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ruled the council, just bamm, or has he sent it back? I cannot un- 

 derstand under the act where he can overrule the council. Now, he 

 can just disapprove it and send it back. 



Mr. Benton. Mr. Chairman, your reading of the act is similar to 

 my reading of the act, but the fact of the matter is that the Sec- 

 retary on the three occasions that I mentioned to you has actually 

 substituted a different decision for a council decision. Now in the 

 case of Pacific whiting and the inshore/offshore decision on pollock 

 allocation in Alaska, the Secretary did send those decisions back. 

 The council reconsidered their decision 



The Chairman. Right. 



Mr. Benton [continuing]. Pursuant to the act, but then sent a 

 new decision back to the Secretary. And the Secretary said, "Well, 

 I do not like that so here is my decision on what we are going to 

 do," and came up with his own decision. 



And I do not know whether the Secretary remanded the salmon 

 decision off the Pacific Coast or not. But I do know that he sub- 

 stituted a different decision and proposal than what came out of 

 that council. 



The Chairman. Maybe we can state section 304 with greater 

 specificity, but you have got more fisheries lawyers than you have 

 got salmon out here. 



Mr. Benton. Mr. Chairman, fortunately I am not a lawyer. 



The Chairman. Yes. And I cannot see him getting by that sec- 

 tion, unless I have been misreading it. But we can hear from our 

 colleague here. He will understand it better than I. With respect 

 to the matter of strengthening the regional councils on conflict of 

 interest, you do not think the North Pacific council members vote 

 down the State line. But you say out of 900-and-some votes, in only 

 3 of them the Secretary went against the Alaskans. Now, that tells 

 me you are a powerful leader, and your public relations or some- 

 thing was wrong with the last two hearings, because at the last 

 two hearings fishermen all told us — and representatives of the in- 

 dustry and otherwise said now, you have to have an interest. You 

 must have the knowledge, and not get too excited about the conflict 

 of interest. However, where there is a direct financial interest, and 

 it is observed to be a direct financial interest, council members 

 should excuse themselves. We ought to revise the statute, not nec- 

 essarily put them under the criminal provision of conflict-of-inter- 

 est statute, but at least in Magnuson, itself. That was rec- 

 ommended at both hearings. Why do they feel that way, given your 

 descriptions of council voting patterns? 



Mr. Benton. Well, I actually do not disagree with the viewpoint 

 you heard elsewhere. And, in fact, our board of fisheries which reg- 

 ulates state fisheries in our waters much like the council does, has 

 provisions like that. They are adopted internally as regulations. 

 They are not statutorily mandated. We can do it as a statute. But 

 I do not disagree with the idea that council members which have 

 a direct financial interest in a particular decision at least state up 

 front their interest and either excuse themselves from the decision, 

 or at least put it on the record. 



The Chairman. Do you know of situations wherein they have had 

 a financial interest, but failed to excuse themselves? 



