12 



asking for conflict of interest designations, etc., etc. They issued 

 through the petition request a comment period of time and there 

 were three comments. 



Those three comments came from those parties involved and that 

 is all the comments were. There wasn't a general public, there were 

 those that had an interest again in the fisheries, is that correct? 



Mr. DeGeorge. I have not seen the letters, sir. 



Mr. Young. They are right here and we will submit them to you. 

 But I keep hearing this public outcry, and I know where this is 

 coming from which reminds me, I think in your testimony there 

 was no violation of law in your finding, was there? 



Mr. DeGeorge. We did not find anyone had broken the law 

 under the present Magnuson Act, and I want to get it in proper 

 perspective. As stated, your statement is exactly correct. However, 

 if it had not been for the legal restraints, there would have been 

 some violations. 



Mr. Young. Again, the Congress did that. We did it for a reason. 



Mr. DeGeorge. Yes, sir, you deliberately did that. 



Mr. Young. That is right. How many votes did you examine in 

 your investigation? 



Mr. DeGeorge. I have no personal knowledge. I know there were 

 several but I do not know exactly. I would have to provide that for 

 the record. 



Mr. Young. Well, I know out of 32 meetings of the Council there 

 were 1,091 votes taken and at no time was there a showing of con- 

 flict of interest during that period of those votes. I know that for 

 a fact. The reason I am saying that is, in fact, did you investigate 

 any other Councils other than the one, the North Pacific Council? 



Mr. DeGeorge. No, sir, we have not, not for conflict of interest. 



Mr. Young. Only one. 



Mr. DeGeorge. Not for allegations of criminal conflict of inter- 

 est, no, sir. 



Mr. Young. And in your findings there was no conflict but this 

 was the only Council that was investigated, and so when we wrote 

 this law, it was to cover all Councils, that is correct? 



Mr. DeGeorge. That is correct. 



Mr. Young. Is it fair to assume there is a conflict of interest by 

 members when only one vote from one Council has been examined? 



Mr. DeGeorge. I would say that would be a preliminary and 

 quick jump to justice but that is not the way we did this review, 

 sir. 



Mr. Young. Well, again, the charges were made, the allegations 

 were made and your request to do the investigation was made, you 

 investigated one vote, and now you are making recommendations 

 on that one vote when there are 1,091 votes cast out of 32 meet- 

 ings. That is not a real fair analysis. 



Mr. DeGeorge. Well, we reviewed a plan, sir, and I do not have 

 specific knowledge whether it was one vote or not. I don't know 

 that is the material issue. 



What we found is that save but for the Magnuson Act restric- 

 tions, they did violate the law on that one vote. Now we could prob- 

 ably go back and look at others and we may or might not come to 

 the same conclusion. 



