1
 1                      TRANSCRIPT OF
 2           MARINE FISHERIES ADVISORY COMMITTEE
 3                 HILTON HAWAIIAN VILLAGE
 4                        (Day One)
 5               South Pacific Ballroom # 1
 6                 Held in Honolulu, Hawaii
 7                           On
 8  
 9                Tuesday, January 11, 2005
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                                                       2
 1                        I N D E X
 2      Ecosystem Approach to Management             
 3      Overview - Taking the Mystery Out - Dr.      
 4      Michael Sissenwine                           62
 5      Ecosystem Goal Team - Jack Dunnigan          86
 6      Fishery Management Council Perspective -    123
 7      Congressional Perspective - Dave Whaley     156
 8      MSA - Magnuson-Stevens Act Reauthorization  198
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                                                       3
 1                                           (9:30 a.m.)
 2            (Tuesday, January 11, 2005)
 3            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  Thank you all for 
 4  coming.  I know it's a hardship to come to Hawaii, 
 5  for those of you that live in other places of the 
 6  world, but thank you for making the sacrifice and 
 7  coming to join the MAFAC here in Hawaii.  
 8            It's a great pleasure for me to be with 
 9  you.  I apologize that I have not been able to make 
10  the last set of meetings.  I'm very grateful that 
11  I'm able to do it today.  Again, I thank you for 
12  coming and being a part of this group.  
13            We have I think a very fine agenda today.  
14  A lot of it has been set up by the work that you've 
15  done, and we're going to make more progress with it.  
16  So I'm pleased to be part of it.  
17            I have a few other comments, but I'd like 
18  to turn it over to Laurel for just a second while 
19  it's fresh in your mind to go through some of the 
20  logistics so everybody feels comfortable with the 
21  setup and what we're doing.  
22            (Brief logistical announcement by Laurel 
23  Bryant)
24            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  Let me just take a 
25  few minutes for some other comments here before we 
                                                       4
 1  get started.  
 2            First of all, Bill is with us.  I 
 3  appreciate the work Bill has done in standing in for 
 4  me and taking care of the valuable expertise that we 
 5  get from this group.  
 6            I want to assure you that I'm a very 
 7  strong believer in advisory groups, in connecting 
 8  with the public and ensuring that we work with our 
 9  constituents and the people that we serve.  You are 
10  the people that we serve.  There's no reason to have 
11  a government agency unless it does something for the 
12  people.  So that's the ethic that I come from, and I 
13  appreciate the fact that you give up your time and 
14  you provide our connection to the real world to make 
15  sure what we do makes sense, and obviously it's very 
16  helpful.  
17            I also will assure you that I spend 
18  probably 60 percent of my time on fisheries issues, 
19  even though it's 20 percent of the budget.  So this 
20  is an important group, your advice and your 
21  participation is absolutely essential, and I 
22  appreciate it.  
23            Let me acknowledge, first of all, Alvin 
24  Osterback, who has been the Industry Vice-Chair, 
25  Maggie Raymond, the Industry Co-Vice-Chair, for the 
                                                       5
 1  work that they've done the last several years in 
 2  keeping MAFAC meetings on track and productive.  We 
 3  appreciate that, because that's again an extra duty 
 4  and very important.  So thank you, Alvin and Maggie, 
 5  for your hard work.  
 6            I would like to also mention that we have 
 7  several newly-appointed members.  Final approval was 
 8  given.  So these folks are here with us today:  
 9            Dr. Manuel Pizzini, is over here.  Okay.  
10  Stand up.  
11            He's the Director of the Sea Grant College 
12  Program at the University of Puerto Rico, Associate 
13  Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, and a 
14  Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at the 
15  Department of Social Sciences.  So welcome, Dr. 
16  Pizzini.  Glad to have you.  
17            Eric Schwaab.  Eric is right there.  Eric, 
18  good morning.  Welcome.  
19            He's the Director of Resources at the 
20  International Association of Fish and Wildlife 
21  Agencies, and formerly the Director of Natural 
22  Resources for the State of Maryland.  Brings another 
23  great portfolio with him.  Thank you for joining us.
24            Tom Billy.  Tom is over here.  Welcome, 
25  Tom.  
                                                       6
 1            Tom is the President of International Food 
 2  Safety Consultants.  Previously served with the 
 3  federal government for 39 years, most notably with 
 4  USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, very 
 5  important to us, in the development of the Hazard 
 6  Analysis and Critical Control Point, HACCP, systems 
 7  to improve seafood safety.  An area that I think we 
 8  need to do more on, quite frankly.  
 9            Anyway, thank you for your willingness to 
10  serve.  As I said, it's final.  You're in.  So you 
11  can't get out now.  (Applause)  
12            Okay.  We're going to spend -- let me just 
13  tell you, I'm caught between several different 
14  things.  The last two weeks we've been tsunami-ing 
15  it.  Okay.  That's been a huge issue, and it still 
16  is.  In fact, I had to stay back in Washington 
17  yesterday because of the White House meeting on 
18  tsunamis.  So that's been a big issue with NOAA.  
19            You're also competing this week with the 
20  AMS, the American Meteorological Society, another 
21  big constituency of the NOAA family.  So I have to 
22  spend some time with them as well.  
23            Today the competition with tsunamis is 
24  such that Senator Stevens is here touring the 
25  Tsunami Warning Center.  So I have to go out to 
                                                       7
 1  that, leave around lunchtime.  So I am with you for 
 2  the morning.  So, please, give me your feedback.  
 3  Please, join in the conversation.  
 4            Again, the fact that I can't stay here for 
 5  the full time is not any indication of my interest 
 6  or emphasis and priority on the importance of what 
 7  the group does.  So please accept that as the 
 8  unfortunate facts of life.  
 9            We're going to be working on 
10  ecosystem-based approaches to management for the 
11  morning and for most of the day.  But there will be 
12  an aquaculture section at the end.  I will mention a 
13  couple words about aquaculture in my remarks, which 
14  I want to -- and I appreciate the work that's been 
15  done there.  
16            Obviously, I appreciate the ecosystem 
17  paper that was done by the group.  
18            So with that, let me go around the room 
19  and everyone can introduce themselves and 
20  re-acquaint each other.  Why don't we start down 
21  this end of the table.  
22            MR. FISHER:  I'm Randy Fisher.  I'm the 
23  Executive Director of the Pacific States Marine 
24  Fisheries Commission in Portland, Oregon.
25            MR. HOGARTH:  Does that mean you're living 
                                                       8
 1  in your old house since I see you here? 
 2            MR. FISHER:  Right now I have two houses 
 3  that I'm paying for.  
 4            MR. HOGARTH:  Okay.  
 5            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  What a good deal.  
 6            MR. FISHER:  Better than having two wives.  
 7  (Laughter)  
 8            MR. LEIPZIG:  Pete Leipzig with 
 9  Fishermen's Marketing Association.  
10            MR. MOON:  I'm Mel Moon.  I'm the Director 
11  of National Resources for the Quileute Indian Tribe 
12  in Washington State and also Commissioner with the 
13  Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.  
14            MR. DILERNIA:  I'm Tony Dilernia.  I'm the 
15  Director of Marine Technology for the City 
16  University of New York.  I'm also a 35-year-old -- 
17  35 year operating a charter.  
18            MR. BILLY:  Tom Billy.  I've been 
19  previously introduced.  
20            MR. KENT:  Don Kent.  I'm a marine 
21  biologist and President of the Hubbs-Sea World 
22  Research Institute.  
23            MR. FLETCHER:  I'm Bob Fletcher, President 
24  of the Sportfishing Association of California and 
25  represent about 175 passenger sportfishing boats in 
                                                       9
 1  Southern California, some of which you will be 
 2  meeting with tomorrow.  
 3            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  Yes.  Look forward to 
 4  it.  
 5            MR. KRAMER:  I'm Rob Kramer.  I'm the 
 6  President of the International Game Fish 
 7  Association.  
 8            MR. BURNS:  I'm Scott Burns.  I'm the 
 9  Director of the Marine Conservation Program for 
10  World Wildlife Fund.  
11            MR. DORSETT:  Chris Dorsett with the Ocean 
12  Conservancy in San Francisco.  
13            MR. WHALEY:  I'm Dave Whaley with the 
14  House Resources Committee.  
15            MS. LENT:  Rebecca Lent, Deputy for 
16  Regulatory Programs and Fisheries.  
17            MS. BRYANT:  I'm Laurel Bryant, Executive 
18  Director for MAFAC.  
19            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  Conrad Lautenbacher, 
20  NOAA Administrator.  
21            MR. HOGARTH:  Bill Hogarth.  
22            MR. OSTERBACK:  Alvin Osterback.  I'm Port 
23  Director for the City of Unalaska and the Chair the 
24  Aleut Marine Mammal Commission.  
25            MS. RAYMOND:  I'm Maggie Raymond.  I own a 
                                                      10
 1  groundfish vessel in Maine.  I work as staff for 
 2  Associated Fisheries of Maine.  
 3            MR. SISSENWINE:  Mike Sissenwine, the 
 4  Director of Scientific Programs for NOAA Fisheries.  
 5            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Jack Dunnigan with NOAA.  
 6            MR. FORSTER:  I'm John Forster.  I'm an 
 7  aquaculture consultant.  
 8            MR. PIZZINI:  Manuel Pizzini, University 
 9  of Puerto Rico.  
10            MR. O'SHEA:  Vince O'Shea, Atlantic States 
11  Marine Fisheries Commission.  
12            MR. SCHWAAB:  Eric Schwaab.  
13            MR. GILMORE:  Jim Gilmore with the At-Sea 
14  Processors Association.  
15            MR. COOK:  Jim Cook with Pacific Ocean 
16  Producers in Honolulu.  
17            MR. ROBERTS:  Ken Roberts, Louisiana State 
18  University.  
19            MR. RAYBURN:  Ralph Rayburn with the Texas 
20  Sea Grant Program.  
21            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  Okay.  How about the 
22  back row?  Maybe we could just walk down there.  
23            MR. MAHOOD:  Bob Mahood, Executive 
24  Director of the South Atlantic Fisheries Management 
25  Council.  
                                                      11
 1            MR. DANIEL:  Louis Daniel, Chair of South 
 2  Atlantic Fishery Council.  
 3            MS. MADSEN:  Stephanie Madsen, Chair of 
 4  the North Pacific Council.  
 5            MR. OLIVER:  Chris Oliver.  I'm the 
 6  Executive Director of the North Pacific Council.  
 7            MS. SALVESON:  Sue Salveson, NOAA 
 8  Fisheries, Alaska.  
 9            MR. POOLEY:  Sam Pooley, Pacific Islands 
10  Fisheries Science Center here in Honolulu.  
11            MR. PINEIRO:  Eugenio Pineiro, Caribbean 
12  Fisheries Management Chair.  
13            MR. ROLON:  Miguel Rolon, Caribbean 
14  Fisheries Management Council, Executive Director.  
15            MR. BLOUNT:  Frank Blount, New England 
16  Council Chair.  
17            MR. HOWARD:  Paul Howard, Executive 
18  Director, New England Council.  
19            MR. HENDRIX:  Joe Hendrix, Vice-Chairman, 
20  Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council.  
21            MR. DAVIS:  Gerry Davis, Pacific Island 
22  Regional Office, Habitat.  
23            MR. MORIOKA:  Roy Morioka, Western Pacific 
24  Regional Fisheries Management Council, Chair.  
25            MR. LONGNECKER:  John Longnecker, NOAA.  
                                                      12
 1            MS. BARTLETT:  Nicole Bartlett.  I'm here 
 2  on detail at the Science Center working with the 
 3  HMRFS data.  
 4            MR. DARBY:  Forbes Darby, NOAA Fisheries.  
 5  I'm the National Recreational Fisheries Coordinator.  
 6            MR. REISNER:  Gary Reisner, I'm NOAA 
 7  Fisheries CFO.  
 8            MR. WONG:  Paul Wong, NOAA's Hawaiian 
 9  Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary.  
10            MR. ROBINSON:  Bill Robinson, Regional 
11  Administrator, Pacific Islands Region here in 
12  Honolulu.  
13            MR. COLLINS:  I'm Andy Collins from the 
14  Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem 
15  Reserve.  
16            MR. SAVAGE:  Rick Savage, Mid Atlantic 
17  Council.  I'm 35 --
18            MR. FURLONG:  Dan Furlong, also 35, Mid 
19  Atlantic Council.
20            MR. ORTMANN:  Dave Ortmann, Vice-Chair, 
21  Pacific Fishery Management Council.  
22            MR. ATRAN:  Steven Atran, on the staff of 
23  the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council.  I'm 
24  filling in for our Executive Director, Wayne 
25  Swingle, who can't be here because of a conflict 
                                                      13
 1  with a council meeting this week. 
 2            MS. GOO:  Wendee Goo, Public Affairs, 
 3  Pacific Islands Region.  
 4            MR. HELM:  Gordon Helm, Constituent 
 5  Services, NOAA Fisheries.  
 6            MR. PAYNE:  I'm Mike Payne, Protected 
 7  Resources, National Marine Fisheries Service in 
 8  Silver Spring.  
 9            MR. HOFF:  Tom Hoff, Mid Atlantic Fishery 
10  Management Council staff.  
11            MR. BROWN:  Ralph Brown, Pacific Coast.  
12            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  Very good.  Thank you 
13  all.  It's a very distinguished group, as you can 
14  tell.  I'm delighted to be part of this.  
15            Bill, would you like to --  
16            MR. HOGARTH:  Just a couple words, because 
17  I know time wise I'll get to say more as this week 
18  goes on, and your time here is limited.  
19            But I just wanted to take the opportunity 
20  again to thank every one of you for coming.  We have 
21  a very strong working relationship, I hope, with 
22  MAFAC now.  We've really tried to build it up and I 
23  think the input we've gotten has just been 
24  excellent.  We want to see this even get stronger. 
25            We invited the councils to this meeting, 
                                                      14
 1  the Regional Fisheries Management Councils, for 
 2  several reasons.  One, we had the opportunity to get 
 3  them in one spot with MAFAC and the Executive 
 4  Directors and Council Chairs, and we thought it was 
 5  important for this discussion, particularly as we 
 6  started our movement on ecosystem -- continue our 
 7  movement on ecosystem-based management.  
 8            Also, as we looked at this year, 2005, and 
 9  all the activities, particularly Magnuson-Stevens 
10  Reauthorization.  
11            So we want to thank the Council Chairs and 
12  Executive Directors for coming, and thank MAFAC for 
13  sharing with them.  We hope this is -- and we expect 
14  it to be a very good discussion today and the rest 
15  of the week.  The Council Chairs and Executive 
16  Directors are invited to be here for all the things 
17  they'd like to attend.  
18            I just say I think we're making lots of 
19  progress in fisheries, and we're making it because 
20  of people like you who are willing to serve and help 
21  us this week to move forward.  We have some very big 
22  issues I think in 2005, and I think we're ready to 
23  address those issues and move forward.  So I thank 
24  all of you for taking the time.  I look forward to 
25  talking to you and working with you this week.  
                                                      15
 1            It's really nice to have the Admiral come.  
 2  The Admiral has been very interested in trying to 
 3  get -- has been very instrumental in getting NOAA to 
 4  be NOAA.  As you noticed, as we go around the table, 
 5  some of us still say NOAA Fisheries, but most of us 
 6  say NOAA, as we try to get rid of these stovepipes 
 7  and become one NOAA.  I think he's worked very hard 
 8  at that, and I think you see a lot of fruit coming 
 9  to bear along those lines.  
10            We have to work together if we're going to 
11  solve these issues that we have before us.  So we're 
12  glad to have him here.  We're glad to have him give 
13  you a talk this morning and then listen and 
14  participate in the ecosystem part.  
15            So, Admiral, thanks. 
16            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  Thank you, Bill.  
17  Appreciate it.  
18            This morning will be spent on talking 
19  about ecosystem approaches or ecosystem management  
20  approaches in light with our strategic plan, which 
21  you participated in, in the trail that we've been on 
22  for a number of years in this area.  I think it's a 
23  unifying theme.  
24            Those of you that know me realize that I'm 
25  always looking for ways to get people together and 
                                                      16
 1  build larger consensus and ways to try to advance 
 2  our issues.  
