HLL Introduction

The Electronic Signature Business Plan is the second phase of a four phase process required by the NMFS procedural directive for e-signatures to allow NMFS applications to use electronic signatures. This phase is designed to explain why an electronic signature for a transaction is beneficial and "practicable", both to NMFS and its end users. The business plan also discusses the current process that will be replaced by the e-government application, the demand for electronic signatures in for the application, how NPS plans to implement electronic signatures in this context, the various costs and benefits, and an implementation plan outline. The remaining two phases in implementing electronic signatures required by the procedural directive are:

1. Evaluation and Approval of the Business Plan, and
2. Implementation of the Electronic Signature Process.

NMFS manages fishing in waters of the United States and international waters under authority of various statutes and laws, primarily the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Public Law 94-265, as variously amended, most recently by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act (P.L. 109-479)) (MSA) and the High Seas Fishery Management and Conservation Act.

Recent regulations have made changes to the Fishery Management Plan for the Western Pacific Region. In particular, the regulation authorizes the use of optional electronic logbooks. Affected operators of fishing vessels must record their catch daily in a logbook and report logbook entries to NMFS within 72 hours of landing. NOAA promulgated the final rule authorizing the use of electronic logbooks on April 17, 2007. This regulatory action was based, in part, on an analysis included in a Regulatory Amendment published by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Council in November of 2006 that articulated the benefits of electronic logbook reporting. The Council's analysis was in turn based on a pilot electronic logbook program that had equipped up to thirty vessels with pilot software. One of those pilot vessels is still participating and reporting electronically.

The electronic logbook, which may include the use of physical media such as CD-Rom, memory stick, or diskette, obviate the need for operators of fishing vessels to send in paper logbook pages on landing. Moving to an electronic system for the collection of these logbook data has many beneficial and practicable benefits in the form of increased NMFS efficiency, data accuracy, and burden reduction for operators over the current paper process.