Justification for change in cost for 0648-0544

Justification for Change in Costs for 0648-0544:

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) newly centralized Office of Law
Enforcement (OLE) is now requiring all new Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS) for US
commercial vessels to be of a type which costs $3500. Therefore, for this collection, the
individual cost of a unit will increase by $600 from the maximum previously estimated,
$2900. For the 1121 vessels required to purchase a VMS, annualized cost will increase by
$200 each.
NOTE: NMFS has now developed a reimbursement program for the units that will pay
each fishermen approximately $3100 for the units, so based on how many respondents
can obtain these reimbursements, at some point we will submit another request to
decrease the costs).
A second change to this collection is that all documents related to the VMS program will
be made available in Vietnamese and Spanish.