96 



Mr. Leggett. Very good. 



We always appreciate vour constructive response to the chal- 

 lenges in this particular area and we can talk about the 2-year grace 

 period or the Last 2 years. 



I think the last 2 years we have had considerable progress and 

 hopefully over the next -l we wil] have even more progress; and I 

 do think you are right in many of your observations; certainly, we 

 would not be here today were it not for the environmentalists' con- 

 cern with respect to the survival of the species and to see the movie 

 that Ave saw: to think of worthless destruction of the creatures that 

 we saw in the movie is not a nice concept to contemplate. 



1 do believe that we have come a ways. 



The committee was not thinking about quotas, 2 years ago, until 

 we could handle the matter of the dolphins and. in that regard, I 

 think we had a cleavage in opinion of the Monitor groups and the 

 members of the committee. 



Xow we are — T think we are all of the view that perhaps the only 

 way we can get a handle on this matter is through some kind of 

 quota procedure and have those quotas apply on either a per boat or 

 per area way and some kind of reasonable way that we could 

 monitor. 



The committee has been of the view for at least three-quarters of 

 the year that we ought to have maximum implementation of an ob- 

 server program. This was not part of the regulations. It was part of 

 the so-called McCloskey amendment, the legislation which moved out 

 of the subcommittee but stopped. 



So I think that is an area we could get into. There is no doubt 

 about the fact that we spend a small amount of Federal and do- 

 mestic dollars and environmental dollars, environmental dollars, on 

 this over-all research problem up through the past year; and it is my 

 hope that we can spend adequate amounts of funds over the next 

 several years and adequate boats to accomplish that research is a 

 firm industry contribution from which we can build. 



We have got some insight as to new gear, which is improving all 

 the time; and our big problem now would appear to be how to get 

 that gear and how to get trained people out to the sea at the earliest 

 practical date. 



With respect to exploring alternative methods of acquiring the 

 fish. I guess the fleet is doing that right now. They are not fishing 

 on the schools of fish that are asociated with the porpoise. They are 

 fishing on other schools and other kinds of fish besides yellowfin. 



The committee is concerned that the regulations that are being 

 formulated: exactly which numbers they will incorporate or which 

 conditions of the ALJ recommendation they will include, we do not 

 know and I do not think anybody really knows. 



T think we could perhaps generally conclude that many of the 

 restrictive measures recommended will be included and perhaps 

 others. But we find ourselves in the unfortunate situation that, 

 while we are moving ahead, and while we have had rather dramatic 

 success in some of our pilot programs, that as a result of our existing 

 regulations and checks and balances upon those regulations to inter- 

 relation upon the public and of course that, if we can believe the 



