The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will convene an ad hoc committee that will evaluate:
(A) if and how the design of the Marine Recreational Information Program, for the purposes of stock assessment and the determination of stock management reference points, can be improved to better meet the needs of in-season
management of annual catch limits (ACLs);
(B) what actions the Secretary, Councils, and States could take to improve the accuracy and timeliness of data collection and analysis to improve or supplement the Marine Recreational Information Program and facilitate in-season management;
(C) alternative management approaches that could be applied to recreational fisheries, consistent with requirements for fisheries with ACLs, for which the Marine Recreational Information Program is not sufficient to meet the needs of in-season management
This evaluation will include the following:
(1) fishery-specific assessment of the in-season management needs for fisheries subject to an ACL in each region,
(2) an objective, independent evaluation of how well current survey methods in each region meet the needs of the defined in-season management of recreational fisheries with ACLs,
(3) an evaluation of how current ACL in-season management strategies utilize information provided by the current surveys,
(4) an assessment of how survey methods and/or management strategies could be modified to better meet the needs for
ACL monitoring and accountability measures to ensure that overfishing does not occur, and
(5) an assessment of the trade-offs that should be considered when determining appropriate pairing of survey methods with ACL management strategies, including the relative costs or resource requirements of the survey methods considered by the committee.