Restrictive legislation, reflecting gear conflicts 

 among fishermen, disagreements over sport and 

 commercial usage, and other local partisan inter- 

 est, has grown to massive proportions. The term 

 "conservation" has been used to justify a great 

 many restrictive actions that serve no useful 

 purpose in resource management but inhibit se- 

 verely the development of efficient fishing meth- 

 ods and equipment. 



Recommendation : 



A series of searching studies should be initiated to 

 define the effects of these institutional impedi- 

 ments, area by area and fishery by fishery. To the 

 extent that these restrictive measures involve 

 management programs, they must be corrected by 

 action of the individual States or by groups of 

 States sharing common fisheries. 



Several possible organizational arrangements for 

 U.S. commercial fisheries have been reviewed; the 

 panel has concluded that the role of the Federal 

 Government should be reoriented toward resource 

 development and the concentration of manpower 

 and financial resources on National fisheries mis- 

 sions. Studies of fishing management and regula- 

 tory concepts should be undertaken and new 

 management techniques instituted calling for in- 

 creased coordination among the States and a 

 greater Federal role in determining National fish- 

 eries poUcies and priorities. 



Recommendation : 



Federal authority over U.S. marine and anadro- 

 mous fishery activities should be combined in a 

 single bureau of one agency. The agency should be 

 authorized to establish National priorities and 

 fishery policies for migratory marine species for 

 commercial and recreational purposes. It should 

 encourage cooperative activities by States for 

 regulation and conservation of such species, spon- 

 sor research on the impact of institutional barriers 

 inhibiting efficient development of our fisheries, 

 and encourage enactment of improved State and 

 Federal laws relating to regulation and conserva- 

 tion of such fisheries. 



Under certain circumstances the measures pro- 

 posed above may be inadequate to meet the 



development and management needs of certain 

 fisheries. Under conditions stated below, Federal 

 regulatory jurisdiction of endangered fisheries 

 should be asserted. 



Recommendation : 



The Federal Government should be given author- 

 ity by the Congress to assume regulatory jurisdic- 

 tion of endangered fisheries when: 



—It can be demonstrated that a particular stock of 

 marine or anadromous fish migrates between the 

 waters of one State and those of another or 

 between territorial waters and the contiguous zone 

 or high seas; 



—The stock enters into interstate or international 

 commerce; 



—Sound biological evidence demonstrates that the 

 stock has been significantly reduced or endangered 

 by acts of man; 



-The State or States within whose waters these 

 conditions exist have not taken effective remedial 

 action. 



There is urgent need for defining a limited 

 number of specific missions designed to expand 

 the income and employment generating capacity 

 of the American fishing industry on a conmier- 

 cially viable basis. Rather than talking in general 

 terms about rehabilitation, the Bureau of Commer- 

 cial Fisheries should identify specific geographic 

 areas and fish stocks where expansion is economi- 

 cally justifiable and biologically feasible. 



Recommendation : 



The Bureau of Commercial Fisheries should ana- 

 lyze each major fishery and develop integrated 

 programs designed to exploit those fisheries where 

 opportunities for expansion exist. 



There are serious deficiencies in the overall 

 organizational structure and budget of the Bureau 

 of Commercial Fisheries that reflect a combination 

 of constraints, some of which are attributable to 

 BCF and some to the pressures to which it is 

 subjected. 



VII-4 



