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Statement of Joe Easley 

 Administrator OTC Page 3 



3). Dedicated seats for so called conservation organizations are not called for. In fact I am opposed 



to anyone having dedicated seats on the Councils, beyond the State and Federal ones that are already 



there. 



4). There does not need to be a definition of over fishing in the Act. The 603 guidelines already 

 require a definition of over fishing to be included in each management plan. The Pacific Fishery 

 Management Council has three plans and each one has a different definition of over fishing. Trying to 

 apply one definition to over fishing, to all the fisheries would only result in one of two things, shutting 

 down all the fisheries or be meaningless. 



5) There is a lot of talk about Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQ) or Individual Fisherman 

 Quotas. (IFQ) I would like to say that there is a need to look at the cost of such forms of management. 

 In the present case of the Pacific Fishery Management Council which is looking at ITQ's for the sable 

 longline and pot fishery, the estimates that have been made for enforcement alone are about 6 million 

 dollars. At that, the enforcement people tell me they don't think they could do a good job. 6 million 

 dollars in this fishery is about the ex-vessel value of the fishery. Who is going to pick up the cost, the 

 Government?, the fishery? 



6) Fees for the government to cover the cost of management. While we do not reject the concept 

 of fees out of hand, we do think that there needs to be some discipline to go along with the concept. First, 

 we believe that there needs to be a overall cap on fees that can be charged against any fishery, taking in 

 to effect the fees charged by States. Second, we believe that the funds collected should be in a fund that 

 can only be used for fisheries management and should be a revolving fund. Third, we believe that there 

 needs to be a intense look at how the gathering of information, to base management on, is collected, with 

 the thought of looking for less expensive ways to do it and if the information is actually going to be used 

 and what for. Fourth, if fees are to be charged to the commercial fisheries, we think there should be a 



