Regulatory Impact Review for an Emergency Rule to Relieve Regional Delivery Requirements for the Western Aleutian Islands Golden King Crab Fishery

The Council has requested that NOAA Fisheries promulgate an emergency rule to relieve the existing regional delivery and processing requirement in the Western Aleutian Islands golden king crab fishery. An emergency exists because no processing facility is currently open in the West region, yet federal regulations require that a portion of crab be processed in the West region. Relieving this restriction would enable fishermen to deliver harvests made with West designated individual fishing quota outside the West region. A substantial portion of the fishery will likely remain unharvested unless the West region delivery requirement is relieved. This document contains a Regulatory Impact Review to analyze the economic impacts of temporarily relieving the existing West region delivery requirement.

The emergency rule would provide relief for the 2009/2010 crab fishing year and enable the fishery to occur while the Council develops an amendment to the Fishery Management Plan to permanently address this situation.