 3            Remember that the NOAA constituency is  
 4  relatively small communities when you look at the 
 5  size of our nation and you look at the other things 
 6  that go on in our country.  It is important that if 
 7  we're going to be heard that we work together and we 
 8  try to build a consistent voice and some consensus 
 9  on issues that -- and I think there's a lot of 
10  consensus, both between the NGOs who are working on 
11  the hard side for environmental, as well as the 
12  people who are making their living directly from the 
13  sea.  
14            I do not believe that we should be at 
15  odds.  I think there are many, many principles that 
16  we can agree on and that we can work together to try 
17  to advance our society.  
18            In the end, I think most of us have the 
19  same ideas in our hearts and our minds.  So I 
20  appreciate the diverse group of people that we have 
21  today, and the willingness of all of you to work 
22  together.  
23            I'm going to try to set the stage on this 
24  ecosystem-based management theme, and then we're 
25  going to have a panel.  We'll take a break somewhere 
                                                      17
 1  in the middle of the morning to ensure --- so if 
 2  you're drinking coffee, don't worry about it.  We'll 
 3  take a break.  
 4            Okay.  Go ahead.  Just hit the next slide 
 5  so I won't -- wow, see, we have the best techies.  
 6  We've got five videos going there for you to watch.  
 7            I'm going to talk for just a minute about 
 8  NOAA.  As Bill said, we've tried to unify NOAA.  
 9  Again, for the same reason that I said before, we 
10  have relatively small communities.  And also, 
11  today's challenges, today's problems that we need to 
12  meet for the future, of taking care of six billion 
13  people on this planet, and even the 300 million we 
14  have in the United States, which is sort of a 
15  round-off number when you look at the world 
16  population.  We have huge challenges that can only 
17  be solved by working together.  
18            Cross-disciplinary types of issues, that's 
19  NOAA's mission, understanding and predicting changes 
20  in the earth's environment, particularly the ocean 
21  and the atmosphere.  
22            But, of course, an issue that we're all 
23  concerned with here, conserving and managing coastal 
24  and marine resources for our nation's economic, 
25  social and environmental needs.  A full panoply of 
                                                      18
 1  issues.  
 2            So that's our mission.  It's very 
 3  important.  
 4            In the last three years we have worked to 
 5  break our stovepipes and try to focus ourselves on 
 6  the large issues that society faces and try to solve 
 7  them.  We can only solve them by bringing everyone 
 8  together.  They're not in the purview of one 
 9  particular university, one particular science and 
10  one particular group of special interests.  
11            We'll talk about that first one, 
12  protecting, restoring and managing the use of 
13  coastal and ocean resources through ecosystem 
14  management is a unifying theme for the entire -- as 
15  a baseline, just a baseline, the entire wet side of 
16  NOAA.  
17            But it also brings in everything else 
18  because it's connected to the physical side of the 
19  atmosphere as well.  You have climate variability 
20  and change.  You know what a huge issue that is 
21  today, both politically and scientifically.  
22            Serving society's needs for weather and 
23  water.  Water is perhaps one of the biggest issues 
24  the world faces in terms of how to deal with the 
25  future.  
                                                      19
 1            Finally, we are in the Department of 
 2  Commerce and we are the underpinning of commerce.  
 3  NOAA's products are responsible directly for 30 
 4  percent of the GDP, or over three trillion dollars, 
 5  based on the kinds of information that we provide 
 6  for the nation.  So there's a reason why NOAA is in 
 7  commerce.  
 8            Of course, sound transportation, air, sea 
 9  and land, depends on understanding the environment 
10  that we're in.  
11            So that's how we organized ourselves.  We 
12  are organized to meet mission requirements.  We're 
13  not organized in this administrative sense.  We 
14  should think about our ability to work and solve 
15  these issues, not in Fisheries, Weather, the Ocean 
16  Service, the Research Branch.  Those are divisions 
17  that have particular functional products that we put 
18  together to solve those problems.  So that's our 
19  real organization.  
20            I can tell you we've tried to back that 
21  up, put our money where our mouth is, so to speak.  
22  So these are the people that are responsible for 
23  those challenges that are outlined on the first 
24  slide.  I want to make sure people understand 
25  there's some teeth behind this.  
                                                      20
 1            So those four goals that I've just talked 
 2  about have a single person in charge.  So if you 
 3  want to know about how we're going -- what we're 
 4  doing and where we're going in those areas, you 
 5  don't think, gee, do I call Fisheries, do I call the 
 6  Weather Service, do I call the Research Branch.  
 7            No, you call the people that are in charge 
 8  of solving those problems.  
 9            Jack Dunnigan for Ecosystems, who is here 
10  today with us.  
11            You see the names of the other people, and 
12  they're very distinguished, long-term civil 
13  servants, that have amassed a great deal of 
14  knowledge and I think credibility within their 
15  communities over the years, and I'm delighted we 
16  have them serving with us in these capacities.  
17            As I told our Internal SES audience, these 
18  are our royalty.  These are the four kings of NOAA.  
19            Then they have programs.  You see their 
20  program manager names; for Habit, Corals, Coastal 
21  Resources.  But those are the programs.  
22            Now, the interesting thing is, are those 
23  the right programs?  I would tell you probably not.  
24  But that's what I inherited.  Okay.  But we need to 
25  change that.  I'm not sure that's the right 
                                                      21
 1  breakdown.  
 2            But every dollar in NOAA is assigned into 
 3  these categories, and the support slide.  So every 
 4  dollar inside of NOAA is assigned to those program 
 5  managers and those goal leads, to work the 
 6  end-to-end problem.  What is the problem we're 
 7  solving, what roles do each of those programs play, 
 8  how are they integrated, and what are the outcome 
 9  measurements that we have to decide whether we're 
10  successful or not.  That's the way we're organized.  
11            Now, can I tell you that the culture has 
12  changed immediately to do this.  Of course, not.  It 
13  takes time to change an organization from the one it 
14  was in when I arrived three years ago to one where I 
15  think it can be, and basically it is internally 
16  generated.  
17            I didn't invent this system.  It was 
18  invented by our leadership and our SES, Senior 
19  Executive Service, leaders.  They've put a great 
20  deal of their own capital on the line to try to make 
21  this work.  
22            So if you think of NOAA and think of our 
23  structure and what we're doing, please think of it 
24  in those terms.  Because that's where the meat is.  
25  That's where the beef is.  
                                                      22
 1            I want to talk about a few issues now that 
 2  relate to the topic this morning.  Again, I'm going 
 3  to focus on ecosystem, that first theme from our 
 4  four major strategic management challenges and 
 5  societal problems that we're working on.  
 6            You should all be aware of the Ocean 
 7  Commission.  I think most of you are.  
 8            The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy 
 9  completed its work.  They turned their report in a 
10  little too late to affect directly the budget that's 
11  being developed this year.  But I think we have a 
12  chance in the future to affect it.  We did -- we 
13  were able to mobilize the federal government and put 
14  out an answer to the Ocean Commission 
15  recommendations.  There's some 212 recommendations I 
16  think that they have in their portfolio.  
17            We published the Ocean Action Plan on 
18  December 20th -- well, actually it was due on 
19  December 20th.  We did it on December 17th, which 
20  was a good day, and you can see, because we got the 
21  President.  
22            The President spent a half hour with 
23  Admiral Watkins going over our response to it, as 
24  well as the people that you see there.  That's Don 
25  Evans, my boss, and then that's Jim Connaughton, and 
                                                      23
 1  Lynn Scarlet, who was representing Secretary Norton 
 2  from Interior.  She's Assistant Secretary of 
 3  Interior.  Admiral Watkins is on the right, the 
 4  Chairman of the Board.  
 5            So I want to tell you that I think we have 
 6  some good visibility going.  We have the interest of 
 7  the President.  We certainly have the attention and 
 8  the interest of Jim Connaughton, who is the Chairman 
 9  of Environmental Quality and is a very big player in 
10  bringing interagency groups together on this.  
11            So I encourage you to take a look at that.  
12  I'm going to talk about it in -- not in full detail, 
13  but as we go along there's a few things I want to 
14  mention that are in there that are important to you.  
15            Now, the federal government had 90 days to 
16  answer 212 recommendations covering A to Z.  It's a 
17  large report.  Has an awful lot of different 
18  subjects in there, from fisheries management, to 
19  mapping and charting and ocean observing and 
20  research.  It goes across the gamut, and 
21  transportation.  All the issues that are associated 
22  with the oceans.  
23            One of the primary -- in fact, probably 
24  the most important recommendation out of the Ocean 
25  Policy Commission was this recommendation for a new 
                                                      24
 1  governance system.  I think when you read that you 
 2  will see that basically we got the President and the 
 3  White House to go along with that recommendation.  
 4  So there is now a cabinet-level group set up, a 
 5  point of contact that works for the President 
 6  directly that's responsible for coordinating ocean 
 7  policy matters.  
 8            As you can see, that would be Jim 
 9  Connaughton, who's the chair.  Members, it's like 
10  the NST, the National Science and Technology 
11  Committee, and the Environmental Quality Council, et 
12  cetera.  It's a cabinet-level group of all the major 
13  advisors to the President.  
14            It then has underneath of it what is now 
15  its equivalent to sort of the NORLC, has a little 
16  bit different composition, but it's basically a 
17  working group of -- for instance, I will be on that.  
18  That will be Agency Heads and Deputy Secretaries 
19  that serve on that group.  
20            Then underneath of it will be two groups, 
21  they are new names, but one will be charged with 
22  science and technology, and that will be under the 
23  NSTC, double-hatted for the Joint Subcommittee, 
24  NSTC, the National Science and Technology Council. 
25  Jack Marburger runs that, the President's Science 
                                                      25
 1  Advisor.  
 2            And then a completely new group, which 
 3  talks about the ocean resource management.  This 
 4  will be a very important one because it is the first 
 5  time that we've gone into an interagency working 
 6  group on management, on operations in the ocean.  It 
 7  will be very important on how we set that up.  
 8            There will be a FACA Committee advising 
 9  that middle block.  You can see that's what the 
10  expanded ORAP is, that's an acronym that comes from 
11  the National Ocean Partnership Program Act.  It's an 
12  advisory panel of scientists.  It will have to be 
13  expanded to include people who do operational 
14  business.  
15            Certainly fisheries management is one of 
16  those issues.  
17            Then you have it attached to the National 
18  Security side of the world, that's what you see on 
19  the other side.  The NSC, National Security Council 
20  Policy Coordinating Committee.  PCCs are big in 
21  Washington.  That's where a great deal of 
22  interagency work is done, and it brings in the State 
23  Department and our ability to work overseas with 
24  international interests.  
25            So this is a brand new framework agreed to 
                                                      26
 1  by the President.  Puts it right in the White House, 
 2  and it gives us an opportunity to do things we've 
 3  never done before.  I think it's an important step 
 4  in the right direction.  
 5            Basically, everything that was not 
 6  answered in the 212 recommendations has been laid on 
 7  this group to answer.  There have been some 
 8  deadlines set for research and for some of the other 
 9  policy matters that are recommended by the Ocean 
10  Policy Commission.  So if you're not satisfied with 
11  that initial report for 90 days, we have the 
12  opportunity to -- of course, it doesn't cover 
13  everything, but it covers it by setting up this 
14  group and charging this group with doing the work.  
15            Obviously, the proof is in the pudding; 
16  can we make it work, will it work, will there be 
17  enough interest in it.  I believe NOAA is the 
18  driving force behind this.  I don't mean NOAA 
19  myself, I mean the organization and its place.  So 
20  to a certain extent it's up to us in this room to 
21  make sure it works.  We have the ability to drive 
22  this, to talk to the people that are on here, to get 
23  involved with this expanded FACA Committee, as you 
24  are with MAFAC here at the Commerce level, and to 
25  ensure that we do the things we need to support this 
                                                      27
 1  national level framework.  
 2            I already mentioned that.  
 3            The fourth bullet is important.  Obviously 
 4  I'm a strong believer in federal, state, local and 
 5  regional cooperation.  I believe it is a mixed 
 6  model.  The federal government cannot legislate and 
 7  do everything in this country.  It has to be done by 
 8  the people who live in the regions and areas.  So 
 9  there's a natural partnership.  
10            This action plan stresses that, and I 
11  think the Administration is dedicated to that.  
12            We're interested in exploring some of the 
13  opportunities that are in the Ocean Action Plan to 
14  have better regional cooperation and coordination, 
15  and in my view build a bigger tent of people who can 
16  come together to solve some of these challenges that 
17  I mentioned on my first slide, for our strategic 
18  plan. 
19            So that's an important piece of it.  
20            Fisheries-related items that are in that 
21  report.  Obviously, the ecosystem approach to 
22  management is big in the report.  For those of you 
23  that haven't looked at it, it is big.  
24            I view it as a unifying theme that can 
25  bring all of us together.  I want to build on what 
                                                      28
 1  we've done.  This is not tearing down or just 
 2  throwing aside everything that has happened.  
 3            This is an evolutionary process that we've 
 4  been working on.  Ecosystem approaches to management 
 5  have been in process for years.  I'm going to talk 
 6  about that in a few minutes.  
 7            Regional Ocean Councils.  That's a 
 8  recommendation that was very strong in the Draft 
 9  Ocean Policy Commission Report.  It talked about 
10  setting up Regional Councils that would be bigger 
11  than Fisheries Management Councils.  It didn't 
12  really describe how the Fisheries Management 
13  Councils fit into that system, but it talked about 
14  building bigger councils.  
15            After they received a lot of comments on 
16  it, many of which I'm sure came from constituencies 
17  that are represented around the table, it was pulled 
18  back a little bit, to let's have a little bit 
19  go-slow approach on that.  Let's look at pilot 
20  programs.  Let's look at ways to deal with this that 
21  makes sense and not rush into something that, first 
22  of all, nobody can articulate, understand or 
23  describe.  
24            I can't, and I don't know whether anybody 
25  else here can either.  
                                                      29
 1            But this is a new area.  So that's a place 
 2  where we're going, and we need to approach in a 
 3  measured way.  But the people in this room can help 
 4  to deal with that issue and it can help us in NOAA 
 5  and the federal government deal with it.  
 6            Obviously, this one you're familiar with.  
 7  Market-based approaches to fishery management.  They 
 8  are obviously supportive of IFQs and ways to improve 
 9  our ability to ensure that we have safe fishing, 
10  that we have better ways to manage our plans that 
11  help fishermen and take into account the complexity 
12  of the regulations we have today, and eliminate some 
13  of that and do it on a market-based approach.  
14            Recreational fishing data.  This is an 
15  issue which comes up.  I know I'll be talking about 
16  it when I go to California tomorrow and see some of 
17  our friends in California who are in the 
18  recreational fishing area.  
19            That's an important piece of area of 
20  recommendation in the Ocean Policy Commission 
21  Report, and we are very serious about doing that.  
22            I put this Southeast Aquatic Resources 
23  Partnership up there because there's a setup in the 
24  Southeast now that includes both Fishery Management 
25  Councils and other regional groups, as sort of a 
                                                      30
 1  pilot.  So here's a chance where the federal 
 2  government didn't dictate this on some kind of fiat 
 3  from Washington.  It was something that was formed 
 4  of the need, people felt the need to do it.  
 5            So here's an area where we can look at 
 6  ways to build this bigger tent, to get people 
 7  together to work on solving some of these problems 
 8  and use the great benefit that we already have from 
 9  the work that's been done for years with our Fishery 
10  Management Councils in regional management for an 
11  important resource for the country.  So that's an 
12  interesting opportunity here.  
13            Ecosystem.  I've talked about this in many 
14  different places.  First of all, I think it's 
15  misunderstood.  I think the terms get used with 
16  abandon in many cases, and people pick up what they 
17  want to hear on ecosystem-based management.  It 
18  comes down I think to sort of a fundamental problem, 
19  we need to start from the beginning, we need to 
20  define what we're talking about.  
21            So I asked my group to define it.  It took 
22  them a long time to do, but they did it.  So there's 
23  a definition.  
24            Now, we can argue about that, and we 
25  should argue about the definition.  But you need 
                                                      31
 1  some baseline to start from.  
