Amendment No. 12 to the Fishery Management Plan for Coastal Migratory Pelagic Resources of the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic (Mackerels).

This Amendment to the Fishery Management Plan for Coastal Migratory Pelagic Resources of the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic extends the commercial king mackerel permit moratorium until replaced with a license limitation, limited access, and/or individual fishing quota or individual transferable quota system. Since the commercial king mackerel harvest is regulated through allocations of TAC, the biological effects of open access and an increase in the number of participants would be constrained to the possibility of increased overruns due to problems with effectively counting catches and closing the fishery in a timely manner as a result of this increased participation. Reduced enforcement effectiveness as a result on an increased number of participants could also exacerbate the problem of overruns of the commercial allocations of TAC.