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Mr. Curry. I am not sure that I see it that way. 



The Chairman. If I see myself disadvantaged and I do not volun- 

 teer for an individual transferable quota, I am going up to the 

 council. They say, "Yes, we find you disadvantaged, and under the 

 Curry rule you cannot be disadvantaged, so do not worry about it. 

 So, in other words, we would have to nave a voluntary ITQ system, 

 as I see it from your testimony. 



Mr. CURRY. Well, no. The way I see it, Senator, is this would 

 work in conjunction with the existing national standards, which 

 speak to equity, which speak to some of the economics and the 

 other items that I have talked about. And certainly in every alloca- 

 tion that the council is involved in, we have people that claim that 

 they are disadvantaged. My proposal recognizes that within sectors 

 there will be winners and losers, but I am talking about sectors, 

 the structure of an ongoing fishery. And that — the examination 

 does not need to be any more detailed than that in terms of names 

 of oversight, and if you can predict, and I believe the analysis 

 would do the job for you, that an entire sector would be removed 

 from the fishery or disadvantaged because they are not able to 

 share in an ITQ program. 



The Chairman. Well, it would go to the sector, then, and not the 

 individual? 



Mr. Curry. Well, this would be part of the — well, the analysis. 



The Chairman. But you say there are going to be some losers? 



Mr. Curry. Certainly. There always are in every council decision. 



The Chairman. So, the disadvantage would not go to the individ- 

 ual necessarily, but the idea is to extend it to the region itself 



Mr. Curry. To the sector. 



The Chairman [continuing]. To find out if the region was dis- 

 advantaged rather than the individual? 



Mr. Curry. Yeah. The way I would define "competing sectors" at 

 this stage, for instance, you have heard testimony from various 

 fishermen and they generally identify the sector as harvesters by 

 their gear type, so you have a variety of sectors identified by gear 

 type. Processors, you can do the same sort of thing by, for example, 

 the location. We always have to base it by offshore or onshore proc- 

 essors. And it is, I think, something that a council could do quite 

 easily. Certainly in the North Pacific that could be done, and you 

 may want to consider this for the North Pacific. 



Senator Stevens. What about subsequent to the implementation 

 of the plan? If a sector was impacted by the decision of the council, 

 for instance, in reducing the allowable catch, that would have an 

 impact on the sector as far as the value of their permits or the 

 value of the boats? Is that an impact that should be considered? 



Mr. Curry. Certainly would have to be considered. I think the 

 post allocation of the initial shares 



Senator Stevens. Well, that is implementation by IFQ — ITQ. 



Mr. Curry. True, and so it would have to be considered what the 

 impact would be, and I think it would be incumbent on the councils 

 to do as fair a job as possible to include all the existing sectors and 

 allocate in a uniform way amongst those sectors. After allocation, 

 you will have the natural forces that will allow rationalization that 

 proponents of ITQ systems favor take place, and I think if you have 

 initial allocations that is fair, then the winners and losers following 