 2            I think NOAA is the place that can 
 3  crystalize that kind of discussion.  It's a central 
 4  focus in our country for the kinds of management 
 5  issues that are associated and incorporated in the 
 6  ecosystem approach.  
 7            So this is what we came up with.  I think 
 8  it's a pretty reasonable description of what it is. 
 9            First, it's geographic.  You've got to 
10  talk about it geographically.  There are going to be 
11  arguments about what geographic bounds are.  
12            This is not perfect.  And it isn't going 
13  to be perfect.  
14            There are going to be political 
15  constraints as well as there are geographical 
16  constraints and real ecosystem food chain 
17  constraints and migration of resources in and out of 
18  areas.  So it's not perfect.  
19            But we have to come to some kind of an 
20  agreement on how that works.  
21            And then we have to take a look at the 
22  other pieces in the approach.  It's adaptive.  It's 
23  regional.  It takes account of knowledge, 
24  uncertainty, multiple external influences, which are 
25  all there.  It strives to balance diverse societal 
                                                      32
 1  objectives.  Those points.  
 2            What I want to say to you, if you look at 
 3  that very quickly, you're going to say, well, that's 
 4  not much new, we've been doing that.  We have been.  
 5  We do that today.  So this is not something that 
 6  just dropped down out the sky, we're all of a sudden 
 7  going to stop what we're doing and we're going to 
 8  start off on some new approach.  It's something 
 9  that's been happening.  
10            I'm going to point that out to you as we 
11  go along and describe some of the problems.  
12            Okay.  Now what has been happening in 
13  action.  Let's talk about things that are already in 
14  there.  Fishery management plans today include 
15  bycatch and habitat considerations.  They are 
16  ecosystem factors.  When you're not catching the 
17  kind of fish or critters you want to catch, and 
18  you're disturbing some other part of the 
19  environment, we already today take that into 
20  account.  The Fishery Management Councils do it and 
21  we talk about it inside MAFAC.  
22            Habitat has obviously been brought in an 
23  evolutionary sense into our Magnuson-Stevens Act and 
24  into our thinking and into our science.  So habitat 
25  considerations, there are obviously big concerns.  
                                                      33
 1  There's a lot of lawsuits about it.  There's a lot 
 2  of controversy, but it's in there and we're dealing 
 3  with it right now.  
 4            We actually have plans in the Northwestern 
 5  Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Management Plan.  Here 
 6  is a plan that is going to be an ecosystem kind of 
 7  total approach.  There's no question about it.  
 8            There's been a lot of collaboration with 
 9  the councils in terms of dealing with science and 
10  dealing with the fishery management plans as to what 
11  makes sense for these kinds of issues.  
12            So this is a continuum, and we're working 
13  on it.  
14            So here is an interesting one.  The 
15  herring fishery.  If you look at the herring fishery 
16  on the West Coast, this is a predator/prey 
17  relationship which you have to take into account.  
18            It's an interesting one because bluefin 
19  tuna obviously feed on herring.  So if you catch 
20  more herring, then do you -- what is the bluefin 
21  quota problem and what does that fishery look like 
22  for optimum yield.  
23            Also cod fish feed on small herring.  So 
24  you've got a groundfish connection to herring as 
25  well.  So if you take away herring, you disturb the 
                                                      34
 1  groundfish area.  
 2            On the other side of it, herring actually 
 3  feed on cod larvae.  So now you have double, which 
 4  -- how do you optimize that?  How do you deal with 
 5  that?  
 6            It's an economic issues as well as a 
 7  biological issue.  
 8            Now, I'm not the guy to tell you that 
 9  we've solved that yet.  We haven't solved all these 
10  problems yet.  
11            But those are the things that come up, and 
12  you can't avoid them because the management councils 
13  are dealing with that today.  
14            We have to deal with bluefin quotas.  We 
15  have to deal with cod fish and we have to deal with 
16  herring.  So it's there.  You can't ignore it and 
17  it's something -- there's the other thing there.  
18  Lobster traps use herring bait.  So you catch 
19  herring and you catch lobster.  So you've got that 
20  tied in with it, too.  
21            So you can't avoid it.  Those are things 
22  that if we can work on scientifically and we can 
23  work on together from a management sense, we'd make 
24  a lot of progress I think in solving some of these 
25  controversies that we have.  
                                                      35
 1            Now, you're not going to do this 
 2  overnight.  This is a hugely complex problem.  This 
 3  is just a manifestation of the food chain in the 
 4  area in this one small regime that we're talking 
 5  about here.  
 6            But we've got to start, and you can't 
 7  start -- you've got to continue.  You can't all of a 
 8  sudden come in say, oh, it's too big, I can't deal 
 9  with it.  You've got to take it one step at a time. 
10            You can deal with some of these things and 
11  you can work up a logical progression to get to a 
12  higher level.  So I'm not suggesting that we start 
13  all of a sudden with a huge model of how everything 
14  works in a particular water column in an area and 
15  say instantaneously we all of a sudden have magic 
16  that gives us new knowledge.  
17            This is an evolutionary process.  We have 
18  to define some of the most important of these 
19  relationships and see what we can learn about them 
20  and work up in a gradual way.  
21            This is an interesting one, too.  
22            The last one I showed you is an example of 
23  mixing between species and of life in a water 
24  column.   This is one that shows you that we already 
25  take into account physical oceanography, physical 
                                                      36
 1  ocean conditions in concert with our fisheries 
 2  management.  
 3            The California/Oregon drift gillnet 
 4  fishery, because it interferes with the leatherback 
 5  and loggerhead, these are turtles that are on the 
 6  Endangered Species List, and obviously we have to 
 7  manage both issues from the laws that we have.  
 8            So from good observer data and looking at 
 9  the problem, we know that most leatherback 
10  interactions occur -- optimize in the October time 
11  frame.  Therefore, close the fishery at that point, 
12  and now we've reduced the interactions by over 70 to 
13  75 percent, just by that single act.  That allows 
14  the fishery to be managed productively, as well it 
15  solves our Endangered Species Act.  
16            In the loggerhead side of it, it's 
17  directly dependent on El Nino.  We know the 
18  loggerheads follow the warm water.  They follow in a 
19  certain area.  If you close it during the El Nino 
20  years, when the ocean is warming, you end up, again, 
21  taking out a huge interaction problem that you have 
22  between a fishery and loggerhead turtles.  
23            So that's just an example of what's out 
24  there today.  We do that today.  And that's 
25  certainly an ecosystem approach.  
                                                      37
 1            This is an interesting one.  The North 
 2  Pacific climate regimes and ecosystem productivity.  
 3  It's a research issue that's going on today.  It 
 4  talks about trying to figure out -- I think most 
 5  people will agree that the Pacific Decadal 
 6  Oscillation is real.  That it has definite changes 
 7  in water characteristics, and that then affects 
 8  primary productivity and the change in the 
 9  temperature also affects where the fish go because 
10  their food moves and their comfort zone that they 
11  like to live in moves as well.  
12            So here's a biophysical monitoring network 
13  that tries to look at physical data, biological data 
14  and gives the opportunities for people managing 
15  fisheries in the North Pacific a way to deal with 
16  the fact that the ocean conditions are changing.  
17            Now, we don't have enough information to 
18  predict the status of the Pacific Decadal 
19  Oscillation.  Many people thought it was a two-state 
20  process.  It's either one state or another state.  
21            Now, there's evidence it's at least a 
22  three-state process, and there may be more.  But we 
23  don't -- I'll get on to global observing that we 
24  need to kind of solve those large problems.  
25            But obviously knowing more about that 
                                                      38
 1  helps us manage the living marine resources that are 
 2  in the area.  Very important.  Let me give you some 
 3  of the figures here.  
 4            If you're able to get this qualitative 
 5  idea of warming.  For instance, the warming of the 
 6  Bering Sea Shelf leads to retreat of cold water 
 7  species, like snow crab, and the advancement of warm 
 8  water species, pollack.  If you can get some 
 9  quantitative information, for example, the Bering 
10  Sea, if it warms by 1.5 degrees centigrade, the 
11  pollack population will move 100 kilometers north 
12  and increase by 20 percent.  So that obviously 
13  affects the kind of management plan you want to put 
14  into effect.  
15            Similarly, snow crab will move 200 
16  kilometers northward because of these changes, and 
17  will decrease by 50 percent.  So you can't -- and 
18  fishermen know that.  You can't always go out to the 
19  same area every year and find the same fish.  
20  There's reasons for that.  
21            The object is to find out these reasons 
22  and to get ahead of it and be able to predict it.  
23  So this is an enormously promising area I believe.  
24            Communication.  Communication here means 
25  just talking with each other.  I'm not talking about 
                                                      39
 1  setting up internets and satellites, and all that.  
 2            I'm talking about real-life communication 
 3  between people, between people in different 
 4  segments.  People that do the science.  People that 
 5  do the management.  People that are in government.  
 6  People that are in the private sector, from -- 
 7  certainly from our science.  We talked about that 
 8  earlier this morning, with the Fishery Management 
 9  Council people.  
10            We need this connection and communication.  
11            It's hard to do.  NOAA doesn't do it 
12  perfectly.  I don't think anybody ever will do it 
13  perfectly, but we are interested in working on it, 
14  and that's why we are here today.  
15            So I encourage you to keep talking, 
16  writing letters, talk to each other, talk to us.  
17  Let's keep building the bridges that are going to 
18  bring this together.  
19            Federal/state jurisdictions.  That's 
20  another area for communications, and building the 
21  bridges.  
22            We have to -- if we're going to manage on 
23  an ecosystem basis, we really have to ensure that 
24  we're going down the same path.  This adds even more 
25  of a challenge.  
                                                      40
 1            I realize we work on this today.  So 
 2  again, I'm not saying this is brand new.  But this 
 3  is something where I encourage us some thoughtful 
 4  consideration of how we do this better.  
 5            Vessel monitoring systems, I think have a 
 6  great deal of promise.  You could probably call me a 
 7  techie, I guess, but observers are important.  I 
 8  don't think there will ever be a time when we can 
 9  eliminate the human observer from the loop.  At 
10  least, I don't foresee that.  You always need a 
11  human in the loop.  
12            But there's an awful lot that we can 
13  gather from better vessel monitoring systems.  I 
14  think everybody knows this is the black box that 
15  tells you right now where a ship is located and 
16  provides it 24/7 to a command center on shore so we 
17  can figure out and mange where ships are and what 
18  they're doing.  
19            But there will be ways that we can gather 
20  data and get better data, which supports the bottom 
21  line.  The research that solves real problems, real 
22  questions that you come up with, builds better 
23  models, models that help us to provide and build 
24  better plans.  
25            And data.  You've got to have the data.  
                                                      41
 1            I think I'll just make mention of the 
 2  report that MAFAC submitted on ecosystem management 
 3  in 2003.  I appreciate that.  I think it fits in 
 4  nicely with what's going on, and is a big help to 
 5  Bill and to our Ocean Council, as well as Fisheries 
 6  and Ocean Service.  
 7            Okay.  Let's move on to the next one.  
 8            I'm going to give you a plug for Global 
 9  Earth Observing Systems.  The acronym that we have 
10  now internationally is GOESS, the Global Observing 
11  Earth System of Systems.  Because it is a system of 
12  systems.  You cannot monitor the earth without 
13  thinking of all the different kinds of biological, 
14  physical and chemical and seismic systems.  
15            Obviously the one right on the top, 
16  natural and human-induced disasters.  We all have 
17  had a huge lesson in that thanks to the tsunami in 
18  the Indian Ocean.  
19            If you don't believe we need a global 
20  observing system, just go over and look at some of 
21  the beaches around the Indian Ocean.  A global 
22  observing system could have warned enough people, we 
23  probably could have saved 90 percent of the people 
24  or more with the proper kinds of warning.  There's 
25  no doubt in my mind about that, and there was 
                                                      42
 1  nothing in place in the Indian Ocean that allowed 
 2  that to happen.  
 3            Right now we have 53 nations.  A new 
 4  nation joined as a result of this, and four more 
 5  want to jump in a global group on earth observations 
 6  and international collaborations to set up a global 
 7  earth observing system.  
 8            Obviously, one of the greatest benefits is 
 9  protection from natural hazards and human-induced 
10  disasters, for that matter.  
11            But it goes -- if you move over to the 
12  right and you come into where we're concerned today, 
13  fisheries management, and we'll talk about the 
14  terrestrial, coastal and marine ecosystem types of 
15  monitoring.  
16            The system -- we participate in this room 
17  in global observing.  We have ships.  We have 
18  humans.  We have people, our fishery ships.  Our 
19  catch data.  All that kind of stuff is an incredibly 
20  important observing system and needs to be 
21  coordinated on an international basis.  Because 
22  obviously highly migratory species are a world 
23  management problem, but even our own management in 
24  our 200-mile EEZ depends on understanding global 
25  data and the interaction across boundaries that are 
                                                      43
 1  set politically, but not set by nature.  
 2            So all of these things are going to be 
 3  affected by our ability to observe and understand 
 4  the earth and provide data of the status of where we 
 5  are to policy-makers around the world.  We're 
 6  working on it.  
 7            I hate to see the suffering in the Indian 
 8  Ocean.  It's a terrible, terrible tragedy that 
 9  didn't need to be.  But I am hopeful that that will 
10  provide incentive to policy-makers around the world 
11  to get together to share data.  
12            The biggest problem is we don't have 
13  nations that want to share data.  They're very 
14  protective.  I don't want to name any names when 
15  we're sitting in the room here.  But it is hard to 
16  get people to want to share data because they view 
17  it as a national prerogative and they're very 
18  distrustful.  This is a huge political and people 
19  challenge to get -- the technology is there.  We can 
20  hook computer to computer across the world.  We can 
21  set up fiber optic networks and satellites and we 
22  can provide instantaneous downloads around the world 
23  on just about anything.  But you can't get the 
24  people to agree to do it.  
25            Hopefully, this is going to be an 
                                                      44
 1  incentive for that to happen.  
 2            Here's some of the things that better data 
 3  can help provide, and improve it.  
 4            Commercial and recreational catch 
 5  statistics are important.  Stock assessments are 
 6  enormously important.  We don't get enough data to 
 7  do those at the right levels.  I don't think I need 
 8  to belabor that in this room with everybody who's 
 9  around.  
10            Observer program.  I already made my 
11  comments on that.  The observers are critically 
12  important around the world.  We can get more 
13  technology involved in it, but we still are going to 
14  need humans to do some of this work.  
15            Standardized sampling gear.  Remember, 
16  NOAA Fisheries survey vessels are 40 years old.  For 
17  the first time we've been able to get a new survey 
18  vessel.  By the way, we took delivery of it just two 
19  weeks ago, the OSCAR DYSON.  Brand new Fisheries 
20  Service, world-class survey vessel that's quiet, has 
21  all the latest sampling techniques on it.  Advancing 
22  in this direction I think is going to really help 
23  us.  
24            I also believe that we can do more with 
25  the fishing industry as well, for having 
                                                      45
 1  standardized sampling gear.  There can be more 
 2  sources of information in standardized data that can 
 3  be used and people can participate in.  
 4            Obviously oceanographic and lower trophic 
 5  level data in our food chain is extremely important.  
 6  Taking surveys of not just fish, but of all of the 
 7  levels from zooplankton, to phytoplankton on up.  
 8            That's a wonderful ecosystem -- 
 9  (Laughing).  
10            See, you put it all together and that's 
11  the problem.  You see that slide and everybody 
12  throws up and says, (Laughter) we can't do that.  
13            But take it one at a time, look at each 
14  piece of it and look at what we're doing.  There are 
15  examples in every region around our country today 
16  where we are taking into account one or two of those 
17  things, and doing it pretty well.  So it's not 
18  totally hopeless.  
19            Now, the other thing I like about this for 
20  fisheries, and for everybody else, is the fact that 
21  this, in my view, is a full ecosystem.  Because if 
22  you look up on the left-hand side, it includes the 
23  human species.  Cannot have an ecosystem approach 
24  without the human species.  You've got to deal with 
25  that in some way, and you've got to recognize it 
                                                      46
 1  explicitly and stop trying to -- I'm not preaching 
 2  to this choir, but there are a lot of choirs that 
 3  want to ignore it or don't take it into account.  
