11 



Where issues are controversial or available information does not 

 clearly indicate the best decision, there may be legitimate differ- 

 ences of opinion. It is the council's role to make the difficult judg- 

 ment in such cases, and the Commerce Department must be willing 

 to rely on those judgments and not allow itself to succumb to the 

 pressures outside that process. Only then will the Magnuson Act 

 succeed as Congress intended. 



Thank you, Mr. Congressman. 



[The Pacific Fishery Management Council's statement, with at- 

 tachments, may be found in the appendix.] 



Chairman Wyden. Thank you. It was very helpful, and we'll 

 have some questions in a moment. Mr. Rasmussen. 



TESTIMONY OF JAY L. RASMUSSEN, DIRECTOR, OREGON 

 COASTAL ZONE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION 



Mr. Rassmussen. Good morning. I want to, on behalf of local gov- 

 ernments on the Oregon coast, welcome both of you and indicate 

 an appreciation, sincere appreciation, for taking time from your 

 busy schedules to discuss this issue out here. It's a good opportuni- 

 ty also for me to see you in person. I have seen a number of you on 

 C-Span on a number of issues, and occasionally on the coast, and 

 certainly quite occasionally with Congressman Kopetski. I just 

 want to relate to the Congressman that the Salmon Initiative Con- 

 ference we held last December out here that you participated in 

 has some fruits. Senator Bradbury is carrying on the floor of the 

 Senate this morning a salmon restoration bill, so the State of 

 Oregon is moving well on that. So, we appreciate your support last 

 year and your continuing support. 



I will not read from my rather lengthy testimony. I just want to 

 mention a few things of importance. One is that the Pacific whiting 

 is an important resource for the Oregon coast, and I think there's a 

 testament here that you'll see in the break or after or maybe you 

 met this morning. I notice that we have all three of the county 

 commissioners from Lincoln County here. We have Commissioner 

 Dove from Tillamook County. We have ports and others up and 

 down the coast who are severely interested in this because we 

 know a number of things about the Pacific whiting fishery. 



One is that Pacific whiting has been and must remain an inte- 

 gral part of the ground fish fisheries for the State of Oregon. It was 

 pioneered here and on the coast. It was an important portion of our 

 income and our stability before. It needs to remain that. I'd like 

 also to mention that it's really important that you recognize the 

 council also understood that, and I'd like to depart just for a 

 moment to read from my record to you a little statement here that 

 the council made previous to this year's recommendation, and that 

 is, "The council's number one responsibility is to coastal communi- 

 ties, traditional fishermen, and traditional processing entities, and 

 the council believes whiting is crucial to that long-term economic 

 picture." I hope, as we go through here today, that those issues will 

 be addressed more fully by processors, by fishermen, and by others 

 as well. 



The last is, we must recognize that whiting plays a remarkably 

 important portion of our stabilizing the industry for the Oregon 



