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feet opportunity for the council to respond to their partial disap- 

 proval or total disapproval a week prior when the council was, in 

 fact, in session in Portland in April fundamentally on salmon 

 issues. However, there is always time in our agenda to address 

 emergency situations, and had the system worked equitably with 

 respect to responding to Congress' concerns in a timely fashion, 

 they would have most appropriately been handled in the April 

 meeting. 



Chairman Wyden. I think that's a very valid point, and, as you 

 can tell, at the same time, I'm concerned that always, as the deci- 

 sionmaking process moves toward the day when there's an ulti- 

 mate judgment made, people do weigh in, and I'm concerned about 

 whether the voice of the small guys was really in a position to be 

 heard, and I question whether this was properly done. 



Let me wrap up with just this. Tell us, if you would, Mr. War- 

 rens, a lot of us in the Oregon congressional delegation are inter- 

 ested in changing the statute and making sure that you all have a 

 broader role. I personally fear that if we don't, the decision that 

 was made this year pushes you all toward irrelevance. That's what 

 this is really about. I would be very interested in wrapping up by 

 having you tell us what changes would most empower you to pre- 

 vent this from happening again. 



Mr. Warrens. Congressman Wyden, in response to your ques- 

 tion, we have had numerous conversations about this very issue 

 since the whiting decision, and our council, including staff, al- 

 though we have not addressed this in the full council, feels very 

 strongly that we need help from Congress in tightening up the lan- 

 guage in the Magnuson Act, which will require the Secretary on a 

 regulatory measure or a regulatory amendment to, in a timely 

 way, as he is now required to on a plan amendment, which is a 

 much broader scope with respect to a specific group of stocks that 

 we manage, on a regulatory amendment, that the Secretary be re- 

 quired to respond with any partial or disapproval on his part back 

 to the council in a timely way so that the council can appropriately 

 address the Secretary's concerns and make whatever changes are 

 necessary to comply with applicable law for national standards and 

 send back to the Secretary our compromise or amended regulatory 

 package. 



The way the process works now is the regulatory packages go to 

 the very bottom of the pile, and the Secretary is not required under 

 any time limit to address those regulatory packages, either amend- 

 ments or regulations themselves. So, our recommendation to Con- 

 gress coming from the council this year, in fact, all of the eight re- 

 gional councils, will be to tighten up the timeframe for the Secre- 

 tary to disapprove a plan or in that timeframe in which he may 

 disapprove a plan, and also some other considerations with respect 

 to if he disapproves a plan like he did with the whiting plan, that 

 it must be accompanied by the Secretary's analysis that is required 

 of us when we send him a plan or a regulatory package, his analy- 

 sis that shows where the flaws or the inconsistencies with applica- 

 ble law are, so that we can make those corrections. 



Chairman Wyden. Mr. Blum, can you support what Mr. Warrens 

 is talking about as a way to strengthen the hand of the council? 