 4            We're here and we're in everybody's food 
 5  chain.  We're the most adaptable species on earth.  
 6  We can live in the Arctic or the Antarctic or the 
 7  tropics.  We're everywhere.  
 8            So we are part of everybody's ecosystem in 
 9  some way, and you've got to deal with it.  
10            That's a nice picture because it shows you 
11  quite a bit of the physical, chemical, biological 
12  and human species part of this.  
13            I think there's just one more.  
14            Yeah, I just wanted to mention 
15  aquaculture.  We're not going to get a chance to 
16  talk -- I'm not going to be here when you're dealing 
17  with it, but I think this is an important area to 
18  work on.  
19            I realize it's a red flag for a lot of our 
20  wild-harvest fishermen in a lot of our regions.  
21            I'd like to get over that.  Remember that 
22  the fishing industry is basically a seven billion 
23  dollar trade deficit.  Seven billion dollar trade 
24  deficit from fishing.  
25            Now, the people that are here in this room 
                                                      47
 1  can figure out how to fix that, and part of the 
 2  answer is in aquaculture in some way, or mariculture 
 3  -- call it mariculture.  
 4            We are trying to work this problem 
 5  internally in the government very hard.  I think we 
 6  made some progress this year in getting some 
 7  consensus among the agencies that deal with this, 
 8  like Agriculture and Interior and Commerce.  We're 
 9  trying to put together a bill to have some sort of 
10  legislation that will make sense out of this area 
11  and provide economic opportunities while providing 
12  what I would call very sound environmental 
13  management as well.  
14            As you see, provides environmental and 
15  other safeguards.  So this is an important area to 
16  work on, and we shouldn't just ignore it.  It's a 
17  huge issue economically, providing jobs and business 
18  opportunities.  
19            It's a huge environmental challenge for 
20  sustainable fisheries and quality of life, standard 
21  of living for everybody that lives in our coastal 
22  zones.  
23            Okay.  I think that's it.  
24            Okay.  So that's it with my pitch.  Let me 
25  see if there's any -- we're going to go into -- this 
                                                      48
 1  is sort of a round table panel work at this point, 
 2  but let me stop for a second and see if you have any 
 3  questions for me directly on any of the material 
 4  that puzzled you or you'd like some clarification on 
 5  things that I said, and don't be embarrassed.  
 6            Yes, sir.
 7            MR. LEIPZIG:  Question on ecosystem 
 8  management.  Pete Leipzig.  
 9            Do you believe that there's legislation 
10  necessary to embark upon ecosystem management?  Or 
11  is the framework already in place to go forward with 
12  it, the Fishery Management Councils and the Fishery 
13  Service, NOAA?  Or do we need legislation?  
14            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  I believe there's  
15  enough legislation.  
16            Now, I don't believe we have a perfect set 
17  of laws under which we work.  So let me say, we are 
18  always looking for ways to improve that legislation.  
19  But I think we have a framework in the legislation 
20  that we have today that we can work on the things 
21  that I've talked about.  
22            That doesn't mean that in the future you 
23  wouldn't want to try to get some of these 
24  overlapping sets of laws that we work on more in 
25  tune with ecosystem-based approaches.  
                                                      49
 1            MR. LEIPZIG:  I raise the question because 
 2  there has been legislation introduced be it through 
 3  Magnuson --  
 4            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  Right.  
 5            MR. LEIPZIG:  -- which requires certain 
 6  steps to be taken.  I'm just questioning whether 
 7  that's necessary.  
 8            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  I think we have to be 
 9  very careful about each one of those and look at  
10  them individually.  
11            We have in the last couple of years gone 
12  through Magnuson-Stevens and tried to provide some 
13  what we believe improvements, and then based on 
14  information that we get from you, as well as from 
15  all of our communities that serve NOAA.  
16            So, yeah, I think we should continue to 
17  work on legislation.  I don't want to sit here and 
18  say, we shouldn't have any more legislation.  But I 
19  think we can work while we're doing that.  
20            Does that help you?  Or is that too 
21  nebulous?  
22            MR. LEIPZIG:  Well, I'm looking for what 
23  the Administration's position would be, on whether 
24  or not additional requirements to move in this 
25  direction are necessary?  Or do we have enough 
                                                      50
 1  guidance already in the framework available to us to 
 2  just go do it?  
 3            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  Yeah.  Let me ask 
 4  Bill, because he's the last guy that knows -- is the 
 5  expert on the review of what we've turned in.  We 
 6  have turned in some improvements that will help with 
 7  the ecosystem, but we're not finished with it.  
 8            Bill, you want to jump on that for a 
 9  second?  
10            MR. HOGARTH:  I personally think we have 
11  enough to do it.  I think internally right now we're 
12  going to work with the councils and look at some 
13  guidelines and criteria to make sure that we're 
14  focusing all the councils in a consistent manner.  
15            One thing we need to keep looking at, I 
16  think we look at EFH and some of the broad mandate 
17  that EFH brought and some of the problems we saw 
18  with it.  I think we're trying to learn from that, 
19  Pete, to see if we do need some clarification in 
20  Magnuson.  
21            But I think we have what we need to move 
22  forward.  I think we would like to work on some 
23  guidelines, criteria internally with the councils, 
24  but look -- we want to make sure that we don't get a 
25  mandate like we got with Essential Fish Habitat that 
                                                      51
 1  comes back to bite us.  Okay.  
 2            MR. LEIPZIG:  I support that.
 3            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  Okay.  Let me mention 
 4  -- I don't want to cut off discussion on this, but 
 5  part of what we're about today is to talk about that 
 6  exact question; what should we recommend, what are 
 7  ways to get at recommendations, and things like 
 8  that.  So it's a good point you raise and we want to 
 9  keep that thread going.  
10            Tab 2 in your book, I'm told.  Okay.  All 
11  right.  So that's good.  
12            MR. KRAMER:  Rob Kramer, International 
13  Game Fish Association.  
14            Admiral, with the publication of the U.S. 
15  Ocean Action Plan and all the attention it's been 
16  getting, do you envision new revenue sources and 
17  budget streams to help support some of these?  
18            Having come from government, I've seen 
19  that happens a lot.  
20            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  Yeah.  Our problem is 
21  -- let me tell you, there is no -- in my 35 years of 
22  working budget problems, there's no magic way to get 
23  kind of a whole new funding source drop down. 
24            Every once in a while lightning strikes, 
25  but that's -- I don't think it's going to strike 
                                                      52
 1  here.  I think it's up to us to work hard to 
 2  advertise where we need help and where there are 
 3  benefits to society and where there's real economic 
 4  value, and put our foot in the door and try to push 
 5  it open and get in.  
 6            I think you will see in our FYO6 budget 
 7  that we've been able to do some of that.  But you're 
 8  not going to see -- you know, the Ocean Commission 
 9  said double research.  So you're not going to see 
10  research double.  
11            I mean, people aren't going to do that 
12  without kind of, what is your plan, why do you want 
13  to double it, what kind of benefit are you going to 
14  provide for us.  
15            So right now we're going to build a 
16  research plan and we're doing the spade work to get 
17  the foot in the door to produce the kinds of -- and 
18  use the Ocean Commission recommendation as a way to 
19  get there.  
20            So I will tell you people will be probably 
21  disappointed if they expect to see huge new revenue 
22  sources or more money in the budget based on the 
23  Ocean Commission Report.  
24            First of all, it came out too late.  It 
25  was behind the eight ball.  As soon as the pressure 
                                                      53
 1  was off of the Administration to respond after the 
 2  election, you lost a lot of the political leverage 
 3  that society might have liked to see on that.  
 4            But that doesn't mean it isn't there and 
 5  it can be used.  We got into the Oval Office and we 
 6  got the President to sign this and talk about these 
 7  issues.  I can assure you that he is very interested 
 8  in managing fisheries.  He's a rec fisherman and he 
 9  wants to see management.  He wants to see management 
10  of fisheries so that we have it for people and we 
11  have a good environment in which not only 
12  recreational fishermen can be involved, but the rest 
13  of the public can.  So that was very enlightening to 
14  me.  
15            I think that's a good sign for us in this 
16  community.  
17            MR. DILERNIA:  Admiral, currently most of 
18  our fisheries are under some type of fishery 
19  management plan.  As we transition towards an 
20  ecosystem approach, those plans will either have to 
21  be modified, replaced.  
22            I was wondering, have any plans or areas 
23  or regions in the country been identified for an 
24  experimental attempt in ecosystem management before 
25  we go into it fully?  
                                                      54
 1            Because clearly, we would have to take a 
 2  couple stabs at it, a couple tries and experiments 
 3  before we will be able to do some type of 
 4  conversions?  
 5            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  I think that's a good 
 6  question.  
 7            Again, Mike Sissenwine is going to be 
 8  providing some more information on it.  
 9            But let me say -- I want to iterate this 
10  again, I don't see any kind of huge change.  
11            Now, we may for -- I would call it -- 
12  public affairs purposes, say, voila, we're now in 
13  ecosystem management, here's an example of it.  
14            The plans that we have today, first of 
15  all, do continually change.  They're continually 
16  amended, they're modified.  And in most cases 
17  they're amended and modified because we have new 
18  ecosystem-based factors that come into play.  
19            Then we say, oh, we've got to do something 
20  because you've got crabs that eat oysters and so 
21  you've got to -- I mean, it's all there.  It's 
22  already kind of -- it's working its way in.  
23            I view it as almost a public affairs kind 
24  of point at which we say, voila, where's the eco -- 
25  you put a stake, and you have drums and bugles and 
                                                      55
 1  flags and say, we're there, because we're doing it.  
 2            I don't see any kind of magic that is 
 3  going to drop down and all of sudden we're going to 
 4  change every plan to some ecosystem-based management 
 5  -- some new way of doing it, because we're doing it.  
 6            I view it as a continuum, and it's just 
 7  getting better as we get more information and it 
 8  will become more and more advanced.  
 9            As far as I'm concerned, it could still be 
10  single species.  Single species doesn't mean it 
11  doesn't have an ecosystem-based approach to it.  
12  Obviously, you will have connections with other 
13  plans and you'll work into maybe multi-plans and -- 
14  a more comprehensive plan, I guess I would call it.  
15  But single species can be ecosystem-based 
16  management.  
17            We're looking for examples to have the 
18  drums and the bugles and the flags to talk about it 
19  at some point.  
20            MR. HOGARTH:  Tony, probably every council 
21  sitting around the room has got some form of 
22  ecosystem type plan going on right now.  
23            I think one of the things we want to talk 
24  to them about more, and get this dialogue going is 
25  we've done a lot of Programmatic EIS.  You can take 
                                                      56
 1  a Programmatic EIS and very easily turn it into an 
 2  ecosystem plan and then fold your fisheries 
 3  management under it, for example.  
 4            So that's why we need this dialogue now 
 5  with the councils on guidelines, sort of how we're 
 6  going to do this.  
 7            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  Good point.  
 8            MR. HOGARTH:  So we don't have to come at 
 9  this with a hodge-podge of one council doing it one 
10  way and another council doing it another way.  We 
11  want everybody to look at these as ecosystem plans 
12  and to have some consistency in how we go about it.  
13            I think there are lots of things going on 
14  right now, personally, that can be done.  It may 
15  identify some areas that we need further research 
16  for things, but I think it will still be that 
17  approach, an ecosystem approach.  
18            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  Good question.  
19            MR. SCHWABB:  Thank you.  Eric Schwabb.  
20  Thank you, Admiral.  
21            Can you put up the slide where you talked 
22  about areas for improvement, and you talked about 
23  federal/state jurisdictions.  
24            I guess my question, when you look back, 
25  for example, at some of the earlier work that this 
                                                      57
 1  Commission did with the ecosystem report, talked 
 2  about the need for particular fisheries agencies at 
 3  both those levels, and more, to reach out to some of 
 4  our nontraditional partners, regulatory agencies, 
 5  the inland and upland agencies like USDA that played 
 6  a big role in what's going on in coastal habitat 
 7  conditions.  
 8            I just wondered, when you talk about those 
 9  jurisdictional interactions, how do you see that 
10  conversation as -- how do you see its importance and 
11  how do you see it unfolding with respect to at the 
12  federal level, groups like the EPA and USDA, and 
13  some of the important roles they can play?  
14            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  Right.  And I think 
15  that's a good question.  
16            I see it in -- there's two opportunities 
17  here.  
18            First of all, I'm the co-chair of what is 
19  called the Committee on Environment and National 
20  Resources, an interagency group under the science -- 
21  under Marburger.  So it's attached to the White 
22  House, an interagency group.  
23            We have an ecosystem committee -- I forget 
24  what the exact title is.  Somebody here will 
25  probably know.  
                                                      58
 1            But it is an opportunity to get the 
 2  federal agencies together.  
 3            What I found out now is that everybody has 
 4  a different idea of what the ecosystem is.  The 
 5  issue we're starting here, let's at least in NOAA 
 6  get a definition of what it is.  
 7            So I want to take it to the federal 
 8  Washington level and get the head of the EPA, 
 9  Agriculture, Interior, where we sit around the 
10  table.  There was some good interest in the last 
11  meeting that we had.  So there's that opportunity.  
12            Then there's the opportunity that you've 
13  talked about, and then I think that is empowered to 
14  a certain extent by the Oceans Commission, which 
15  allows us to bring in these nontraditional partners.  
16            But keeping in mind what we're involved in 
17  here, which is an economic and social basis for 
18  improving our quality of life and standard of 
19  living.  So it's not designed to throw away 
20  everything we've done, but bring these people in.  
21  Here's an opportunity to build on what we already 
22  know how to do in Regional Fishery Management 
23  Councils that we have today, and bring in these 
24  other factors, which are very important, as you 
25  said, at the regional level.  
                                                      59
 1            I have encouraged NOAA to form regional 
 2  groups.  So we do have -- in some areas you can call 
 3  a NOAA person who actually knows how to contact 
 4  somebody in the Weather Bureau and in the fisheries 
 5  organization, instead of calling one or the other.  
 6  So we're trying to do that, too, have regional NOAA 
 7  resource pools that you can go to for anything you 
 8  need with NOAA.  
 9            The same thing ought to be for this area 
10  we're talking about here when we talk about 
11  attaching fisheries management to water quality and 
12  coastal zone management, et cetera.  
13            Good point.  
14            MR. HOGARTH:  Scott.  Then I think we need 
15  to get into the panel.  
16            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  Yeah, I think we need 
17  to get the panel going.  
18            MR. BURNS:  Thank you, Admiral. 
19            As you point out, the evolution towards 
20  ecosystem-based management is an iterative process.  
21  it's been done for quite a length of time.
22            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  For many years, yes.  
23            MR. BURNS:  How can NOAA work with the 
24  councilS to identify the most strategically 
25  important next pieces of the puzzle to work on; and 
                                                      60
 1  what, if anything, can we all do to encourage 
 2  learning across the various councils as we move 
 3  forward?  
 4            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  I think that's a 
 5  question that you all are going to have to answer 
 6  more than I can answer.  
 7            I want to answer our half of it.  The 
 8  connection to building the bridges for the 
 9  communication is important.  Do we have workshops?  
10  Do we have public meetings?  Do we have national 
11  meetings?  Or what kind of mechanisms can we have to 
12  spread the word and also build the underpinning to 
13  make sure that we're doing the right things, as well 
14  as advertising.  
15            So I'm not sure we have the answers to 
16  that yet.  I'm looking to this group and looking to 
17  our Fishery Management Councils and internally 
18  working together, because we all love to work on our 
19  own stovepipes.  We work very well there.  But this 
20  issue of getting together and ways to do it.  
21            Now, we've got a couple things going.  
22  We've got an SAB review of ecosystem research, which 
23  is getting together outside experts.  I hope there 
24  will be some interest from people around here in 
25  your organizations to get people on that panel to 
                                                      61
 1  look at how we do ecosystem-based science.  So here 
 2  is an opportunity to connect.  
 3            Bill is planning another -- NOAA is 
 4  planning another what I call big fish meeting in 
 5  March to get everybody in the community again in to 
 6  Washington to start talking together.  I think a 
 7  great deal is gained by getting all the partners and 
 8  players in to talk.  So there's another mechanism.  
