we will recognize our first witness who, I believe, has a plane to 

 catch. Dr. Foster. 



STATEMENT OF DR. NANCY FOSTER, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMIN- 

 ISTRATOR FOR FISHERIES, NATIONAL MARINE FISHERIES 

 SERVICE ACCOMPANIED BY RICHARD STONE, DIRECTOR, 

 HIGHLY MIGRATORY SPECIES DIVISION, NATIONAL MARINE 

 FISHERIES SERVICE 



Dr. Foster. Actually my plane has been canceled, so I am yours 

 for the afternoon. 



Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, I am very 

 pleased to be here today. I am the Deputy Assistant Administrator 

 for Fisheries within NOAA and with me is Mr. Richard Stone, 

 head of our Highly Migratory Species Division, who watches over 

 the programs we are going to talk about. 



I am pleased to be back here again before this Subcommittee, 

 this time to present our Department's views on the Atlantic Tunas 

 Convention Act, and I will try to be brief so you can get to all the 

 questions I know you have. 



Our role in this effort on behalf of the Secretary is to implement 

 the ICCAT recommendations through domestic policy, by promul- 

 gating regulations under ATCA, or through the Magnuson Act 

 FMP process, and fishery management plans implementing regula- 

 tions. 



And as I indicated, we have established this new Highly Migrato- 

 ry Species Division in order that we might do this work. 



Now, this Division doesn't work all alone. It is supported by our 

 Northeast and Southeast Regions and Science Centers, by the fish- 

 ery management councils, the industry, and anybody with an inter- 

 est in these issues. 



We just recently published our highly migratory species process 

 document which actually is intended to set forth administrative 

 procedures that we intend to follow as we implement and prepare 

 to issue Magnuson Act FMPs and their amendments. 



This process goes to great lengths to identify areas where the 

 public can get involved in the decisions that we are making. In 

 fact, there are those folks who have said we have practiced a little 

 overkill with our intent on making sure that everybody had a 

 chance to speak their piece. 



Now that we have completed this process document, we intend to 

 look at additional things that need to be done, additional activities, 

 such as looking at ways that we can better track landings of re- 

 creationally caught bluefm, things we can do for additional tagging 

 studies, and economic studies. In fact, I would like to just mention 

 how grateful we are for the efforts of the Chairman on our behalf 

 during the budget process this year. Because of his efforts, we 

 might actually be able to do some of these things. 



We believe that the United States has been particularly success- 

 ful in implementing ICCAT recommendations; however, we want to 

 make sure that we point out that ICCAT's Committee on Research 

 and Statistics, as well as our own scientists, continue to believe 

 that the western Atlantic stock of bluefin tuna remains in a state 

 of significant decline. 



