34 



Chairman Wyden. Well, I guess you say everybody is vulnerable 

 to some conceivable exotic legal theory, but it seems to me again in 

 a decision like this, overruling a 9 to 2 judgment from the regional 

 council, and you say, "Ultimately we had to do it because they 

 would have sued us to not" 



Mr. Johnson. I didn't say that. I did not say we had to do it be- 

 cause they would have sued us. I want to be very clear on that. It's 

 the Secretary of 



Chairman Wyden. All right. We have established no written 

 legal documentation was done. Let me ask just a couple of other 

 points. 



I think it is still hard to follow this matter of whether or not Mr. 

 Warrens and his associates really knew what was coming. I mean, 

 in plain English that really is what this is about. 



Mr. Warrens, I heard you to say in our earlier testimony some- 

 thing about a meeting that was held a week before the decision 

 came down where if the Department had been moving against the 

 council's decision, you could have easily been told at this meeting a 

 week before the decision. Am I correct on that? 



Mr. Warrens. Yes; Congressman, you are correct on that. It was 

 just a week prior to the decision, or a week and a day or two, that 

 the council was meeting at a regularly scheduled meeting of its 

 annual meeting process in Portland whereby it would have been an 

 adequate opportunity for the council to modify any of its earlier de- 

 cisions in response to concerns brought out by the Department of 

 Commerce. 



Chairman Wyden. They didn't brief you and didn't bring it to 

 your attention. 



Mr. Johnson, can you see why people are so frustrated here at 

 home? I mean, Mr. Warrens, who I think is bending over back- 

 wards to try to be conciliatory — to tell you the truth, I think he is 

 really a model of patience here — has just said that a week before 

 when there was a council meeting, and there would have been an 

 opportunity to have some discussions and give-and-take, nobody 

 told them what was going on. Can you see why people are so frus- 

 trated? 



Mr. Johnson. I absolutely can see why? I can tell you that we 

 didn't have the first recommendation from the National Marine 

 Fisheries Service until April 8. That's 7 days after the comment 

 period closed. We didn't have a final decision by NOAA until April 

 14th. I think that was after the council meeting had already con- 

 cluded. 



At that time, we were still actively seeking a way in which to 

 resolve this issue. I'm not proud of the fact that we only had 14 

 days to turn around a decision of this consequence. 



Chairman Wyden. Let me give you the opportunity I gave the 

 last panel to possibly let us leave on a positive note. The trawlers 

 and Mr. Warrens both said that they would be supportive of a rec- 

 ommendation to strengthen the hand of the council. 



What do you think could be done between now and next year so 

 we don't get into this kind of fix again and contribute so much to 

 the frustration and cynicism people have about Government and 

 the way business id done? 