 9            I think we see needs from each of the 
10  organizations that we talk to to be involved.  
11  Whatever we can do within the limits of the law, 
12  what we're allowed to do pre-decisional, and all 
13  that, we want to do.  So I'm encouraging people to 
14  suggest mechanisms in helping us work that problem.  
15            I think I'd like to move into the next 
16  panel section, and then we can take a break after we 
17  get started with that.  
18            We have four folks that are going to give 
19  us some of their comments and ideas coming from 
20  their part of the pie, so to speak.  Because this is 
21  a big picture item, and we have to have 
22  collaborative work across a number of different 
23  programs and disciplines.  
24            So the first speaker on that is Dr. Mike 
25  Sissenwine.  He's the Director for Science for NOAA 
                                                      62
 1  Fisheries, and was also my representative for the 
 2  Ocean Research Leadership Council, cuts across all 
 3  of NOAA and is, I think, as you well know, world 
 4  renown in his ability to take on the problems we 
 5  have in fisheries management.  
 6            So Mike will you -- he's right up there, 
 7  he's ready to go.  He's loading his computer.  So I 
 8  will turn it over to Mike for a few minutes.  
 9            I urge you to look at Tab 2, and you can 
10  see the questions that we have for discussion there 
11  so you can sort of couch some of the comments.
12            (Ecosystem Approach To Management - Taking 
13  the Mystery Out) 
14            MR. SISSENWINE:  Let me just start off by 
15  commenting that there will be some redundancy in my 
16  comments.   There are comments I've made to MAFAC 
17  before, to comments you've heard from the Vice 
18  Admiral, and comments you'll hear from Jack.  
19            I think that's a good thing.  It says 
20  we're talking to each other.  
21            I also think some of the key messages 
22  we're dealing with do have to be repeated over and 
23  over again so that we really get a grip on it.  So I 
24  apologize for what may seem redundant, but I think 
25  in some cases it's actually useful.  
                                                      63
 1            The other thing I'll comment on is I 
 2  wanted to put together a talk that would have broad 
 3  use to a lot of us in the community to get across 
 4  this message of, there is a lot going on already.  
 5  So I asked the various field people in the Agency,  
 6  the Regional Administrators and the Science 
 7  Directors to collect up some examples that they 
 8  viewed as ecosystem approaches.  
 9            As a result, I've got about 150 slides 
10  today.  We're not going to go through those all.  
11  There are a number of them in this PowerPoint 
12  presentation that are going to flash by as if it 
13  were a motion picture.  
14            I still think the fact that we have that 
15  material could prove very useful to all of us if 
16  there is times in the future -- and I consider it 
17  sort of a common property resource -- for talks that 
18  I hope many of us will be giving on where we are in 
19  terms of an ecosystem approach.  
20            I do want to recall that MAFAC had a 
21  recommendation for NMFS to begin the long-term 
22  process toward an ecosystem approach and the report 
23  of the Ecosystem Task Force in San Diego, 14 May, 
24  2003.  So we're marching down that path.  We're 
25  following your advice.  We were following your 
                                                      64
 1  advice before you gave it.  This is all consistent.  
 2            So I want to quickly talk about what it is 
 3  we're talking about in terms of an ecosystem 
 4  approach, what is happening now and some next steps.  
 5            Okay.  I did first want to mention some 
 6  things that I think at times may tend to set us 
 7  down, set us back or do hiccups in this dialogue, 
 8  and just identify them to you.  
 9            On of them is that there is the ambiguity 
10  about whether people are talking about an ecosystem 
11  approach to fisheries or they're talking about an 
12  ecosystem approach to whole ecosystems.  I think 
13  that in fact we are talking about both.  We should 
14  be talking about both.  We are evolving in the 
15  positive direction with both.  
16            But when we're discussing a particular set 
17  of action, we need to be clear of which one we are 
18  applying those actions to.  We need to always keep 
19  our eye on the ball of having these things proceed 
20  in a harmonious fashion so that ultimately we do 
21  converge to fisheries ecosystem approaches being 
22  consistent with a broader interest system approach.  
23            The second general comment that tends to 
24  cause a hiccup is, I don't know how many of us -- I 
25  know I've been guilty of it -- have gone into a 
                                                      65
 1  meeting and said, we need an ecosystem approach, but 
 2  I don't know how to do it yet.  That really does 
 3  derail the dialogue.  I think we need to keep on 
 4  trying with a positive message that we are doing it 
 5  and we are moving in the right direction.  
 6            It's natural that people push back on 
 7  various things that are new, and doubt us.  I think 
 8  we should just accept it.  That's the way the world 
 9  is.  We need to maintain our resolve.  We clearly 
10  need to, in our case within NOAA, redouble our 
11  commitment to engage stakeholders and we need to be 
12  very realistic that there isn't one-size-fits-all.  
13            So those are sort of my comments on 
14  hiccups that may derail us at times, and I think we 
15  need to keep those in the back of our mind at all 
16  times.  
17            So what's at stake?  I do view that 
18  there's a lot at stake in terms of going forward 
19  with an ecosystem approach.  Its integrity.  The 
20  countries of the world have made a commitment in the 
21  World Summit on Sustainable Development to move 
22  towards an ecosystem approach.  The NOAA Strategic 
23  Plan made that commitment.  Various of us have been 
24  involved in dialogues that have made that 
25  commitment.  
                                                      66
 1            I also take it as a point of honor.  I 
 2  think that those of us that have been involved in 
 3  this community really should be proud of what we're 
 4  doing.  We are moving towards an ecosystem approach, 
 5  and let's be proud of it, demonstrate it and discuss 
 6  it and improve on it.  
 7            Then finally, in terms of what's at stake, 
 8  I think there is the opportunity to be leaders.  I 
 9  hope we will all be part of that process of being 
10  leaders.  
11            So what's it all about?  I think there are 
12  some key messages that are common sense.  We're 
13  trying to take account of ecosystem knowledge and 
14  uncertainties.  We're trying to balance diverse 
15  social views.  We're preserving options for future 
16  generations.  These are all clear within the NOAA 
17  definition that Vice Admiral Lautenbacher gave you.  
18            Clear point is that this an incremental 
19  process.  It's not prescribed out.  
20            When someone says we have an ecosystem 
21  approach, they're not saying this is what the 
22  outcome would be.  What they ought to be saying is 
23  that this is the process that we want to participate 
24  in to consider these common sense elements.  
25            There is no right or wrong answer.  It's 
                                                      67
 1  what comes out of the process.  
 2            Again, evolutionary, not revolutionary. 
 3  You'll hear that phrase from a lot of people.  We 
 4  all agree with it.  
 5            I do want to point out that it's not just 
 6  a few folks in NOAA that are using that phrase.  It 
 7  actually evolves from a lot of discussions that were 
 8  going on internationally with people like Serge 
 9  Garcia from FAO, Jake Rice from Canada.  I mention 
10  those names in part because they deserve some credit 
11  for thoughts like this.  
12            But what's probably more important is it 
13  says that this general thinking is global now.  The 
14  people involved in a global community discussing how 
15  to proceed with an ecosystem approach are converging 
16  to the view that we need to do it in an evolutionary 
17  process and it's not some revolution where we just 
18  throw out everything that's happened before.  
19            So that's not just the Vice Admiral saying 
20  that or myself or Jack.  It's a global sentiment 
21  that's evolved over the last couple of years.  
22            I do think we need to recognize that this 
23  evolution, as I said, has to progress within each of 
24  the sectors, including fisheries.  But it also has 
25  to progress for ecosystems as a whole.  
                                                      68
 1            I do think the Fisheries Sector is leading 
 2  the way with many examples.  More so today than we 
 3  were five years ago.  I certainly hope not as much 
 4  so as we will be in five years from now.  
 5            Again, a restatement of it's evolutionary.  
 6  I do think that we, as a community, need to take on 
 7  this agenda, to seize it.  Otherwise the critics 
 8  will beat us up with it.  So it's either use it and 
 9  be leaders in it, or I think it will work to our 
10  disadvantage as a community of people all with the 
11  same objective of moving forward towards a more 
12  wholistic common sense approach.  
13            Let me just skip to the next one.  I have 
14  way too many of them so I'll pass on that.  
15            I just want to say this isn't new.  You 
16  can actually go back to Spencer Baird's vision when 
17  the Bureau of Fisheries was formed in 1871.  It 
18  sounds very ecosystem-oriented.  
19            You can look at various planning documents 
20  and things that the Agency has done over the course 
21  of its history.  That is Spencer Baird's vision.  
22            Causes affecting the abundance of animal 
23  life in the sea and methods of regulation.  So these 
24  are concepts that people have been struggling with 
25  and making progress on for well over 100 years.  
                                                      69
 1            There's a recent call to action that 
 2  highlights this.  Spencer Baird wasn't talking about 
 3  an ecosystem approach.  He was just talking an 
 4  ecosystem approach.  
 5            Now, people are talking about it in 
 6  various documents, from the conservation community, 
 7  from the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, 
 8  the Ecosystem Principles Working Group, Johannasburg 
 9  World Summit on Sustainable Development, Pew and 
10  U.S. Commission of Ocean Policy.  So there's a lot 
11  of discovery and high-level call for this as a way 
12  forward at this point.  
13            What are they saying?  In fact, they are 
14  saying a lot of things that often lacks specificity. 
15  But there are always some constant themes that 
16  appear in every version of this; that is, consider 
17  trophic interactions.  Consider natural and 
18  anthropogenic environmental influences, that's the 
19  natural weather systems, climate systems.  
20            But also, we do this ecosystems through 
21  anthropogenic effects, which is nutrient loading.  
22  Stop externalizing your impacts.  If you do 
23  something to an ecosystem, you're responsible for 
24  the indirect things it does to the elements of an 
25  ecosystem that somebody else is interested in.  
                                                      70
 1            Clearly engage stakeholders in setting 
 2  objectives.  Certainly, we need to -- something 
 3  that's recognized in every discussion of this, 
 4  preserve options for future generations.  Don't do 
 5  things that are irreversible.  
 6            This specifically is the agreed definition 
 7  that NOAA is working with, it's the one that Vice 
 8  Admiral showed wasn't bullet pointed, but they're 
 9  exactly the same in terms of substance.  I do think 
10  it's important that we have something to ground 
11  ourselves in so we can read words that refer to 
12  these things.  
13            So what's happening now?  
14            Let me just quickly comment that I do 
15  think we have Fishery Management Councils are 
16  progressively applying an ecosystem approach.  I'll 
17  spend a few minutes running through examples, but 
18  really just having examples that are on the shelf 
19  for you to use.  
20            We do actually have four FMCs that are 
21  fulfilling -- or meet the congressional initiatives 
22  for ecosystem approaches.  We are developing 
23  decision support tools for helping with ecosystem 
24  approaches and we are, in NOAA, taking on this 
25  problem at a broader ecosystem level, which really 
                                                      71
 1  will be the focus of Jack Dunnigan's talk in a few 
 2  minutes.  
 3            Okay.  This just puts you in the context 
 4  of the NOAA effort, which Jack will talk about.  
 5  Again, the four goal areas and the specific one on 
 6  ecosystems.  
 7            The fisheries ecosystem approach is a 
 8  subset, or subcomponent, of this broader effort.  
 9            So today we have many examples where we're 
10  dealing with and taking account of environment and 
11  climate regimes in the fishery management process.  
12  Habitat affected by fishing.  Nonfishing impacts on 
13  living marine resources.  So that's the other side 
14  of the coin.  
15            Bycatch, endangered species, uncertainty 
16  in risk and science needs.  
17            The issue of science needs are very much 
18  embedded in something we refer to as IOOS, the 
19  Integrated Ocean Observing System, which is in fact 
20  an ecological component of that.  We actually saw a 
21  program in the program structure that Vice Admiral 
22  Lautenbacher showed you, lead by Steve Murawski.  
23  That's built on decades of living marine resource 
24  and ecosystem surveys.  The intent is to integrate 
25  this information, to expand, to fill gaps, to 
                                                      72
 1  modernize, to assure quality, to add to create 
 2  value-added products, all of these elements that 
 3  we're moving towards.  To do so with 
 4  state-of-the-art fishery survey vessels and to 
 5  commit to sustaining time series, which is music to 
 6  my ears since I've been involved in trying to keep 
 7  some time series going for most of my career.  
 8            This is part of the earth observing system 
 9  that Vice Admiral Lautenbacher mentioned.  In fact, 
10  he's a champion of and has been one of the creators 
11  of.  So I think we've got these things lined up and 
12  are working together towards this very big picture 
13  of IOOS for the earth, which is inclusive of a more 
14  specific element integrated into the big picture 
15  that deals with the needs for an ecosystem approach 
16  to fisheries.  
17            Just to mention, we are making progress.  
18  That is not a boat that got washed up on shore by 
19  the tsunami.  It's the launch of the OSCAR DYSON, 
20  which this is about a year old.  It's actually now 
21  owned by NOAA and making its way towards readiness 
22  to actually go on its mission.  
23            Next one.  We're not stopping there.  This 
24  isn't some old wreck in the yard.  That's actually 
25  the beginning of the HENRY BIGELOW, which will be 
                                                      73
 1  the second vessel off the line.  I think that 
 2  picture is several months old.  So it may actually 
 3  be starting to look like a real ship by now.  
 4            This is Henry Bigelow on one of the 
 5  earlier research vessels.  Looking like, with this 
 6  grimace on his face, like he's saying, when am I 
 7  ever going to get off for lunch.  
 8            Okay.  I just want to go through, I think 
 9  there are five slides.  You can just march through 
10  them.  This is one for the West Coast.  
11            Next one, more on the West Coast in the 
12  Northwest.  
13            What these are, are pictures 
14  characterizing the scale of the ecological observing 
15  system that exists today in the various data 
16  collection programs.  
17            They need to be integrated.  They need to 
18  be modernized.  They need all sorts of things, but 
19  they are not a trivial program.  Already they are in 
20  the category of hundreds of millions of dollars 
21  worth of investment, some cases with 20, 30, 40 year 
22  old time series, 50-plus, that are the basis for 
23  building this system.  
24            That's Alaska.  
25            What are we doing with all this?  
                                                      74
 1            The ecosystem approach in Alaska involves 
 2  all these creatures in one way or another.  It's 
 3  comprehensive.  
 4            This is just an example.  Alaska happened 
 5  to give me very nice graphics, so I'm using their 
 6  example.  But that doesn't speak to the substance of 
 7  the program.  They aren't any better or worse than 
 8  anywhere else, but they do have excellent graphics.  
 9            So the ecosystem approach of the North 
10  Pacific Council involves a total allowable catch 
11  lower than the biological limit that will be 
12  available for each of the individual stocks taking 
13  account of ecosystem interactions and building in a 
14  safety margin.  
15            It involves, again, this OY cap on all 
16  groundfish yields.  It involves protection on forage 
17  species, taking account of trophic linkages.  It 
18  involves bird protection for short-tailed albatross.  
19  it involves protection for stellar sea lions by 
20  eliminating the fishery within the grazing area or 
21  rookeries.  
22            It involves closures to protect habitat 
23  from trawling and various bycatch controls.  
24            Let's just go on to the next one.  
25            This just illustrates the difference 
                                                      75
 1  between the acceptable biological catch on a 
 2  single-species basis and the overall cap on the 
 3  total allowable catch.  
 4            This shows the various protective measures 
 5  geographically for stellar sea lions.  
 6            The next one is a particular area where 
 7  cold water corals have been identified and are being 
 8  protected by closures.  
 9            One more on Alaska.  This illustrates some 
10  of the technologies that have been developed to 
11  reduce or minimize the take of seabirds in the 
12  longline fishery.  
13            I think that's the last on Alaska.  
14            I now have many other examples for other 
15  regions, not going to go through them.  You can just 
16  skip through them.  
17            But they have lots of the same elements of 
18  what we saw in the Alaska.  Some of the graphics 
19  aren't as good, but lots of the same elements.  
20            The point is that everywhere in the 
21  country we can identify examples that are clearly 
22  part of the evolution of fisheries management to be 
23  more and more complete as an ecosystem approach.  
