43 



Nobody is better 

 prepared to /ead 



Gorton, a member 

 of the key 



Time for Congress to fix 

 an irrational fisheries act 



FEDERALJudge Barbara Rothsiein followed the law last 

 week when she declined to overturn a decision that 

 threateiE to torpedo Seattle's factory-trawler fleet. 

 Obviously, the law itself is the problem. The 15-year-old 

 Magnuson Ad helped create a $1 billion dollar fishiing fleet, 

 then allowed the rug to be yanked out from under it. The 

 SeattJe-based Irawler fleet expects its losses to be measured in 

 millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs. 



Here's what happened: For decades, Japanese and other 

 foreign fleets fished freely 



in the lucrative North Pacif- ^^^^^^^i^^gmma^^m^^m 

 ic fishing grounds, scoop- 

 ing up pollock and codfish 

 of little interest to U.S. 

 fishermen. In the mid- 

 1970s. Congress passed the 



Magnuson Act, which ex- (fte effort titan 



tended U.S. jurisdiction out _ ^. , 



to 200 miles, asserting con- oef1« SlaOe 



trol over those fisheries. 



At the same time, the 

 government offered loans 

 and other incentives to fish- 

 ermen willing to build the ^/tmmOfV^O 

 huge, floating faaones nee- \^UmmtS¥\,C 

 essary toexjiirt that re COmmfttee. 

 source. The aa was a huge 



success; by tlie fnid-1980s, 



fishermen had invested 



hundreds of millions in factory ships, which were quickly 



displacing the foreign fleets. 



Rising fish prices attracted competing companies, also based 

 in Seattle, whicfa used Japanese capital and political clout to 

 build shore-based plants m Dutch Hart>or, Kodiak and other 

 Alaska towns. Still, the offshore fleet had greater mobility and 

 efficiency, so they caught most of the fish. 



The shore-based processors turned to politics, using the 

 Alaska majority on tne key North Pacific Fisheries Manage- 

 ment Council to acquire a guaranteed 35 to 45 percent cut of 

 the fishery - all in the name of keeping jobs in Alaska. 



TTie factory trawlers sued, argumg that they had pioneered 

 the fishery, only to have the rules changed in midstream. 



Last Friday, Rothsteiarejeaed their appeal. She had little 

 choice. The Magnuson Act, so successful in creating a high-tech 

 U.S. fleet, fafled to anticipate that the fleet would inevitably 

 outgrow the resource The act provides no rational means of 

 deading how profits from the resource should be divided. 

 Instead, it created a system of management councils laced v^nth 

 conflicts of interest. The result is economic chaos and ever- 

 increasing pressure to raise fishing quotas, all at huge expense 

 to the taxpayers. 



Now the issue moves back to Congress. At first glance, it 

 looks like a political nightmare. Both sides are guilty of waste 

 and greed, aiid both employ armies of lawyers and lobbyists 

 seeking control of a resource that doesn't belong to either. 



Congress does not need to take sides. Instead, it must 

 amend the Magnuson Act so that the fish are allocated on the 

 basis of rational economics and fishenes management rather 

 than raw politics. 



Nobody is better prepared to lead that effort than Sen. Slade 

 Gorton, a member oi the key Commerce Committee and a 

 staunch advocate of free-market economics. 



If he stays above the fray, he betrays the owners of the 

 resource - the American tjixpayers. If he dives in, he could 

 help fix an obsolete and wasteful management regime that 

 threatens to destroy one of Amenca's last, great natural 

 resources 



