Summary
This document describes a National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) rule that requires all shrimping vessels that are 40 feet in length or longer to use a turtle excluder device (TED) in their operations. This rule finds its authority in the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The NMFS outlines the course of designing the rule and revising it after receiving public comment. The public comment period for the rule garnered 38,500 public comments across 1,200 submissions.The comments are broadly summarized and addressed: translation of regulations into Vietnamese (a disproportionately large group of the nations shrimpers are Vietnamese Americans living in southeast Louisiana; the NMFS stated that they were not required to translate these materials); TEDs would not work due to debris (NMFS stated that records and studies indicated that TEDs would work broadly); and, the regulation may place a heavy burden on an already struggling industry (which the NMFS acknowledges). Other comments addressed economic impacts, issues with the data in the report that backed the rule, and logistical issues with installing TEDs. Across all these concerns, the NMFS defends its decision by asserting that the data supports this measure as effective, perhaps costly, and realistic in most respects. The document closes with the report itself, which largely contains estimates for the economic losses to shrimping fleets, the number of fleets that may shut down, and explanations for why the rule exists as it does as opposed to an alternative.