House panel eyes Magnuson reform

By Richard Gaines 

The U.S. House Natural Resources Committee heard more than three hours of testimony Thursday on eight bills to reform federal fishery laws, with the chairman asserting his intention to modify the Magnuson-Stevens Act, a move sought by fishing industry leaders throughout the East and Gulf Coasts.The plethora of bills to amend Magnuson — it does not require reauthorization for another five years — and a brief exchange between a Democratic member of the committee from New Jersey and the Republican chairman from Washington State demonstrated a shift toward action, at least in the House."We should schedule a vote," said Congressman Frank Pallone, the New Jersey Democrat who has been at the vanguard of the movement to instill some statutory language in Magnuson that allows flexibility in rebuilding time lines. "I hope we can mark up these bills," he added."My intentions are to deal with these bills," was the response from Doc Hastings, the chairman.The bills — including legislation by Reps. Barney Frank and William Keating, Massachusetts Democrats, Pallone and Republicans Walter Jones of North Carolina, Jon Runyon of New Jersey, Rob Wittman of Virginia — all "provide fertile ground for moving forward," noted Rick Marks, a fishery scientist, industry lobbyist and former member of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council.Marks described the shared concern of flexibility advocates — that the 2006 reauthorization brought the nation "the Alaska model," where the scale of the industry produces enough revenue to support stock surveys, acute technological monitoring, and scientifically based findings allowing confident calibrations of conservation and fishery yields.The approach is "a good idea," Marks testified, "provided the scientific capabilities of the Alaska region also applied."We all know they don't," he continued. "Instead, we ended up with a rigid implementation model resulting in precautionary buffers and lower yields at the expense of our industry and our nation."That problem was the rallying cry for the February 2010 outdoor gathering of up to 5,000 fishermen at the U.S. Capitol, which was organized by the New Jersey based Recreational Fishing Alliance.The pending bills and Thursday's hearing were seen as among the first tangible results from the 2010 rally — and they come with plans already afoot for a second "United We Fish" rally sometime next spring.In his opening remarks Thursday, Hastings provided a similar analysis to Marks'.Read the rest here.

Begich, Murkowski, Landrieu, and Nelson introduce bill to modify Magnuson rules on setting ACL's

A bill introduced by Florida Senators Nelson and Rubio, with fairly bi-partisan support is being rushed through both houses of Congress that would make a significant improvement to the federal fisheries management process.Co-sponsors include Oceans Subcommittee Chairman Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska); Congressional Sportsmens Caucus Co-Chairman Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.); Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.); Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska); Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.). The 2006 revision of Magnuson-Stevens required that NOAA set annual catch limits on all species, regardless as to whether there was scientific information to do so or not. The Regional Fishery Management Councils have to put in place ACLs for every fishery by Dec. 31, 2011. This provision has been interpreted to apply to every stock of fish under management, leaving Councils with the conundrum of either deleting stocks from federal management or applying highly restrictive ACLs based on very poor data - or in some cases, non-existent data. NOAA presently has 528 stocks of fish or complexes of stocks under management. And there is updated stock assessment data on only 121 of the 528. The Fishery Science Improvement Act (FSIA) lifts the requirement to implement ACLs on stocks for which there is inadequate data and no evidence of overfishing. The legislation allows NOAA Fisheries to better conform to the intent of the 2006 reauthorization of MSA: ending overfishing based on sound scientific management.The legislation directs NOAA Fisheries to set annual catch limits (ACLs) only on those stocks of fish for which they have up-to-date scientific information to inform that decision. The bill's two conditions exempting a fishery from the ACL requirements are 1) the lack of a stock assessment in the prior six years and 2) the absence of any indication that overfishing is occurring. This will overturn the agency's current interpretation that it must set ACL's on all species, regardless as to whether it has any data or not.Supporters of the bill have provided two examples of its positive impact with Mahi Mahi and North Pacific cod. Read the rest on Saving SeaFood.