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Council Action for 1993 At its April 1992 meeting, the Council began consideration of a 

 long-teim (1993 and beyond) whiting allocation plan, even though measures for the 1992 whiting 

 fishery had not been approved and implemented. To initiate the process, the Council reviewed 

 its previous recommendations, National Marine Fisheries Service actions and public testimony. 

 The groundfish fishery management plan (FMP) provides for implementation of allocation 

 decisions by regulatory amendment; however, the Council considered whether the FMP 

 amendment process would be preferable to the regulatory amendment process. One major 

 difference is that an FMP amendment has a mandated time schedule for Secretarial action after 

 the documents leave the Council office. The tradeoff is that the regulatory amendment process 

 can be shortened, but implementation can be delayed indefinitely. The plan amendment process 

 cannot be shortened other than by waiving the 30 day "cooling off" period before the rule takes 

 effect. The Council opted for the regulatory amendment process. 



At the April 1992 meeting, the Council decided to convene an ad hoc committee to discuss 

 whiting management prior to and after the limited entry amendment takes effect, outline the 

 different conceptual approaches and narrow the range of alternatives. The committee had one 

 representative from each of five industry sectors." The committee met July 1. The participants 

 held widely differing viewpoints and were too polarized to enter into negotiations. Therefore, 

 rather than work towards compromise, each participant was offered the opportunity to propose 

 an alternative for his group. Thus, five proposals were presented to the Council at its July 

 meeting: 



1. An abundance driven "sliding scale" allocation formula, including a base allocation for 

 vessels delivering to shore-based processors and a reserve with priority to vessels which 

 deliver to shore-based processors. The balance of the harvest guideline would be 

 allocated between vessels that deliver to shore-based processors and vessels that deliver 

 to at-sea processors and catcher processors. As the harvest guideline increases the share 

 allocated to the at-sea component would increase, [proposed by shore-based interests] 



2. Allocate between catcher vessels only (i.e., catcher-processors and vessels that catch but 

 do not process), [proposed by catcher boat interests] 



3. Establish a floor for vessels that deliver to shore-based processors based on historical 

 performance (1989-1992 average). The balance would be made available to all vessels 

 for harvest, [proposed by catcher-processors] 



4. Establish a shore-based floor, a catcher-processor floor and a catcher vessel percentage 

 with no restriction on point of delivery, [proposed by catcher boats delivering at-sea] 



5. An allocation based on processor tyjjc with specific allocations to catcher-processors, 

 vessels that deliver to motherships, vessels delivering to shore-based processors. Before 

 the season catcher-processors would declare whether they will be motherships or catcher- 

 processors, [proposed by mothership-processors] 



The fishery participants fall into four major vessel categories with considerable overlap: 

 catcher vessels that deliver to shore-based processors, catcher vessels that deliver to at- 

 sea processors, vessels that both catch and process and vessels that process fish delivered 

 at sea by other vessels. In addition, the shore-based processing sector is an integral 

 component. 



