447 



the next lease sale, sale 52, was that none of the monitoring results 

 were available. 



I have attached to my testimony a chronology on the last page of 

 the science that was permitted on Georges Bank and compared it 

 to when the FEIS was prepared. You will see none of the reports 

 from any of the sciences were in hand when the final environmen- 

 tal impact statement was prepared. In other words, as far as the 

 public is concerned, is information they rely on in the EIS not 

 based on any of the scientific results from the research on Georges 

 Bank, which raises a very important scheduling issue. 



If we are going to pay for high quality research in an area like 

 Georges Bank, we should wait for the results before we lease again. 

 How can we possibly in the future lease sales make decisions on 

 the science we are performing if we don't wait for the results? In 

 this case all the scientists were telling us there would be 3 years 

 required to develop adequate science, and yet the lease sale, sale 

 52, came after only 1 year of the science was in hand. 



As far as synthesis of the science goes, remember there are a va- 

 riety of scientific studies now underway on Georges Bank, some by 

 the biological task force, some by Interior, some by NOAA, some by 

 EPA. Those studies are not carefully synthesized at the moment. 

 The Department of the Interior is not required in any specific way 

 to tell us what all those results say, and how they all fit together. 

 They tell us in the environmental impact statement. But as we see, 

 they didn't wait for any of the results in the environmental impact 

 statement. So there is very little effort to synthesize those results. 



As a consequence, we know very little about how this panoply of 

 science fits together. 



Finally, let me turn briefly to the question of what all this sci- 

 ence in the BTF means for Georges Bank, and what are some of 

 the possible alternatives that Congress might consider with respect 

 to regulating or legislating on this activity. 



Remember that no matter how much science we do on Georges 

 Bank, we may not discover the extent of the harm until it is too 

 late to correct the harm, and the classic example of that situation 

 is the major driving force on fishing in Georges, frequently major 

 year classes of a given species. For instance, you will have a large 

 year class of haddock, that will then sustain the haddock fishery 

 for 5 or 10 years perhaps. If you destroy a major year class, you 

 may not have another major year class for another 10 years. You 

 may seriously impair the fishery, but not know for many years 

 that in fact the year class has been destroyed. 



The science may tell us that the harm occurred, but it may tell 

 us after the fact. And the whole point that I think Congress tried 

 to reach in the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act originally, and I 

 think now needs to try to reach again, is that the balancing of that 

 risk, the risk that the harm may be irreparable, has to be taken 

 before you lease. And I would suggest that there is a variety of 

 ways to do that. We have mentioned separating exploration from 

 development. 



A second possible way is to reemphasize and emphasize again 

 and again and again, resource protection in an area like Georges 

 Bank is of the highest priority, that it has to take preeminent place 

 in the decisions made by any agency in that area. Perhaps in other 



