18 



these other advisory committees as far as having representatives of 

 various industry sectors making decisions? 



Mr. DeGeorge. No, I do not. I think they should basically come 

 under the advisory committee act jurisdiction. 



Ms. Cantwell. So we definitely have advisory councils with in- 

 dustry people on them making industry-impacted decisions but 

 they are under the conflict of 



Mr. DeGeorge. Yes, that is the primary difference here. 



Ms. Cantwell. OK, thank you. That is all the questions I have, 

 Mr. Chairman. 



Mr. Manton. Mr. DeGeorge, maybe you could clarify one of the 

 answers you gave to Mr. Kingston about whether or not a sports 

 fisherman could ever be guilty of a conflict. Let me see if I under- 

 stand you correctly on that point. 



Mr. DeGeorge. I think as our counsel has pointed out, there has 

 to be a financial benefit that would accrue. It is difficult for me to 

 envision then a sportsman, per se, would benefit from a change in 

 fishing allocations but it is conceptually possible but difficult for 

 me to come to a set of circumstances that would suggest he could 

 benefit. 



In other words, a sports fisherman, as I understand it, is rep- 

 resentative of the people who go out on charter boats and things 

 like that. Individually I guess if he was a member of an association 

 that worked for a group of sports fishermen, I would think possibly 

 he might have some benefits but I don't think so. 



Mr. Manton. The Hawaii case, is that really a conflict of interest 

 issue? From what I read in some of the news accounts, the wife of 

 a lobster fisherman was on the Council and her husband took lob- 

 sters illegally. 



The boat that he used was leased from another Council member. 

 In that case both Council members, I think, have been charged but 

 I wonder if it is a conflict. It is not something where they voted. 

 I mean they could have gone out and 



Mr. DeGeorge. You may well be right, Mr. Chairman. I haven't 

 seen the actual documents. 



Mr. Manton. Well, if there is no objection, I am going to add to 

 the record a communication we received from the Hawaii Fisher- 

 men's Foundation along with a newspaper account of that incident 

 in Hawaii. 



[This account appears at the end of the hearing.] 



Mr. DeGeorge. I would add, sir, I do not Ihink anyone who vio- 

 lates the law ought to be on the Council even if it was not a con- 

 flict. 



Mr. Manton. But in terms of our looking at conflicts of interest 

 laws, I am not sure whether that situation — although it is an egre- 

 gious case, fits the "normal" conflicts of interest pattern, 



Mr. DeGeorge. I agree with you. 



Mr. Manton. I have no further questions. The gentlelady from 

 Washington. 



Ms. Unsoeld. Thank you. Mr. DeGeorge, in what the Seattle 

 Times last week called a "gutsy and refreshing change of pace," 

 Governor Lowery of Washington State suggested, as I quoted ear- 

 lier, that he might nominate objective managers to the North Pa- 

 cific Council rather than commercial fishermen with an economic 



