53 



Fisheries Subcommittee -2- October 20, 1993 



Highly Migratory Under Secretary of Commerce is Sound 



Let me emphasis that the decision by Congress in 1990 to transfer highly 

 migratory authority from the Regional Councils to the Secretary of 

 Commerce was necessary and must be re-affirmed under reauthorization. 

 Without question, substantial progress has been made in a short period of 

 time to improve ICCAT and our domestic programs for bluefin tuna and 

 swordfish since the passage of the 1990 Amendments and under 

 Secretarial authority. 



We hope that Congress will see through the "smoke" put forward by the 

 few groups suggesting that authority be returned to the councils. We 

 believe that their motivation and true intention by restoring authority to 

 the councils is to deny adequate commercial fishery representation and 

 thereby prevent balanced decision malting on highly migratory Issues. We 

 do support a continuing important role for the councils because this 

 regional system affords many individuals and organizations an effective 

 voice in the process. 



Recreational and other non-commercial interests now dominate the east 

 coast councils and this situation prevents balanced decision making in any 

 shared multiple council decision arena. For example, we believe that it 

 would be difficult, if not impossible, to develop a multiple council voting 

 procedure that would allow adequate representation for all groups. Our 

 highly migratory commercial bluefin tuna, other tunas, swordfish and 

 shark fisheries are economically important, employ tens of thousands of 

 Americans and are traditional United States fisheries that must be 

 adequately represented in the domestic management and international 

 negotiation processes. 



Transfer of Scientific Responsibility/Current Bluefin Crisis 



Mr. Chairman, we have before us a major crisis regarding the U.S. bluefin 

 position at the November ICCAT meeting this year. This crisis stems from 

 the fact that our scientists from Miami have politicized the scientific 

 process to a dangerous level - one that now threatens Atlantic wide 

 conservation of bluefin tuna and, for all practical purposes, would end 

 significant U.S. participation in the bluefin fishery. I am attaching 

 several important documents that provide evidence of this politization of 

 the ICCAT science as a result of the efforts of Miami scientists to protect 



