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One of the major challenges facing the Act and the members of Congress who 

 must reauthorize it is to balance the very different needs and circumstances found 

 throughout the coastal areas of the United States. The wide variety of fisheries re- 

 sources between regions offer distinct management challenges adapted for the par- 

 ticular resource in question since the size of target stocks in some fisheries fluctuate 

 wildly, while others are relative stable season to season. Some species are slow 

 growing and slow to produce while others are prolific. The eclectic mix of those who 

 conduct the fishing and processing also require local knowledge and specialized con- 

 sideration. Some fisheries are prosecuted by small day boats with only a single crew 

 member. Other fisheries involve what is termed industrial fishing; operations that 

 use hundreds of crew aboard vessels hundreds of feet long. In some areas the fisher- 

 men are all from the communities adjacent to the waters where the fishery is con- 

 ducted. Other fisheries are carried out by people who are thousands of miles from 

 home and have very little contact with the local populace. 



The challenge faced by Congress is to craft a piece of federal legislation that is 

 flexible enough to cover the amazing variety found throughout the fisheries of the 

 United States. The original Act, and most 01 the amendments to date, have followed 

 this course of providing flexibility to the managers. In many areas the management 

 results have been laudable. In those areas wnere a Council has fallen short, we 

 would suggest that the problem did not arise as an institutional problem with the 

 Act itself. 



We believe that the worst mistake Congress could make in amending the Act 

 would be to move toward a regimented, centralized decision making authority based 

 in Washington, D.C. The members of Congress who crafted the Act in the mid- 

 1970's understood that the fishing industry of this nation is an extremely diverse 

 and complicated structure. The only hope for effective management was to give pri- 

 mary authority to the citizens of the region who were knowledgeable about the fish- 

 eries and who had a stake in them. A careful balance was struck in the original 

 Act between the Councils and their federal overseers in Washington, D.C. The sys- 

 tem intentionally created a bias toward regional management as opposed to central- 

 ized authority in Washington, D.C. This was done on the assumption that the citi- 

 zens of the region would ultimately make the best decisions, while federal oversight 

 and implementation grounded in the national standards for decision making would 

 help ensure balance. Although the ultimate oversight rests with the Secretary of 

 Commerce, the Act and its implementing regulations make it clear that the lead role 

 and the benefit of the doubt are to be given to the Councils. 



It should also be remembered that there was a political component to the struc- 

 ture of the original Act. Members of Congress knew very well how politically explo- 

 sive fishery issues can become. They also rightly foresaw that this situation was not 

 likely to change over time. Congress fully understood that there would be a political 

 component to the decisions being made by the Councils — just as there would if the 

 decision making authority was completely vested in the Secretary. Congress inten- 

 tionally chose to deal with the political aspects of fishery management by making 

 the affected groups a part of the decision making process. The Magnuson Act proce- 

 dures for developing fishery management plans are among the most open and demo- 

 cratic of any regulatory body in the federal bureaucracy. 



I'm sure many people are wondering how the current system could possibly get 

 any more contentious from a political point of view. However, simply imagine a 

 management system that is run beginning to end from Washington, D.C. Under this 

 scenario it is likely that virtually every discernible fishery group in the nation which 

 could afford it, would be represented by several lobbyists in Washington, D.C. These 

 lobbyists, along with members of Congress and their staffs, would be involved in the 

 process of writing fishery management plans on an ongoing basis. It is also likely 

 that we would see far mere legislative amendments targeted at controlling this proc- 

 ess or at undoing management plans once they were implemented. Fishermen with- 

 out the means to hire lobbyists would lose much of their present ability to partici- 

 pate. From a political point of view, perhaps the worst part of a centralized decision 

 making scenario is that after plan implementation, it is virtually certain fishermen 

 governed by the plan would severely chastise their Congressional representatives for 

 having "sold them out." 



The current Council system and Commerce Department oversight have served 

 both the nation and the industry well over the long term. We feel that making 

 wholesale changes to the system at this time would be an error. Not surprisingly, 

 the positions and Magnuson Act amendment proposals offered by various industry 

 groups have changed dramatically over time. To be blunt about it, the seafood in- 

 dustry has never been known for stability or consistency on many issues. For exam- 

 ftle, during the mid-1980's PSPA was actively lobbying for a statutory phase out of 

 breign fishing in the US. Exclusive Economic Zone. Under one of our proposals, the 



