60 



. BlLl. BR 



REP. TONV FEO 



SEN. JOAh _ 



RCP. VERAL TARN 



REP. Jim Wmitty 



REP. CHUCK NORRIS* 



OREGON LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 



COASTAL CAUCUS 



REPKESCNTATtVK TiM JOSI, CHAIR 

 CLATSOP. TII.I.AMOOK. LlNCOt-N. LANE. DOUCt-AS. COOS i 



President Bill Clinton 

 The White House 

 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue 

 Washington, D.C. 20500 



Dear Mr. President: 



The members here undersigned of the Oregon Coastal Caucus, a bipartisan body with members 

 from both chambers of the Oregon Legislative Assembly, would like to convey their deep distress at 

 the arbitrary and capricious nature of the recent U.S. Department of Commerce decision to adopt a 

 rule governing the 1993 Pacific whiting fishery that disregards (1) the recommendation of the 

 Pacific Fishery Management Coundl (PFMC) and (2) a mle concerning whiting aUocation recently 

 proposed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 



With this action, the Department of Commerce has undermined the PFMC's process and iu proper 

 rule-making authority under the Magnuson Fishery Management Conservation Act (FCMA) and 

 under the terms of the Fishery Management Plan for groundfish that the PFMC adopted and the 

 Department approved. With this action the Department has also called into question the validity 

 and the role of open and public participation in a process that was intended to enable regional 

 authorities to manage regional resources. The Department has allowed politics to subvert the 

 legitimate needs of the many coastal fishermen that have depended on the whiting resource for 

 more than a decade, the needs of the many onshore coastal processors which have made major 

 investment decisions on the basis of the PFMC's long-term direction on whiting allocation, and the 

 needs of coastal communities that depend on these processors and fishermen. 



We strongly urge that these actions be taken to clarify the nature of the Department's decision and 

 to restore the proper historic balance in the Pacific whiting allocation: 



• The Department should immediately reconsider its April 15 decision to promulgate its 

 whiting allocation rule. The Department should again review the PFMC recommendation, 

 the proposed NOAA rule and its own assumptions about the harvest, processing and alloca- 

 tion information available to it when it took action April 15. 



• Oregon's Congressional delegation should support the convening of a field hearing in 

 Oregon by the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee's Subcommittee on 

 Fishery Management to review the process used to make fishery management decisions for 

 groundfish, including whiting, the rationale for the Department's decision to overturn 

 PFMC's recommendation and NOAA's proposed rule. The subcommittee should also evalu- 

 ate the allocation process and investigate the economic dislocations the Department's 

 decision has produced. 



Reply to Sean Brennan. Coastal Caucus slaH aide. Slate Capitol Room S-205. Salem. OR 97310 Ptione: (503) 378-8027 



