185 



Mr. Anderson. I am told it is very difficult to tell the difference 

 between a white belly and an eastern spinner? 



Mr. Leggett. What we are trying to do is to save fish and save, 

 porpoise and keep people out of jail and avoid paying the finders 

 fees for fines. A law that is vague, that has criminal sanctions — of 

 course, some of you are going to find it very difficult for any court to- 

 enforce it. What we want to find out, since your regulations are 

 really implementing a criminal law, the extent to which your regula- 

 tions are precisely definable and identifiable. 



What do you do in this situation, Dr. White, where there is a 

 difference of opinion as to whether or not you are setting on eastern 

 spinners as between the captain and the observer^ 



Dr. White. I would have to deal with the individual case, but the 

 captain is the commander of the vessel. 



Mr. Leggett. So under the regulations, the captain would not be 

 under any instructions from the observer to either abort or complete 

 a set? 



Dr. White. Yes. Our regulations do not give our observers any 

 authority to tell a captain what to do. 



Mr. Leggett. All right. But if a captain did set on what may 

 later be determined to be a mixed set, a mixed group, and I guess 

 over the objections of an observer, he well might be prosecutable 

 under the regulations that we have in effect? 



Dr. White. One would have to judge on an individual case as it 

 came up. 



I would hope that we would be judging these things in good faith, 

 and that the captains would be operating in good faith. We under- 

 stand some of the difficulties inherent here. We are not out to prose- 

 cute people or put people in jail frivolously. We take people very 

 seriously. 



Mr. Leggett. I understand that, and I think you have a reason- 

 able approach to the whole thing. But as we found out in the past, 

 neither you nor I, necessarily, control the administration of what we 

 do here. 



Dr. White. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. 



Mr. Leggett. Once the law is in effect, once the regulation is m 

 effect, then under our three-cornered system of administering the law 

 of the United States, another branch of the system then takes over, 

 and I am concerned that we explore this and get this history on the 

 record as to exactly what we are contemplating in these regulations. 



All right. It is now 12 o'clock, so I think this might be a good 

 time to adjourn and come back, I think, at 1:15. 



Dr. White. Mr. Chairman, perhaps you could take some of the 

 other witnesses. I have an appointment with Secretary Kreps to dis- 

 cuss some aspects of the tuna-porpoise issue at 1 :15. 1 would like very 

 much to be there, with your permission. ' 



Mr. Leggett. I guess some of our witnesses have to be there. Mr. 

 Butler has to be there. 



How many people are going to meet with Secretary Kreps? 



Just you and Mr. Fensterwald ? I guess that is an important meet- 

 ing too. 



I would like you to be here when we resume. How long is your 

 meeting with the Secretary going to take? All afternoon? 



