Since the specifics of this bill have been articulated by the Chairman, I will not 

 repeat them here. Nevertheless, let me point out that while this bill only addresses 

 the "fish fix," I look forward to reviewing other provisions of the Marine Mammal 

 Protection Act in the very near future. 



Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



Mr. Studds. We will ask all seven of the witnesses to come forth 

 in harmony and unity as a single panel. If you would proceed to 

 the table, identify your nameplate at the witness table and take a 

 roost behind it. OK, you are all there. There appears to be relative 

 unison and harmony to me. 



We are going to treat you as a single panel and hear each of you 

 before we go to questioning. I assume you have been alerted by 

 staff, if you have not been here before, to our system of lights. We 

 are going to ask you to confine your oral testimony to no more 

 than five minutes. Your written testimony will appear in its entire- 

 ty in the record. 



The yellow light indicates you have one minute remaining, and 

 the red light will indicate that you have concluded. We apologize 

 for the necessity for this, but it really is essential, given the inter- 

 ruptions and the constraints on our time. 



Mr. Studds. We will begin with Dr. Nancy Foster, Acting Direc- 

 tor of the National Marine Fisheries Service. 



Dr. Foster, welcome. 



STATEMENT OF NANCY FOSTER, ACTING DIRECTOR, NATIONAL 

 MARINE FISHERIES SERVICE 



Ms. Foster. Thank you. 



Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, I am very 

 pleased to be here to comment on this Committee bill. It is pretty 

 obvious to anyone who reads it that the Committee has worked 

 very hard and worked under a tight deadline to produce this bill. It 

 is also obvious that it has drawn from all of the legislative propos- 

 als before you. Hopefully, we will find that it has picked the best 

 parts. 



We find, in general, that the Committee bill is basically sound. 

 We think it is reasonable, and we think it is workable. 



However, as usual, we do have several concerns. Some of the con- 

 cerns we have are easily dealt with, and others, while more diffi- 

 cult, we believe they are not impossible to overcome. If we can ad- 

 dress the concerns that I will mention here today and that are 

 mentioned in my full testimony, I think the Fisheries Service can 

 certainly support this bill. 



I would like to touch briefly on what we think are the more sig- 

 nificant concerns. 



First, what we call shifting the burden of proof or shifting the 

 burden of conservation. Much like the negotiated proposal, we find 

 this bill provides the general authorization to fishermen to take 

 marine mammals. This general authorization is unlike the process 

 that we have in place for all other user groups. It shifts the burden 

 away from the fishing industry to the government for the conserva- 

 tion of marine mammals. We believe this is a fundamental change 

 in the MMPA, and it has caused us a great deal of concern. 



Nonetheless, we have had numerous meetings on this issue 

 inside the Service. We feel that it could be something that the 



