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Mr. Chairman, members of the Subcommittee, my name is Gerald 

 Leape and I am the Legislative Director for Ocean Ecology for 

 Greenpeace and its 1.8 million supporters in the U.S. On behalf 

 of Greenpeace, I am grateful to have the opportunity to present 

 our views on the reauthorization of the Marine Mammal Protection 

 Act (MMPA) . Initially, I will detail some specific substantive 

 concerns regarding the various issues within the reauthorization 

 of Section 114, the Marine Mammal Exemption Program. The main 

 focus of my statement will be on alternatives for funding what is 

 expected to be substantially increased costs of implementation of 

 the new program. The other aspects of the MMPA not withstanding, 

 my recommendations are only for funding those aspects of the MMPA 

 that deal with commercial fisheries interactions with marine 

 mammals. 



We believe that the industry that benefits from the 

 extraction of the resource, in this case the catching of the 

 fish, should pay the cost of management of that activity. The 

 fishing industry is the only extractive industry that pays no 

 direct fee for harvesting a public resource. This "leave them 

 alone" treatment of the industry by the federal government was 

 adequate when there were plenty of fish. However, those days are 

 over. Things must change. 