24            A lot of it involves cooperative research 
25  with the industry, such as dealing with TEDs, 
                                                      76
 1  dealing with bycatch reduction in fish, with 
 2  reduction of turtle catches in longline fisheries, 
 3  dealing with different options for types of hooks, 
 4  for baits.  
 5            This is being applied in both oceans at 
 6  this stage, both the Atlantic and Pacific.  
 7            Moving on.  Various studies which are 
 8  taking account of environmental factors into 
 9  consideration for setting management strategies for 
10  species on the West Coast where we have particularly 
11  strong climate driving forces and signals that are 
12  expressed in the biology of many of our resource 
13  species.  
14            Just keep on going.  
15            I did want to mention that it's not only 
16  offshore.  We have a big mission that deals with 
17  salmon, which is obviously an inshore issue that 
18  covers a great deal of the Pacific Northwest.  
19            We have a congressionally-mandated 
20  program, which really means Congress gave us two 
21  million dollars to do good things in terms of 
22  advancing ecosystem approach.  They did say it was 
23  specifically on the East Coast.  
24            I will mention that we are trying to 
25  enhance the ability for our councils to step up and 
                                                      77
 1  deal with some governance issues for an ecosystem 
 2  approach.  We are developing various technical 
 3  workshops to get managers and scientists to work on 
 4  various ways of using data and creating solutions to 
 5  some of our ecosystem approach.  
 6            We're developing specifically decision 
 7  support tools, geared towards very applied uses of 
 8  sciences to help people make decisions.  There is 
 9  more detail on that.  
10            Just skip over the next one.  
11            MR. HOGARTH:  Just a point.  There are a 
12  lot of people working with us on that.  
13            MR. SISSENWINE:  Oh, yeah.  
14            Well, this, I wanted to specifically 
15  mention, this is the one dealing with GIS, which is 
16  a partnership between a couple of councils and 
17  states and the National Ocean Service experts in GIS 
18  and NOAA scientists.  So that's a good one to 
19  mention.  
20            Key thing here is we want to get the 
21  science part and the management for us working 
22  together to avoid those sort of problems.  
23            Either the horse jumped, or he got 
24  overloaded.  Probably the latter.  That's Steve 
25  Murawski's slide.  
                                                      78
 1            Technical guidelines have been mentioned.  
 2  There is lots of people talking about them.  Lots of 
 3  people trying to follow up on the report to Congress 
 4  in 1998 or '99 that said we should develop these.  
 5            There are no technical guidelines that 
 6  have been endorsed or adopted by anyone within the 
 7  Agency.  There are some international ones that 
 8  we're building on.  But there's a real opportunity 
 9  for us to work collaboratively to create guidelines 
10  that we all think will work in the future.  
11            A key element in this, and this comes from 
12  the international community's view of how to make an 
13  ecosystem approach operational.  They refer to it as 
14  unpacking the high-level objectives.  Going through 
15  a series of processes that start with high-level 
16  policy objectives that might be set in law, to 
17  broader objectives, down to actually indicators.  
18  This is what we would have to need to indicate 
19  whether we've got it right or not in performance 
20  review.  
21            There are many examples of people working 
22  to do this and actually making good progress.  The 
23  Canadians under their Ocean Act have a very nice 
24  document they've recently issued that gives all 
25  sorts of examples of how they believe they are 
                                                      79
 1  unpacking their objectives to get to something 
 2  operational.  
 3            I think the Australians have done a lot on 
 4  this, too.  That really is mostly an example from 
 5  Australia.  
 6            So we need to learn from others.  We need 
 7  to collaborate.  The partners -- and that's Fishery 
 8  Management Councils and NOAA Fisheries and others 
 9  who are partners, need to collaborate with 
10  stakeholders.  So I do think there is some value, 
11  which I think Jack will also mention, of recognition 
12  that there is a difference between being partners in 
13  something as well as having a broader set of 
14  stakeholders.  
15            We generally need to move towards this 
16  operationalizing of these general concepts.  
17            I'll just skip over that.  
18            So I do think the Fisheries Sector has a 
19  lot to gain from this.  Fisheries, because fish 
20  species and protected species integrate everything 
21  in the ecosystem, basically everybody's a 
22  stakeholder, and that's what gives this community a 
23  lot to gain by an ecosystem approach.  Because 
24  they're a stakeholder for almost everything else 
25  that goes on.  
                                                      80
 1            Whereas the fishery stakeholders are 
 2  already pretty much at the table.  So I see there's 
 3  a lot more to be gained in terms of implementing 
 4  other things than there is in terms of worrying 
 5  about the oil and gas community telling you how to 
 6  manage fisheries.  
 7            You might be able to have some influence 
 8  on what the oil and gas community does in their 
 9  sector.  
10            Then I guess I'll throw out a new maybe 
11  theme that we might try to keep track of as we go 
12  forward on this.  Let's look for common sense, not 
13  nonsense, which is my last words.  
14            Thank you.  
15            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  We'll take a few 
16  questions, and then we'll take a short break.  
17            MR. FISHER:  Needless to say, I'm 
18  concerned about a system that would require 
19  integrity and honor, because I have neither of 
20  those.  
21            MR. SISSENWINE:  Can we shake on that?  
22  (Laughter)  
23            MR. FISHER:  I do have a question.  Have 
24  you gone through a process yet of identifying laws 
25  that may come into conflict?  And the one that comes 
                                                      81
 1  most to my immediate concern is that of, for 
 2  example, sea lions and protected salmon.  How do we 
 3  deal with that under an ecosystem approach, when we 
 4  may have laws that are in conflict.  Because 
 5  obviously with the Magnuson probably going to be 
 6  reauthorized, we have an opportunity to change some 
 7  of those.  
 8            MR. SISSENWINE:  Yes.  I don't know that 
 9  there's been a systematic approach to that.  I think 
10  that would be a reasonable thing to be done.  
11            There is certainly awareness of many of us 
12  of those sort of things, and actually, the growing 
13  issue of how to deal with fully recovered marine 
14  mammal populations, whether there's endangered 
15  salmon involved or not.  
16            We have had various discussions among 
17  ourselves as to how important these issues are.  
18            But the straight answer to your question 
19  is, I'm not aware that there has been any 
20  comprehensive analysis of all those issues leading 
21  toward proposed solutions.  But they're real issues.  
22            MR. FLETCHER:  Bob Fletcher, Sportfishing 
23  Association.  
24            Mike, the slides mentioning cooperative 
25  research, and on the West Coast we see a huge 
                                                      82
 1  opportunity for cooperative research in not only 
 2  gathering very important information, but also in 
 3  helping educate both sectors, the Science and the  
 4  Fisheries Sector, as to what their job is.  
 5            How do you visualize cooperative research 
 6  becoming a part of this developing approach of the 
 7  ecosystem approach?  
 8            MR. SISSENWINE:  Well, it needs to be a 
 9  part of it for a couple reasons.  One is the 
10  ecosystem approach clearly recognizes a broader role 
11  of stakeholders in the overall development.  It's a 
12  much more participatory approach than some of the 
13  things that might have been done in the past.  
14            Therefore, it lends itself to much more 
15  participation at all levels.  Not just coming to a 
16  council meeting, but in talking about how to analyze 
17  data and defining problems and defining solutions.  
18            I also think it's necessary because we're 
19  dealing with problems that need to be addressed that 
20  are not necessarily within the traditional bag of 
21  tools that our Fishery Science Centers have.  We are 
22  fortunate to have some expertise in gear technology 
23  that's been working on the longline/turtle problem 
24  with quite a degree of success.  
25            But I think overall we would quickly 
                                                      83
 1  acknowledge that our gear conservation engineering 
 2  technology, for example, to deal with bycatch issues 
 3  and habitat issues, is not one of the key elements 
 4  that we focus on within the Agency and that almost 
 5  all of these projects is cooperative research that 
 6  borrows very, very heavily from the investment the 
 7  industry has made.  So I'd say that the answer is 
 8  that it increases the need and opportunity both 
 9  because the degree of dialogue, stakeholder 
10  participation, shared responsibility is greater, and 
11  the nature of the problems we're dealing with are a 
12  broader set of problems, which in many cases -- at 
13  least in some cases, we don't necessarily have the 
14  experience and the pool of experts sitting on the 
15  shelf, and we need to work with industry to use what 
16  exists everywhere.  
17            MR. O'SHEA:  Thank you, Admiral.  
18            Mike, I'm going to ask you because it was 
19  on your slide, but maybe this is a better question 
20  for either Jack or Gary.  But you mentioned the 
21  pilot projects on the East Coast in the '04 budget.  
22            My understanding is a similar project for 
23  that type of line item in the '05 budgets were lined 
24  out.  I'm wondering, is that an implication -- what 
25  are the implications of that?  
                                                      84
 1            The other flip side is, if you all have 
 2  programs that are sort of relabeled ecosystems 
 3  approach, does that put them in jeopardy in 
 4  subsequent budgets?  
 5            MR. SISSENWINE:  I don't think there's 
 6  anything in jeopardy.  I think it would have been 
 7  nice to have another two million dollars in '05 to 
 8  build on the work that started in '04 -- that was 
 9  funded in '04.  
10            The reality is that the funds have been 
11  distributed in a manner so that we will continue on 
12  through most of this fiscal year in any case.  I 
13  would hope that we start to see some exciting things 
14  coming out that might draw some interest in Congress 
15  in investing it further for the next fiscal year, 
16  but who knows.  
17            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  Why don't we take a 
18  seven-minute break and then we'll press through to 
19  lunch.  Okay.  
20            (Brief break taken)
21            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  Okay.  Ladies and 
22  gentlemen, if we can take our seats and we'll press 
23  through to lunch.  We still have some work to do for 
24  this morning.  
25            Just for your information, three handouts 
                                                      85
 1  have been passed around.  First of all, you have a 
 2  copy of Jack's slides.  So you can have those for 
 3  your record.  
 4            Also, a couple letters.  We passed out the 
 5  Regional Fishery Management Council letter to me on 
 6  the ecosystem approaches to management, and also our 
 7  reply.  My reply, which I signed out a few days ago.  
 8  So you have the set of where we are here.  
 9            I really do think we are coming together, 
10  and I appreciate getting letters that we can respond 
11  to and provide a building of consensus inside the 
12  community.  So please, this is how we learn and how 
13  we develop and how we begin to work together better.  
14  So thank you for the input, and I certainly thank my 
15  staff for working hard on how to bring everyone 
16  together.  
17            The next presentation is from Jack 
18  Dunnigan.  As we mentioned, he's the Ecosystem Goal 
19  Team Lead, and royalty in the NOAA Family and the 
20  man responsible for a very, very huge task.  I 
21  really do appreciate him taking this on.  This is 
22  not an easy process, and certainly not within NOAA's 
23  culture, which I believe we are changing in a 
24  revolutionary way here.  
25            I appreciate the work that Jack has done 
                                                      86
 1  in bringing ecosystem approaches to our whole 
 2  spectrum of NOAA management issues.  
 3            So with that, let me turn it over to Jack, 
 4  who will continue on this morning's session.
 5            (Ecosystem Goal Team)
 6            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Thank you, Admiral.  Good 
 7  morning, everybody.  
 8            Let me first acknowledge, the handouts 
 9  that you got are courtesy of our wonderful Regional 
10  Office.  Bill Robinson, thank you.  Alvin Katekaru, 
11  the new Division Chief for Sustainable Fisheries, 
12  yesterday took our file and made these for you.  So 
13  I want to acknowledge that and thank the Regional 
14  Office for their assistance.  
15            My portion of the presentation today is 
16  not to talk a lot about what ecosystem management 
17  is, per se.  Mike hit on a lot of that.  
18            But my next piece of the puzzle is to talk 
19  a little bit in an organizational sense about what 
20  NOAA is doing and how we're organized to try to move 
21  forward.  
22            Of course, when we talk about the 
23  ecosystem we have an ultimate ecosystem.  The big 
24  blue marble.  Actually, this is very important to 
25  all of us.  Very important to NOAA.  This is the 
                                                      87
 1  scale of which a lot of the things that NOAA is 
 2  doing, IOOS, International Ocean Observing System, 
 3  are operating.  
 4            But that's not really the level that I'm 
 5  going to be talking to you about because what we're 
 6  talking about now within the NOAA strategic plan are 
 7  concepts of ecosystem approaches to management, and 
 8  the management responsibilities that we have under 
 9  mandates and drivers that have come to us from 
10  Congress.  
11            This is a little bit of a repeat from what 
12  the Admiral talked about this morning, but the 
13  ecosystem goal addresses that part of our mission 
14  which is concerned about protecting, restoring and 
15  managing the use of coastal ocean resources.  There 
16  is a lot in that sentence.  You can almost take any 
17  one of those words and we can have a 20 or 30 minute 
18  discussion about them.  
19            But protecting, restoring and managing use 
20  is important, and what we mean by both coastal and 
21  ocean resources is an important concept.  
22            Within this goal and the new program 
23  structure that NOAA is operating under, there are 
24  nine programs, and we'll look at that in a little 
25  more detail in a minute.  
                                                      88
 1            But what's important is that the U.S. 
 2  Ocean Commission of Ocean Policy has recommended a 
 3  whole new era for NOAA to move forward in leadership 
 4  of ocean agencies and communities at-large.  
 5            NOAA really is uniquely positioned because 
 6  of the mandates that we have, because of the assets, 
 7  because of our capabilities, because of our history.  
 8  Mike hit on some of the historical things that we've 
 9  been doing for the last 150 or more years.  
10            NOAA is really positioned to step forward 
11  here and become a leader.  The word "leader" has 
12  been very important to us as we think this way 
13  through.  It doesn't mean NOAA is going to be in 
14  charge of everything.  It doesn't mean that NOAA 
15  gets the final say or we get all the budget.  
16            But basically the whole concept of 
17  leadership is to help everybody to move forward, and 
18  you've got to be very strategic and careful about 
19  how you look within different ecosystem context, 
20  about what the requirements are, where the needs are 
21  and where it is that NOAA can provide that kind of 
22  leadership and help everybody to move forward.  
23            These are the nine programs that we have.  
24  The important thing about this slide that adds to 
25  what you saw earlier this morning is the coloring.  
                                                      89
 1  Seven of the nine programs that are contained within 
 2  the ecosystem goal are matrix programs.  
 3            What that means is they draw resources 
 4  from more than one of the Line Offices that are 
 5  within NOAA.  The only two that only draw resources 
 6  from within the National Marine Fisheries Service 
 7  are the Protected Species Program, Laurie Allen is 
 8  the Program Manager for that, and the Fisheries 
 9  Management Program, which I used to be the manager 
10  for, and Galen Tromble has taken over as I moved on 
11  to the ecosystem level.  
12            What we're really talking about for the 
13  goal, and the Goal Team, is a part of the whole 
14  planning and programing and budgeting process that 
15  we've been trying to move towards in NOAA.  
16            Somebody this morning mentioned, where 
17  does budgeting and programing now sort of fit 
18  together.  NOAA has a wonderful slide.  I don't have 
19  it in this presentation.  But you start with 
20  planning.  
21            For example, with the '08 budget process.  
22  We are going to start that on March 1st.  We're 
23  going to start with looking at our strategic plan.  
24  There's going to be a National Stakeholders Meeting 
25  in Washington, D.C. on March 2nd.  We will be 
                                                      90
 1  looking back at our strategic plan to say, what have 
 2  we learned in the last year, how is this changing, 
 3  what should we be doing in a planning context to 
 4  think of moving our mission forward.  
 5            Then after we finish planning, we'll get a 
 6  set of instructions that will come into the 
 7  programing phase, which is what we're in right now.  
 8  That lasts for about four or five months for all of 
 9  these programs.  There are 44 of these, by the way, 
10  in NOAA.  This is just the nine that are in the 
11  ecosystem goal.  
12            All of those programs will start taking 
13  the results of our planning process and begin to 
14  make that a little bit more critical and begin to 
15  identify where our major gaps are that we want to 
16  try to identify.  Major new initiatives for the '08 
17  process.  
18            That will then work into the next phase, 
19  which is budgeting.  That's about to start right 
20  now.  We're just about finishing programing in the 
21  '07 process.  We are about ready to start.  February 
22  1st we'll start budgeting.  That's basically when 
23  the results of programing have been presented to the 
24  Admiral, he has made decisions and he says in his 
25  judgement this is what NOAA ought to do for this 
                                                      91
 1  year, the '07 budget process.  
