49 



The West Coast councils, the Pacific and North Pacific, would 

 both benefit with something like that. 



Mr. Manton. Mr. Looney, you made some pretty strong points 

 on that. 



Mr. Looney. Without a doubt, keep in mind that I think in reali- 

 ty when you are talking about conflict of interest, that is a vehicle 

 and a mechanism traditionally thought of and utilized in order to 

 achieve trustee, fiduciary-types of decisions. It is a check and a bal- 

 ance in the system to ensure that out of the process comes unbi- 

 ased decisions made on the best scientific evidence, the record as it 

 exists and in relationship to the Magnuson Act that it comports 

 with the national standards. 



The idea of how to achieve those checks and balances is a novel 

 idea. Where we are today with the Magnuson Act very simply is 

 that there is no conflict of interest standards. Essentially what the 

 Act says is you tell us in a piece of paper what your conflicts are, 

 put them in a file drawer, and there they stay. As long as you have 

 disclosed all of your conflicts on that sheet that sit in a file drawer 

 in the council offices, you are totally exempt from any actions that 

 you may take on the council. 



We have under Federal statutes a wide variety and even you as a 

 Member of Congress have very definite ethics standards. We have 

 FACA, Federal Advisory Commission Act. We have 18 USC 208. It 

 is not a far reach to go find what are acceptable standards as it 

 relates to conflicts of interest. 



Mr. Manton. Mr. Jensen. 



Mr. Jensen. Well, I think at a minimum that we should require 

 that all councils that have allocation proposals not based on histor- 

 ical performance of the user groups be passed by a two-thirds ma- 

 jority. I think you have got to get away from that and get into a 

 two-thirds majority, and I support what Kate just said to you earli- 

 er. 



Mr. Manton. Thank you, Mr. Jensen. 



I have a little remaining time, I think. Management-based pro- 

 posal I think was your word — or market-based solutions. Tell us — I 

 am out of time. Maybe we will pick it up from one of the other 

 questioners. 



The Chairman of the full committee, Mr. Studds. 



Chairman Studds. Thank you. I apologize for missing some of 

 the oral testimony. We have just been informed by the military 

 personnel in whose hands our lives literally reside that we must 

 leave by 12:20, so I will be very brief. 



I was just looking at the Act. I think Congressman Young of 

 Alaska and I, and I guess Congressman Hughes of New Jersey are 

 the only remaining members of this committee who were in the 

 Congress when this was passed, and in fact originally this bill was 

 referred to, as some of you oldsters may recall, as the Studds-Mag- 

 nuson Act. Subsequently the Senate in what I think was an un- 

 precedented act literally changed the statute that attributed Sena- 

 tor Magnuson and named it in law the Magnuson Act. 



I was wondering at the time about that senatorial action, but the 

 more problems we have with the Act the more I am prepared to 

 concede to Senator Magnuson the authorship of it. The first bill we 

 introduced was two pages long, as I recall. 



