105 



boats. And they kind of put that on the table to counter some of 

 the other larger boats in the industry who were really seeing the 

 user fee plan and the way it was going to effect them. It would cost 

 them more money than they were paying now, because the user fee 

 plan is based on the amount offish you catch. 



I mean this one is proposed. It has not been passed yet. As pro- 

 posed right now, it is just based on the size of your vessel. And if 

 you have a small vessel that can catch a heck of a lot of fish, and 

 you are paying the same amount as a vessel of that same category 

 that does not catch as much fish, so the profit margin and the cost 

 of paying for your observer is really inequitable. And that is part 

 of the reason why a user fee plan was put forward, to put a value 

 based on the fish you catch to make it equitable across the board. 



But what I am saying is we have never said that we want an 

 observer on a 10-foot row boat. That is not the point. The point is, 

 again, we want to a get better handle on how much fish are re- 

 moved from the ocean. And you will see, percentagewise, that many 

 small boats — there are over, I think, 13,000 or 8,000 small boats 

 in Alaska that would not require observer coverage, but they only 

 catch maybe 5 percent of the total catch. Virtually 50 or 60 large 

 vessels catch over 70 percent of the catch. So, it kind of works itself 

 out. I just wanted to make that clear. 



The Chairman. Yes, you put an observer on these 36-foot boats, 

 that would eat up the profit of the boat. 



Ms. Lande. Right. 



The Chairman. And we ought not to do that. 



Senator Stevens. Well, Mr. Chairman, I thank you very much. 

 I do not have any further questions. I thank you for coming. And 

 I would like to thank all of you again for coming. 



The Chairman. We want to leave this record open. Unless there 

 are additional questions, we will communicate with staff and be out 

 of town. But let us give our thanks, Ted, to this wonderful panel 

 and the panel before. 



Senator Stevens. I do not know if I mentioned this, Mr. Chair- 

 man, but Mr. Leighton, his major opening started 3 days ago, and 

 he stayed to testify. We do appreciate that. Is it a king opening? 



Mr. Leighton. The king opening started today, but I normally 

 take 2 days to travel to where I wanted to fish kings this day, and 

 so 



Senator Stevens. Well, we thank you for your commitment, and 

 we will give you some specific answers to your questions. 



The Chairman. We thank you all here this morning, and we real- 

 ly appreciate it very, very much. The committee will be in recess 

 subject to call of the Chair. Thank you all. 



[Whereupon, at 11:30 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 