 2            The Budget Office will then take that and 
 3  work that into a budget submission that will end up 
 4  going through the Department and the White House, 
 5  comes backs to us on a passback, goes back to them, 
 6  and ultimately will become the President's budget 
 7  for fiscal '07 and that will be released in February 
 8  of '06.  
 9            Another idea -- I know we've been talking 
10  about this in MAFAC for years.  This is a huge 
11  cycle.  It goes on and on and at any one given time 
12  you're really in about four different fiscal years 
13  of trying to make these things work.  
14            The other thing that's important about 
15  this process is execution.  We in the goal and 
16  program structure are very critically important to 
17  the planning and the programing, and we assist in 
18  the budgeting.  
19            But once the budget comes back from 
20  Congress, which is where we are in '05, the 
21  execution is done at the Line Office level.  At that 
22  point we are working with the Line Offices to do 
23  program reviews, reporting back to NOAA on 
24  performance measures and that things that we're 
25  accomplishing.  But the Line Offices still have a 
                                                      92
 1  critical role in the overall process, PBBES, in the 
 2  execution side of the phase.  
 3            I wish I would have included that in the 
 4  slide because it helps to tell the story.  
 5            But that's sort of what the Goal Team does 
 6  and how we sort of fit into the overall process.  
 7            Now, as I said, we're about ready to 
 8  embark on the planning process for the '08 to '12  
 9  budget.  NOAA has a strategic plan.  It was done two 
10  years ago.  It was significantly redone in 2004.  
11  it's a much more concise and very visionary and 
12  strategic document right now.  
13            NOAA has a number of goals, four major 
14  goals that have been decided on the basis of what's 
15  important to society at-large.  Ecosystem is one of 
16  them.  The other three are weather and water, one 
17  for climate and one for commerce and transportation.  
18            For what we're working with in the 
19  ecosystem goal, this is our long-term goal:  
20            To protect, restore and manage the use of 
21  coastal ocean resources through an ecosystem 
22  approach to management.  We've added this "through" 
23  here to the statement that you found a little bit 
24  earlier.  So we're using ecosystem approaches to 
25  management.  
                                                      93
 1            And again, as Mike said in his first 
 2  slide, we're not just talking about fisheries here.  
 3  All of the values that society holds important that 
 4  are relevant to NOAA's mission are involved in our 
 5  ecosystem approach to management.  
 6            The strategic plan lists outcomes, long 
 7  term, where we want to be.  We want -- if you want 
 8  to think about the direction that all of this is 
 9  going in, we want healthy and productive coastal and 
10  marine ecosystems that benefit society.  
11            And we want a well-informed public that 
12  acts as a steward.  
13            In all the years we've been working on 
14  this, this is the kind of statement you would have 
15  heard from NOAA many times.  
16            I don't think you would have heard this 
17  one until recently.  A recognition that government 
18  can't solve all of the problems.  That what we need 
19  to have is a public that is engaged, that accepts 
20  the responsibility for the resources ultimately that 
21  they own.  
22            So our strategy to achieve this goal -- 
23  this is all from the strategic plan, is to engage 
24  and collaborate with partners.  Notice we have that 
25  right up front, to achieve regional objectives by 
                                                      94
 1  delineating regional ecosystems, forming regional 
 2  ecosystem councils and implementing cooperative 
 3  strategies to improve regional ecosystem health.  
 4            This is something that is going to get 
 5  rethought, frankly.  As we go into the planning 
 6  process with the '08 budget, this was written a year 
 7  ago and we were anticipating what we saw coming out 
 8  of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, what we 
 9  heard from the Pew Commission.  
10            You can look at this and say, this doesn't 
11  talk about what kinds of councils you're necessarily 
12  looking at.  They can be done at various levels.  
13            I mean, at one sense, even at the NOAA 
14  level we need to have some kind of a regional 
15  ecosystem approach just to make sure that our own 
16  activities are integrated.  
17            But one of the things that I know we'll be 
18  doing, because we started talking about it, is to 
19  look at that and see whether or not that continues 
20  in light of the final decision of the U.S. Ocean 
21  Commission to make these into voluntary 
22  organizations that can facilitate processes to the 
23  extent that continues to be relevant.  
24            So as Mike said, this is the third time 
25  this morning that you've seen this articulation.  It 
                                                      95
 1  doesn't mean that we're being repetitive.  It means 
 2  that we're trying to actually be consistent.  
 3            But let me emphasize one of the things 
 4  that the other two speakers didn't, and that's this 
 5  included humans.  The Admiral usually hits on that, 
 6  I'm surprised he didn't this morning.  
 7            NOAA recognizes that the ecosystem is more 
 8  than just critters and physical processes, that 
 9  people are an integral part of that.  
10            If you look at that in the United States, 
11  127 million people, which is about 45 percent or so 
12  of our population, are living in these coastal 
13  counties.  So there is a very real tie, real nexus, 
14  between the people that we serve -- and this is just 
15  the continent.  
16            If you were to take Hawaii and Alaska and 
17  put them in the mix, too, I think you'd find it even 
18  more so.  
19            But just to try to make the point that we 
20  recognize that people are a part of the equation.  
21            Now, ecosystem management.  What does it 
22  mean?  It does mean a bit of a paradigm shift, 
23  moving from individual issues to looking at broader 
24  ecosystems, expanding the horizon that you focus on.  
25  Small spatial scales to multiple scales.  Short term 
                                                      96
 1  to long-term perspective.  Humans being independent 
 2  of ecosystems and humans being integrated with it.  
 3  The management and research being separated as 
 4  opposed to adapting new management as you learn, and 
 5  managing commodities to sustain production for the 
 6  long-term period.  
 7            So when you think about what ecosystem 
 8  approaches to management are going to mean, what 
 9  really it's meaning is just a new way of thinking 
10  about and looking at what you're doing so that you 
11  can get better results.  
12            Let me give you a real paradigm shift.  
13            This is the new boat.  This is the old 
14  one.  All right.  I can tell you from the two years 
15  that my wife and I owned this boat, this is a great 
16  boat.  It's a 27-foot Coastal Cruiser.  We had an 
17  unbelievable amount of fun on that boat.  That boat 
18  really helped us to do some of the things that we 
19  wanted to do in our life together.  
20            But we had ourselves a paradigm shift.  We 
21  went from this boat to this boat.  
22            What's going on here?  There are some 
23  things about this that are interesting.  Most of the 
24  people that I know who have powerboats use them to 
25  go somewhere.  There is a specific destination.  
                                                      97
 1            For some reason, with a lot of the friends 
 2  that I hung out with, it usually had to do with 
 3  prodigious amounts of alcohol.  
 4            But we got in that boat, and this is what 
 5  we realized.  We would get in that boat, leave the 
 6  dock in the morning and then we'd say, well, where 
 7  are we going to go, where is the place.  
 8            The more we talked about it, the more we 
 9  realized that the best time on this boat was when 
10  the engine went off.  We began to realize that this 
11  is what we wanted.  Then all of a sudden, it's not 
12  about where you're going, it's about how you're 
13  getting there and what you're doing along the way.  
14            That, I think is a little bit -- to try to 
15  make this somewhat relevant -- is a little bit of 
16  why this is relevant to us.  
17            You know, ecosystem approaches to 
18  management is not someplace that you're going to end 
19  up five or ten years from now.  It's a way of doing 
20  your business the minute the engine goes off when 
21  you get outside of the breakwall.  
22            Now, NOAA started moving forward this 
23  summer to try to do some things.  There was a 
24  reference earlier today to a workshop to be held in 
25  Charleston, South Carolina.  
                                                      98
 1            Coming out the NOAA Leadership Meeting 
 2  last May there was a question, well, what is an 
 3  ecosystem.  What is it we want to look at.  We had a 
 4  workshop at the end of August in Charleston, which 
 5  was co-chaired by Paul Sandifer and Doug DeMaster.  
 6  We brought in a lot of federal agencies to work with 
 7  us.  We brought in a number of people from the 
 8  academic communities and nongovernmental 
 9  organizations, from the environmental community, and 
10  we had a number of representatives from the states 
11  there as well.  
12            We listened to some presentations that -- 
13  mainly from Dr. Ken Sherman, who's been doing this 
14  work for NOAA out of the Narragansett Laboratory for 
15  decades.  He is really a world-acknowledged leader.  
16            We've learned to understand that large 
17  marine ecosystems have been looked at by the 
18  scientific community and they've come up with ways 
19  of characterizing them based upon common shared 
20  factors, factors like bathymetry, hydography, 
21  productivity and trophic interactions; as a 
22  scientific group at the global level that looks at 
23  these things and says, yes, there's enough common 
24  interaction in a particular area to label something 
25  as being a large marine ecosystem.  
                                                      99
 1            These are things that have been used by a 
 2  number of organizations.  This science is really 
 3  well established.  
 4            If you look at what the outcomes of their 
 5  science are, in the context of the United States, 
 6  there are about 11 of these large marine ecosystems 
 7  that they have defined around the country; the North 
 8  Atlantic Shelf, South Atlantic Shelf, Caribbean, 
 9  Gulf of Mexico, California Current, Gulf of Alaska, 
10  Eastern Bering Sea, and three up in the Arctic and 
11  then the Pacific Islands.  
12            Interesting point for NOAA here, all of 
13  these are related to coastal areas and land.  
14            Yet, we know that NOAA's mission is 
15  critical out here as well.  We know that NOAA's 
16  mission is critical out here as well.  
17            So the point here is that we're beginning 
18  to look at these, but what we're looking at is not 
19  ultimately going to be the one solution that will 
20  address all of the things that are important.  
21            We're not the only ones that are beginning 
22  to look at this.  In the context of the Integrated 
23  Ocean Observing System, IOOS, that Mike talked 
24  about, NOAA is looking to work with partners to help 
25  flesh out ocean observing, and they have been 
                                                     100
 1  looking at different ways of defining and 
 2  delineating what they mean by ecosystems.  
 3            What's interesting is that although they 
 4  have more subareas to look at, three on the West 
 5  Coast, two up here in the North Atlantic, generally, 
 6  things seem to be nested.  
 7            One of the things that came out of that 
 8  meeting in Charleston was this idea that ecosystems 
 9  exist at lots of different levels.  You know, what's 
10  relevant to deal with large marine ecosystems is 
11  fine, and yet for some things that are important to 
12  society, that's not the right level to look at.  
13            You need to look at smaller levels within.  
14            So if ecosystems are going to end up being 
15  nested, you can't just say, well, we're going to 
16  look at-large marine ecosystems and not worry about 
17  some of the smaller ones.  
18            We looked, for example, that once you get 
19  beyond the large marine ecosystem, what is next 
20  that's important.  There are large Estaurine 
21  Drainage Areas that have been defined.  There have 
22  been Fluvial Drainage Areas, which ultimately pick 
23  up the whole continent, and a number of interior 
24  watersheds.  
25            At the moment, at the moment, our thinking 
                                                     101
 1  is that what's most relevant for NOAA's mission are 
 2  these Estaurine Drainage Areas.  So we may end up 
 3  finding, as we continue to move forward, that at a 
 4  much lower level all of these are relevant nested 
 5  ecosystems within large marine ecosystems.  
 6            We've had to look at, because of the 
 7  unique physical and biological properties of some of 
 8  our resources, the endless extent of the diadromous 
 9  fisheries in the Pacific Northwest, all helping to 
10  comprise what makes up the ecosystem that's 
11  important for the resources that NOAA has 
12  stewardship responsibility for.  
13            There have been a number of different 
14  approaches over the years that have looked at the 
15  geography of our country and tried to come up with 
16  relevant ways of examining it.  The National 
17  Estaurine Research Reserve System has this way of 
18  looking at it.  The Nature Conservancy is a group 
19  that is outside of government that has spent a lot 
20  of energy in the last couple of years and is moving 
21  forward to help define ecosystems, and they're 
22  actually moving forward to do some stakeholder 
23  building and to talk about where the gaps are in 
24  what we know and what our management is.  
25            So, coming out of Charleston NOAA had a 
                                                     102
 1  plan to move forward where we can delineate our 
 2  ecosystems based on those large marine ecosystems, 
 3  that we would move forward with stakeholders to make 
 4  further subdivision of those and that we would 
 5  probably use this coastal watershed, including 
 6  inland diadromous fish habitat with further 
 7  coordination at the regional level.  
 8            But this is something that we can't do on 
 9  our own.  This is something that we have to work out 
10  with partners and stakeholders.  
11            Now, last Friday the Ecosystem Goal Team, 
12  which consists of the program managers of all of 
13  those nine programs that we have, and our backups 
14  and some representatives from Line Office, about 30 
15  people, spent two days on Thursday and Friday 
16  talking about what it is we can do to begin to move 
17  NOAA forward in thinking about the future.  
18            So these are sort of four tasks that we've 
19  taken on ourselves over the next three months.  
20            The first is to continue to refine and 
21  articulate the definition and the vision of 
22  ecosystems.  As Mike said, we've been doing this for 
23  a long time, but we need to continue to provide 
24  structure to what it is so that we all feel a little 
25  bit more comfortable rather than just saying, well, 
                                                     103
 1  is ecosystems more than just the latest current 
 2  buzzword.  
 3            We think it is.  We need to help provide 
 4  some real articulation and definition to what those 
 5  concepts are.  
 6            The next thing we need to do is we need to 
 7  begin leading by example.  Admiral Lautenbacher 
 8  talked about this this morning, where if we really 
 9  believe that ecosystems and moving forward on an 
10  ecosystem approach is the right way to do it, well, 
11  NOAA has to lead the way by beginning to get our own 
12  programs working a lot better.  
13            Over the last six months Margret Davidson 
14  in the Coastal Services Center in Charleston did a 
15  very detailed review of what NOAA's assets are in 
16  the Gulf of Mexico, and she presented that in the 
17  NOAA Leadership Meeting we had two months ago.  
18            I haven't met anybody yet who's listened 
19  to that presentation that wasn't amazed that NOAA 
20  had so much going on in that one area.  
21            I thought -- I didn't even know a lot of 
22  the fish stuff that was going on.  I worked there 
23  for three years.  
24            So I mean, NOAA has a lot of capabilities 
25  and assets all over the country, and part of what we 
                                                     104
 1  need to do is to start getting those pieces to be 
 2  talking to each other.  We need to engage partners 
 3  and stakeholders.  
 4            Let me here talk a little bit about what 
 5  the difference between those is.  
 6            NOAA is a steward of public trust 
 7  resources.  There are other stewards of public trust 
 8  resources; the Regional Fisheries Management 
 9  Councils, states, other levels of government.  Other 
10  countries who have these responsibilities, and with 
11  whom we share those responsibilities in oceanic 
12  systems.  So these are all partners, people who do 
13  the same sorts of things that NOAA do and have the 
14  same accountability and responsibility.  
15            We also have stakeholders.  We have 
16  fishing communities.  We have people who use the 
17  oceans for commerce.  We have people who have other 
18  extractive and nonextractive ways of using the 
19  oceans.  But they're not the ones who have, say, a 
20  governmental responsibility for stewardship.  So 
21  that's really what the difference is between a 
22  partner and a stakeholder is.  
23            For NOAA to be smart, we have to know how 
24  to deal differently with those different types of 
25  constituent groups, when to bring them in.  Because 
                                                     105
 1  when we go to stakeholders as partners, we ought to 
 2  be going together.  Otherwise we end up being played 
 3  off against each other.  
 4            The fourth area that we want to work in is 
 5  case studies, of what it means in ecosystems.  
 6            Somebody asked earlier today had we 
 7  thought about any nominal ecosystem that we might 
 8  use as an example.  Well, as a matter of fact, 
 9  President Bush has signed an Executive Order on the 
10  Great Lakes.  We don't talk about the Great Lakes 
11  very much in this forum.  
12            Let me tell you it's important, it's very, 
13  very important to know.  In that Executive Order 
14  there is a tremendous amount of collaboration going 
15  on from the federal agencies and working with the 
16  states to define what's important to that ecosystem 
17  and begin to try to coordinate and move forward.  
