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particularly the potential for using the Fishermen's Protective Act 

 sanctions to bring other nations into compliance. 



I would like to move now into our suggestions for recommended 

 legislative changes. Most of the recommendations that we are out- 

 lining today have been endorsed by the Marine Fish Conservation 

 Network, which is a group of more than 40 commercial, recreation- 

 al, and conservation organizations interested in the conservation of 

 marine fishes. 



In our view, the Magnuson Act needs to be amended to allow do- 

 mestic fishery management actions for large pelagic fish, so-called 

 highly migratory species, to be more restrictive than those recom- 

 mended by international agreement when such action is necessary 

 to achieve U.S. conservation and management goals. And as you 

 have heard from others, we do recommend that Congress return 

 management for the large pelagics to the Atlantic councils once 

 again. 



The act itself recognizes that international management meas- 

 ures alone are not sufficient or effective. Moreover, restricting the 

 scope of measures that the United States may take is inconsistent 

 with U.S. law and is unique among the ICCAT treaty nations. In 

 our view, it undermines U.S. authority to properly manage our 

 own fish in our own waters. In effect, handcuffing domestic regula- 

 tions to the ICCAT allocation scheme makes the Magnuson Act ir- 

 relevant to the management of highly migratory fish in the Atlan- 

 tic. 



The transfer of the management of these species from the coun- 

 cils to the Secretary in 1990 appears to be inconsistent with the 

 management scheme that Congress devised when you enacted the 

 Magnuson Act in 1976, which included a policy of assuring that all 

 conservation and management measures involved people and were 

 responsive to the needs of interested and affected citizens. 



Denying this kind of participation and oversight to the Atlantic 

 councils has reduced public participation in the process and the ac- 

 countability of fishery managers to the public. One of the reasons 

 that we have been so firm on this view is that we have been dissat- 

 isfied that the promulgation of the new highly migratory process 

 has incorporated sufficient public participation measures in the 

 way that process has unfolded. 



We recognize as well that part of the reason that public partici- 

 pation is difficult for the agency is that it costs an awful lot, and 

 we thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your efforts on behalf of the 

 Highly Migratory Species Division to gain more funding for them 

 in this budget round. 



For all of these reasons, the Marine Fish Conservation Network 

 urges Congress to repeal the language that was added in the fish- 

 ery conservation amendments of 1990 that limits domestic author- 

 ity over highly migratory species to strictly implementing the 

 international recommendations, and we would, in the same vein, 

 recommend repeal of the similar language that was added to the 

 Atlantic Tunas Convention Act at that time. 



Secondly, we are urging the repeal of language that transfers 

 U.S. authority from the Atlantic councils to the Secretary, and at 

 the same time, we would suggest an amendment to facilitate prepa- 

 ration of multi-council plans. We believe that the U.S. posture in 



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