office of Sustainable Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service
Where the notice says so
The ground
The window has closed, so there’s no watch to set on it here.
In court on this ground
This fight isn’t bound to a land unit in PLAN’s record yet, so there are no court cases to show for its ground.
Who holds the vote
PLAN’s record doesn’t tie a member of Congress to this fight yet. The scorecard grades the votes and bills that decide public lands; nothing joins a vote or a bill to this decision, so there’s no member to name here without guessing.
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