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Further, the factury trawlers and motherships that fish and process Pacific whiting 

 are set up to handle only whiting. Additionally, they only handle whiting of a certain size. 

 Whiting too small or too large, as well as the Incidental take of all otlier groundfish and 

 other fish species, are discarded. In 1992 the entire catch and discard by the factory 

 trawlers, other than whiting, was 7% of ali quota managed species by the Pacific 

 Fisheries Management Council. Because the factory fleet does not utilize this by-catch, 

 this 7% equals 10,502,633 pounds of non-utilized and wasted resource by the factory 

 trawler fleet at the expense of the coastal trawl fleet which depends on these fish. 



In fairness, the coastal fleet also has by-catch tonnage. However, in 1992 the 

 incidental catch for yellowtail rockfish was 10 times higher for the factory fleet than the 

 coastal fleet and the same comparisons can be made for the other groundfish species and 

 perch. Additionally, the shore-based vessels retained and landed all of their incidental 

 catch, ali of which was processed and sold. 



Mr. Chairman, Commerce's decision was also flawed in its process. On November 

 15. after considering volumes of documentation and after days of public debate and 

 testimony over the course of more than a year, the Pacific Fisheries Management council 

 adopted an allocation for Pacific Whiting by a 9-2 vote. This allocation plan was 

 forwarded by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMF3) Regional Director to NMFS 

 in Washington. To my knowledge, the Council was not given any indication that the 

 Washington office was concerned about, the plan. In fact, by forwarding the plan without 

 comment, tacit approval was demonstrated. 



On March 18, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) 

 published its Proposed Rule for the whiting allocation in the Federal Register. While 

 this Proposed rule was significantly different than the Council's plan, it kept the majority 

 of its provisions. I expressed my support for the Proposed Rule, though it was a 

 compromise, because it still recognized the importance of the shore-side fishermen and 

 processors. In a letter to Secretary Brown, I emphasized the critical need for this type of 

 rule to be implemented on a long-term basis to eliminate this yearly right. 



AH pretext at making use of Council input was abandoned when the whiting 

 season began at 12:01 am April 15th. As of that time, Commerce had not yet 

 announced its Finai Rule. The result was that factory trawlers that had been preparing 

 for several weeks, at great cost to themselves, began a fishing free for all, Finally, after 

 the fishery had been in effect for 14 hours, Commerce announced its Final Rule. To my 

 extreme disappointment, this rule had no basis in the Proposed Rule and, in fact, went 

 against Commerce's own economic analysis and justification. This rule 



