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conflicts of interest among council members charged with the stew- 

 ardship of our natural fisheries resources. Over the past two years 

 nearly a dozen editorials ranging from the Seattle Press to the An- 

 chorage Daily News and The Washington Post have called for an 

 overhaul of the Act. 



A widely-read series of articles and editorials in the Seattle 

 Times characterized the councils as monopolized by fishermen, rid- 

 dled with multi-million dollar conflicts of interest that would not 

 be tolerated in the landward, oil or timber industries. Similarly, 

 the Anchorage Daily News concluded that the council structure 

 was ethically bankrupt, observing "We don't let Exxon, ARCO or 

 British Petroleum run the state department of environmental con- 

 servation. We don't put people from the phone and electric compa- 

 nies in charge of the State public utilities commission. We 

 shouldn't turn Federal fisheries over to fishermen whose decisions 

 directly affect their personal fortunes." 



I am providing copies of these articles as part of my testimony 

 for the record. 



Some of the examples listed in the press reports have been 

 brought to the attention of the Fisheries Management Subcommit- 

 tee by Representative Unsoeld and, Mr. Chairman, I think they 

 will astound you. Consider the following: The Chairman of the 

 North Pacific Council is the Vice President and full-time lobbyist 

 for the principal trade association representing the winners of the 

 billion dollar North Pacific groundfish in-shore/ off-shore dispute. 



One council member changed his vote and tabled a far reaching 

 rule he had previously favored after taking a $1,250 a week job 

 from the opposing side. Another council member voted to allow a 

 Japanese fishing company to take ten million pounds of cod from 

 the EEZ after he struck a deal, private deal for his company to sell 

 them a million pounds of cod fillets. 



Another council member supported the groundfish in-shore allo- 

 cation plan once freezer, long-liner vessels of less than 125 feet in 

 length like his own three vessels were considered to be part of the 

 shore-side allocation. 



One council member wrote to a leading fisheries trade associa- 

 tion thanking them for lobbying assistance in his effort to get on 

 the council as follows: "There is no question that I never would 

 have been appointed had it not been for your strong last minute 

 lobbying blitz. I am going to work hard on the Council and I don't 

 think you will need to spend a lot of time figuring out how I am 

 going to vote." 



Mr. Chairman, I, for one, believe it is time to take a very serious 

 look at the Act. It is time to make the needed changes to restore 

 public confidence in the process. The Magnuson Act is the only 

 Federal statutory scheme that is totally exempt from the Federal 

 conflict of interest laws, yet the decisions at stake involve who 

 should get free access to billions of dollars of fisheries resources. If 

 anything, we should be striving for stricter conflicts of interest 

 standards. 



In my prepared testimony, I have outlined some 18 specific pro- 

 posals for addressing these conflicts. These begin with tightened fi- 

 nancial disclosure requirements and a basic recusal mechanism. 

 Although the current act has a financial disclosure requirement, 



