MARINE MAMMAL PROTECTION ACT— PART II 



WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 4, 1993 



House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Environ- 

 ment and Natural Resources, Committee on Mer- 

 chant Marine and Fisheries, 



Washington, DC. 



The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:13 a.m., in room 

 1334, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Gerry E. Studds 

 [chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 



Present: Representatives Studds, Hochbrueckner, Unsoeld, Furse, 

 Hamburg, Tauzin, Saxton, Young, and Manton. 



Staff Present: Jeff Pike, Staff Director, Full Committee; Tom 

 Kitsos, Senior Policy Analyst; Sue Waldron, Press Secretary; Karen 

 Steuer and Tod Preston, Professional Staff; Lesli Gray, Clerk; 

 Leigh Ann Clayton, Staff Assistant; Vernita Brewington, Laurel 

 Bryant, Rod Moore, JayneAnne Rex, Jill Brady and Tom Melius, 

 Minority Professional Staff; and Margherita Woods, Minority 

 Clerk. 



Mr. Studds. The Subcommittee will come to order. 



STATEMENT O^ THE HON. GERRY E. STUDDS, A U.S. REPRESENT- 

 ATIVE FROM MASSACHUSETTS, AND CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMIT- 

 TEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES 



Mr. Studds. Of all the issues that come before us, none generates 

 as much emotion in either its detractors or its supporters as the 

 Marine Mammal Protection Act. From its inception, today's issue — 

 the effort to minimize incidental takes of marine mammals in com- 

 mercial fisheries — has been one of our greatest challenges. 



In 1988, this Committee responded to the now-famous Kokechick 

 court decision by granting our fishing industry a five-year exemp- 

 tion from the take prohibitions of the Act. Our intention then was 

 to give the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Marine Mammal 

 Commission, the industry and the environmental community time 

 to collect better data on interactions between fisheries and marine 

 mammals, experiment with alternative fishing gears, talk to each 

 other and come up with some bright ideas. 



Frankly, we haven't come as far as we would have liked on these 

 issues at this point. We still don't know all we should about marine 

 mammal populations or incidental take mitigation. Seals and sea 

 lions are smack in the middle of a tremendous controversy over en- 

 dangered and threatened salmon stocks in the Pacific Northwest. 



While the harbor seal population in Maine is healthy and in- 

 creasing, harbor seals in Alaska waters are on the decline. Dolphin 

 stocks on the west coast seem to be in great shape, but east coast 



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