

175 



boat while allowing more fishing time for the fleet as a whole. 

 We have worked hard to create procedures to emulate the foreign 

 program, and the North Pacific Council has agreed to both a 

 penalty box system and a vessel incentive program. Neither have 

 worked because of NMFS ' s interpretation of individual rights 

 under the U.S. Constitution. 



This situation is one of the major reasons we are strong 

 proponents of an individual transferrable quota system. We 

 believe that a carefully constructed program will reward the 

 "clean" fishermen and penalize the "dirty" ones. The North 

 Pacific Council has made great strides toward instituting an ITQ 

 program, but much work still remains. Congress has the ability 

 to aid this effort or stymie it. We ask that you encourage the 

 councils to establish systems that promote individual accounta- 

 bility, and discourage those that require the whole fleet to 

 shoulder the burden created by a few irresponsible fishermen. 



Conclusion 



We believe the Magnuson Act provides a good blueprint for 

 management of our nation's fisheries and that major changes are 

 unnecessary. The system isn't perfect - it's slow and cumbersome 

 and makes timely responses to rapidly changing conditions 

 difficult - but it works. The suggestions for changes we have 

 made here are simply intended to make the system work better. 

 Our proposals can be summarized as follows: 



* Balance of Authority 



- Retain the current balance of authority between the 

 Secretary and the councils. 



* Conflicts of Interest 



- Broaden the disclosure provisions to include interests 

 that are not strictly financial. 



- Require council members "to state applicable conflicts 

 on the record prior to each meeting. 



- Make current disclosures available at council meetings. 



