areas where diversified employment opportunities 

 are available. 



The panel recommends that legislation be en- 

 acted to remove the present legal restrictions on 

 the use of foreign-built vessels by U.S. fishermen 

 in the U.S. domestic fisheries, together with 

 careful reconsideration of duties on important 

 items of fishing equipment. It does not feel that 

 large scale vessel subsidies are, over the long run, 

 an effective substitute for these actions, even if 

 modified to eliminate the unsatisfactory aspects of 

 the present subsidy program. The most glaring 

 weaknesses arise from the non-discriminatory char- 

 acter of the program. A considerable part of the 

 funds expended has gone to the tuna industry, 

 which is profitable and needs no help, or to 

 fisheries already suffering from excess capacity. In 

 addition, administrative obstacles have discouraged 

 many of the very types of fishermen the legislation 

 was intended to help. , 



The Bureau of Commercial Fisheries has pro- 

 posed changes that would go far to remedy these 

 faults. These include: 



—A fixed rate of subsidy, not to exceed 50 per 

 cent of the U.S. cost. 



—Prohibition of the use of subsidized vessels in 

 overcapitalized fisheries unless obsolete capacity is 

 scrapped. 



—Authorization for the Secretary of the Interior 

 to establish priorities to insure that funds are 

 directed to the proper fisheries. 



If the archaic restrictions discussed above can- 

 not be removed, a streamlined subsidy of this type 

 is a possible palliative. The panel does not, 

 however, feel that it will accomphsh any perma- 

 nent structural improvement in the U.S. flag 

 fisheries, since it can and probably will be 

 matched, wholly or in part, by foreign competi- 

 tors. It leads inevitably to the inequity of competi- 

 tion between subsidized and non-subsidized 

 vessels. Perhaps most serious, a subsidy large 

 enough to make any real impression would require 

 funding equal to about 60 per cent of the present 

 BCF budget. The panel feels that these funds can 

 be spent to better advantage in other ways. 



3. Removal of Legal and Institutional Barriers to 

 Efficiency 



Marine fisheries commonly fall in the category 

 of "common property resources." Traditional U.S. 



insistence on free entry to these fisheries, and the 

 resulting inability to control the number of partici- 

 pants, has led inevitably to excessive commitment 

 of labor and capital as the fishery matures, 

 coupled in some cases with actual declines in 

 sustained physical yields. It is particularly impor- 

 tant to devise management frameworks that will 

 prevent the development of such excess capacity 

 rather than to deal with the painful and slow 

 readjustments required after it has built up. 



Despite the urgency of the common property 

 problem— an urgency that increases with the rapid 

 rise in world fishing effort and the steady improve- 

 ment in other nations in the range and sweep 

 efficiency of fishing equipment— mechanisms for 

 rational management of fisheries to prevent eco- 

 nomic waste simply do not exist at present in the 

 United States. 



The division of authority between Federal and 

 State authorities restricts action to political 

 boundaries that have no relation to the distribu- 

 tion patterns of the fishery resources that must be 

 managed. In addition, the fragmentation of 

 authority among the States raises serious dispari- 

 ties between local and National interests. It is 

 quite conmion in specific management cases to 

 find that the initial burden must be borne largely 

 by fishermen in one State, while a dispropor- 

 tionate amount of the benefits accrue to fishermen 

 in other areas. In the absence of some type of 

 interstate or Federal authority which can realize 

 fully the benefits of conservation and compensate, 

 as required, those who must make temporary 

 sacrifices, a sound management program cannot be 

 devised. 



Partly for this reason and partly because of the 

 fragmentation of the industry, the U.S. fisheries 

 have been saddled with an increasing burden of 

 restrictive legislation, much of which has nothing 

 at all to do with conservation in either physical or 

 economic terms. Rather, it reflects the successful 

 exercise of pressure by one group of fishermen 

 against another; by sports fishermen against com- 

 mercial organizations and vice versa; or by other 

 users of water and land areas against fishermen. 

 The end result is a monumental stock of over- 

 lapping, conflicting, and frequently unsound con- 

 trol measures, all parading under the guise of 

 conservation. The effect has been not only to 

 reduce the efficiency of the regulated fishermen, 

 but also to discourage or even eliminate the 



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