is seized by a foreign country on the basis of rights 
or claims not recognized by the United States. The 
Fishery Loan Program created by the Fish and Wild- 
life Act of 1956 authorizes financial assistance to 
commercial fishers for the purchase or repair of 
fishing vessels and gear. This loan program was 
created to facilitate the 1956 Act, which declared 
that fish and shellfish resources make “a material 
contribution to our national economy and food sup- 
ply” and that the fishing industry can prosper and 
fulfill its function in the Nation’s economy only if 
assistance consistent with that provided by the gov- 
ernment for industry generally is provided. These 
programs, along with the laws which mandate them, 
are covered in the section dealing with economic 
development. 
An important aspect of market assessment is the 
determination of consumer receptivity to the new 
products. To encourage acceptance, NMFS and 
Agriculture’s Extension Service provide information 
regarding the availability, best uses, and nutritional 
value of these underused fish. 
To protect consumers, the Department of Health, 
Education, and Welfare’s Food and Drug Adminis- 
tration (FDA) is responsible for assuring that a high 
standard is maintained for the sanitary quality, 
safety, and wholesomeness of shellfish, fish, and fish 
products shipped in interstate commerce. These 
responsibilities are mandated by the Food, Drug, 
and Cosmetic Act. A special Seafood Inspection 
Amendment to this Act provides that inspection can 
be made at the request and expense of the industry. 
This does not mean that seafood products otherwise 
go entirely uninspected; FDA personnel periodically 
inspect such products. 
The Department of Commerce has a voluntary 
seafood inspection program, but it covers only about 
30 percent of U.S. production and about 5 percent 
of U.S. processing facilities. Federal and State in- 
spection of the remainder is cursory at best and is 
found inconsistent by industry. 
The Shellfish Sanitation Program was established 
to prevent human diseases that might result from 
eating unsafe shelifish. Unlike the system in most 
of the food industry, FDA, and not the Department 
of Agriculture, inspects plants routinely and makes 
sample analyses. Special care needs to be taken with 
fish and shellfish, because they are highly perishable. 
Relevance of Fisheries to the National Interest 
Fisheries impinge upon or are affected by many 
areas of public policy. Too often in the past fishery 
matters have been considered in isolation, rather than 
as a component of the Nation’s food supply and food 
production industry or as a factor in international 
trade relations with key nations, as examples. 
Viewed from the perspective of how fisheries affect 
and in turn are affected by the national interest in 
a range of policy areas, the importance of commer- 
cial and recreational fishing in this country is better 
appreciated. Although the fishing industry constitutes 
less than 1 percent of the Nation’s gross national 
product, its impact is more extensive than this figure 
suggests. 
There are also symbolic or aesthetic considerations 
that do not figure in economic or policy analyses. 
The Gulf shrimp fleet, the Gloucester fishing heritage, 
and the San Francisco waterfront each have values 
for their communities, and for the Nation, that 
transcend discussions of Federal policy matters. 
Maintaining the integrity of the U.S. commercial 
fishing industry, protecting recreational fishing op- 
portunities, and restoring neglected waterfronts as 
healthy and colorful segments of urban communities 
are among the concerns of Federal, State, and local 
governments involving fisheries. 
International Relations 
With the adoption of the Fishery Conservation and 
Management Act in 1976, the United States” éx- 
panded its exclusive fishery management authority 
from a 12-mile contiguous fishery zone to a 200- 
mile fishery conservation zone, increasing legal juris- 
diction from an area of about 545,000 square nau- 
tical miles to over 2 million square nautical miles. 
This action brought what is said to be about 20 
percent of the world’s fish under U.S. management 
control, a control which extends to the domestic as 
well as the foreign fishing enterprise. 
One major aim of the legislation was to curb for- 
eign fishing off the U.S. coasts. An often-cited list 
during the Congressional debate leading to passage 
of the 200-mile bill was a tabulation of overfished 
species. A major reason some 10 to 15 species were 
judged to be overfishedwas the expanded harvests 
in recent years by modern foreign fishing fleets. 
Japan and the Soviet Union have been in the lead 
in developing efficient, long-distance factory fishing 
systems. 
For the United States, however, to curtail sharply 
the fish avatlable to a nation such_as Japan Taises 
significant ‘ant international_trade problems. The Japa- 
nesé, unlike U.S. citizens, derive over 50 percent of 
their protein from fish. For this country to curb 
drastically the Japanese fishing operations off our 
coasts could jeopardize relations between the two 
countries. 
Discussion between the two nations comes at a 
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