18            They are talking with the NOAA Lab 
19  Director in Ann Arbor who's in charge of a group 
20  that is coming up with ecosystem indicators so that 
21  we can begin to evaluate the overall productivity 
22  and health of that ecosystem.  So that's one area 
23  where NOAA has been doing a lot, but we haven't 
24  actually sat down and begun to try to learn some 
25  lessons from the Great Lakes.  
                                                     106
 1            There are other areas where there's a lot 
 2  of ecosystem work that's going on.  South Florida is 
 3  one that you hear about all the time.  The whole 
 4  Louisiana and Mississippi drainage area has a lot of 
 5  work that's been going on.  There's a lot that's 
 6  going on in the Pacific Northwest, Gulf of Maine.  
 7            So one of the things that we want to do is 
 8  try to distill down from these case studies some of 
 9  the lessons that we can learn that will help provide 
10  a better understanding for refining and articulating 
11  the definition of where we have to go.  
12            So just by way of a quick conclusion here.  
13  An adaptive ecosystem approach is clearly 
14  incremental, must be collaborative.  Again, we 
15  recognize that it's not so much a place that we're 
16  going.  It's not so much a final place that we're 
17  going to end up.  It's a commitment to the way of 
18  looking at resources and working collaboratively to 
19  move there.  
20            NOAA's programs will be re-engineered -- 
21  needs to be re-engineered to fit the regional needs 
22  for each ecosystem.  These stovepipes have grown up 
23  in response to individual particular mandates. 
24            NOAA must move forward as quickly as 
25  possible.  We can't sit back and wait for somebody 
                                                     107
 1  else to supply the initiative.  If we really are the 
 2  agency that is uniquely positioned by assets and 
 3  history to be able to respond, we need to reach out 
 4  and grab that with our partners and stakeholders and 
 5  move forward.  
 6            Again, this is the ultimate ecosystem.  
 7  This is ultimately what we're going to try to come 
 8  up with.  That's what I've got.  
 9            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  Thanks, Jack.  
10  Questions?  
11            MR. FLETCHER:  Jack, hearing the Admiral 
12  emphasize the fact that ecosystems include humans, 
13  and that as I'm a fisherman, in Southern California 
14  we have an ecosystem that includes an overabundance 
15  of California sea lions and Pacific harbor seals.  
16  How do you improve that ecosystem by controlling the 
17  depredation of those animals on recreational and 
18  commercial fisheries?  
19            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Well, somebody this morning 
20  raised a question about inconsistent mandates and 
21  what we have to do.  I mean, we've got a fisheries 
22  -- Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation Act, 
23  we've got a Marine Mammal Protection Act.  One of 
24  the things that we don't often talk about is the 
25  fact that there are lots of different humans that 
                                                     108
 1  are part of our ecosystem that have a lot of 
 2  different sets of values.  
 3            What we've done is we've created laws that 
 4  address one particular set of values or another one.  
 5            A value of protecting, that's an important 
 6  word -- protecting marine mammals, as opposed to a 
 7  value of optimizing the yield from our fisheries.  
 8  There are some inherent tensions that have got to be 
 9  worked out there, there's no question about that.  
10            But NOAA is not always in charge of the 
11  ultimate value that needs to be worked out here.  
12  Sometimes we need guidance.  
13            To answer the question that came up from 
14  Pete this morning, I would agree that we can move 
15  forward on ecosystems management with our current 
16  set of drivers and management.  What we're going to 
17  learn is that there are some problems that are going 
18  to require some further evaluation by the people who 
19  set the policy in this country.  
20            What we need to do is to sort of be able 
21  to bring those issues forward in a credible way, 
22  both from the policy perspective as well.  
23            MR. KRAMER:  Bob Kramer, International 
24  Game Fish Association.  
25            Jack, thanks for the presentation.  
                                                     109
 1            I have a specific comment on one of your 
 2  slides, and then a quick question.  You had an 
 3  outcome in there within your strategic plan as a 
 4  well-informed public that acts as a steward of 
 5  coastal and marine resources.  I would just 
 6  recommend and encourage that another step be added 
 7  in there, because the process should be awareness, 
 8  then education, and then action.  
 9            The education step is critical, is very 
10  different from informed and being aware.  I think 
11  there are some opportunities out there to involve 
12  the stakeholders in, like Bob mentioned, cooperative 
13  research opportunities, those hands-on, gets the 
14  involvement of the stakeholders, they understand 
15  more clearly how -- the challenges that the fishery 
16  managers face, and I think can move on to that next 
17  step, which is indeed actions.  
18            In follow up with that, what are the 
19  specific performance measures for determining you 
20  indeed are creating a public constituency that are 
21  acting as stewards?  Do you have specific measures 
22  for that particular outcome?  
23            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Not yet.  
24            But one of the areas we're spending a lot 
25  of time on right now is this whole concept of 
                                                     110
 1  performance measurement.  
 2            In the education area, NOAA has been 
 3  putting a lot of emphasis, we now have a new Office 
 4  of Education at the NOAA level.  There is an 
 5  Education Council that cuts across NOAA that looks 
 6  at all of our education programs.  
 7            We had them involved in working on our 
 8  goal plan for the '07 budget process.  There's a 
 9  tremendous emphasis on NOAA right now in that whole 
10  education area.  
11            We haven't yet gotten to the point of 
12  figuring out how do we measure where you are today 
13  in the public's capacity to be able to be a steward 
14  of the resources and then track how do you move 
15  forward on that.  
16            MR. KRAMER:  We approached that subject in 
17  the State of Florida back when I was with the State, 
18  and I'd be happy to talk to anybody.  
19            MR. DUNNIGAN:  That would be great.  
20            MR. KRAMER:  We don't have all the 
21  answers, of course, because it is hard to measure.  
22            MR. HOGARTH:  Maggie, and then Ralph.  
23            MS. RAYMOND:  Jack, going right to the end 
24  of your presentation where you talk about the next 
25  steps and you talk a lot about how you want to 
                                                     111
 1  engage the partners and the stakeholders as the 
 2  process goes forward.  
 3            I'm reading this letter from the councils 
 4  to the Admiral and his response.  I see that the 
 5  councils apparently have a lot of concern about not 
 6  being involved enough in this process and the 
 7  Admiral's response is that going forward over the 
 8  next couple of months to engage the partners more in 
 9  that process, and I guess the next step would be the 
10  March 2005 conference.  
11            But I'm thinking, from the sense I'm 
12  getting from the council letter, which I would 
13  support, is that they want a more dynamic 
14  involvement than this conference here or this 
15  conference there.  
16            I'm just wondering if you have something 
17  more specific laid out for the next several months, 
18  next year or so? 
19            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Let me give you two answers 
20  to that question.  
21            On a broader sense in the engagement of 
22  stakeholders and partners, coming out of our meeting 
23  last Friday we agreed at the Goal Team level that we 
24  are going to have a group from the Goal Team look 
25  out 12 to 18 months at where the opportunities are 
                                                     112
 1  for NOAA to engage at both the partner and 
 2  stakeholder level, things like Managing Our Nation's 
 3  Fisheries 2, which is happening in March.  Things 
 4  like Coastal Zone '05, which will be happening in 
 5  June.  
 6            Large venues where NOAA can step forward 
 7  and say, this is what we are thinking about in 
 8  ecosystems.  This is how we are moving forward, how 
 9  can we do this together, what can you tell us about 
10  better ways of moving and doing that.  
11            On the specific question to the councils, 
12  they're here.  We put this together over the last 
13  four weeks recognizing the importance of this venue, 
14  MAFAC, we wanted the councils to come in.  Bill met 
15  with them yesterday afternoon and made some 
16  commitments to them about getting them involved in 
17  our Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization discussions 
18  that are going on inside the Agency, and also they 
19  talked about -- and we're going to talk some more 
20  tomorrow with them about how we can get the councils 
21  involved more at the ecosystem level as well.  
22            So I've been watching this process for a 
23  long time.  We are really trying to reach out more 
24  to the councils and begin to draw them in and make 
25  them an important part.  
                                                     113
 1            For example, one of the commitments that 
 2  Bill made was that we will not move forward on 
 3  anything having to do with Magnuson-Stevens 
 4  Reauthorization until after the end of March because 
 5  of that conference.  That is an important venue. 
 6  it's being co-sponsored by us and the councils to 
 7  get the community at-large to begin thinking about 
 8  these issues.  We just didn't think it was right for 
 9  us to start making some decisions about what was 
10  important about Magnuson-Stevens until we had our 
11  partners and stakeholders also.  So it's that kind 
12  of thing.  
13            MR. HOGARTH:  Ralph.
14            MR. RAYBURN:  How do you deal with the 
15  issue, as you move to the ecosystems approach to 
16  management, that you're creating a larger universe 
17  of unknowns to deal with in management?  And then 
18  how does that relate to the use of the precautionary 
19  principles, where there's I guess a greater set of 
20  unknowns and more caution you have to use in 
21  implementing any management?  
22            How do you see balancing those as you move 
23  not only from collecting the data you need to manage 
24  on an ecosystem approach, but also understanding 
25  what data you do have and how to apply that to a 
                                                     114
 1  decision on management?  
 2            MR. DUNNIGAN:  I think that the issue is 
 3  not so much including a lot more of unknowns in 
 4  ecosystem, it's actually recognizing that they are 
 5  there in an organized fashion and figuring out how 
 6  to get the data.  
 7            The unknowns are there.  I mean, we don't 
 8  know it today and we didn't know it yesterday.  
 9            But what we've done too often I think is 
10  to ignore them, or tried to define them now as a 
11  part of the problem.  That we can't do when we're 
12  working at an ecosystem level.  You've got to be 
13  able to recognize them, and understand the risk that 
14  they bring and then make an intelligent common sense 
15  decision based upon your evaluation of the risk.  
16            To a certain extent, it's really all about 
17  risk management and getting a good handle on where 
18  that is.  
19            From a precautionary sense, I like to talk 
20  about the precautionary approach more than a 
21  precautionary principle.  But that's what risk 
22  management is all about, is understanding where you 
23  may have some problems, how significant those 
24  problems are and then making an intelligent decision 
25  that takes that into account.  
                                                     115
 1            So I don't think it's a matter of adding a 
 2  lot more of those to the picture, it's actually 
 3  standing up to that which you know these thing are 
 4  an unknown and how do you set policy in that case.  
 5            MR. ROBERTS:  Just an observation from the 
 6  place I live and the places I've worked.  
 7            I think two of the partners you need very 
 8  specific plans developed to embrace into the fold to 
 9  work on ecosystem is the Army Corp of Engineers and 
10  the Department of Energy.  In the area I live and 
11  work in, those people have a significant role to 
12  play.  
13            Yet, either people have tried to bring 
14  them into the fold and there's been resistance, or 
15  they just choose to operate a little bit more 
16  independently, particularly with your slide about 
17  the Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic and the North 
18  Atlantic ecosystems.  
19            The Department of Energy and the Corp have 
20  been very, very active in those areas when you get 
21  into those fluvial drainage areas and have 
22  significant impacts on fisheries.  I think it would 
23  behoove the Agency to do a great deal of 
24  prioritizing the agencies you want to bring in as 
25  partners, because I know there has been interaction.  
                                                     116
 1  But I think the gains from working on an ecosystem 
 2  basis with them as partners is going to exceed 
 3  anything you are going to get in other places, quite 
 4  frankly, and I would urge you to really work hard on  
 5  those two agencies.  
 6            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Ken, I don't remember if we 
 7  actually had Energy at that meeting.  I'm not sure.  
 8            Corp of Engineers was there.  Corp of 
 9  Engineers wants to buy into this stuff.  They want 
10  to look responsible.  They don't like the Washington 
11  Post articles coming out about --  
12            MR. HOGARTH:  Remember, potentially a new 
13  Secretary of Energy that carries some interest from 
14  being the Secretary of Commerce.  So we need to work 
15  there.  
16            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Right.  Moved over from EPA 
17  to Energy.  
18            The other thing that is interesting about 
19  the slide that the Vice Admiral had was the guy that 
20  was in the middle.  All those people work for him.  
21  I think that one of the take-backs out of this 
22  process that ends up with the Commission's report 
23  and now with the President's commitment to the Ocean 
24  Action Plan, is that there needs to be some 
25  engagement.  People are going to understand at these 
                                                     117
 1  other federal agencies that they're going to have 
 2  to.  
 3            But NOAA has got to get its act together 
 4  and we will continue working on it.  But we've got 
 5  to get our other partner agencies at the federal 
 6  level to be working on it, working with the 
 7  councils.  
 8            You see these concentric circles beginning 
 9  to open up.  NOAA can have influence at making all 
10  of that happen.  
11            MR. PIZZINI:  Manuel Pizzini from the 
12  University of Puerto Rico.  
13            In response to Kramer's comments on the 
14  participation of stakeholders, I do think that NOAA 
15  has set forth efforts dealing with stakeholders and 
16  their capacity to participate in the stewardship 
17  process.  Two of those come to mind, first of all, 
18  Sea Grant is a good example of how well organized 
19  are these constituents and their participation in 
20  the stewardship process.  
21            The other one is a National Study Reserve 
22  Program (phonetic).  Those are a program that is 
23  developing a number of stakeholders and improving 
24  their capacity to participate in the stewardship 
25  process.  So those two are good examples of how NOAA 
                                                     118
 1  is doing that, and they are addressing as well the 
 2  ecosystem approach.  
 3            The other thing I wanted to mention is 
 4  that NOAA has been supporting the Coral Reef 
 5  Ecosystems Program, and that is already a research 
 6  program that is international today.  
 7            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Okay.  
 8            VADM. LAUTENBACHER:  Go ahead.  Why don't 
 9  you respond to that?  
10            MR. DUNNIGAN:  The Office of Sea Grant 
11  Program is one of the programs that is under the 
12  ecosystem goal, and it's interesting to note that 
13  the Sea Grant Office right now, looking forward to 
14  what we are trying to do in our '07 budget process 
15  that we've been working, has committed for the next 
16  two years to put some dollars on the table and to 
17  leverage that with dollars from the institutions to 
18  begin to do some ecosystem level coordination on 
19  research.  
20            So I recognize clearly.  NERRS is also a 
21  program that's been -- it's good stuff.  
22            MR. HOGARTH:  Scott.  
23            MR. BURNS:  Scott Burns again, World 
24  Wildlife Fund.  
25            Jack, I think however you define and 
                                                     119
 1  delineate ecosystems, at the end of the day a real 
 2  key to progress in ecosystem-based management is  
 3  priority setting.  I just recall the slide that the 
 4  Admiral presented earlier today in his presentation 
 5  on the Gulf of Alaska.  
 6            When you think about the concept of 
 7  ecosystem-based management and the context of a 
 8  system as complicated as that, it's daunting and 
 9  scary.  
10            But as a number of people have pointed 
11  out, when you carve out the pieces of those 
12  ecosystems and focus on them, suddenly the idea of 
13  ecosystem management becomes a -- seems a lot more 
14  manageable and less scary.  
15            So what I wonder is, in the strategic plan 
16  as it exists today and as you're developing it, what 
17  mechanisms are you thinking about for working with 
18  the councils and other partners and constituents to 
19  define what the priorities will be, which pieces of 
20  the ecosystem?  
21            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Actually, from my 
22  perspective, I'm probably one in the worst position 
23  to answer that question because I can talk about the 
24  relative senses among ten large marine ecosystems.  
25  But if you want to talk about what's going on inside 
                                                     120
 1  of the Hawaiian Islands ecosystem, people who live 
 2  out here really ought to be talking about where 
 3  those priorities are.  
 4            If you want to talk about where are the 
 5  subpriorities in the ecosystem within the California 
 6  Current Shelf ecosystem, those things need to be 
 7  done.  
 8            So the question I always get, is 
 9  ecosystems top-down or bottom-up, and the answer is 
10  yes.  There is a certain amount of energy and 
11  commitment that can be supplied, and maybe sort of 
12  visioning and defining it at the upper level.  But a 
13  lot of it really needs to be sort of empowered with 
14  this collaboration at the lower levels so that that 
15  can move up and recognize it.  
16            In fisheries, for example, we've got a 
17  great model in that with the Fisheries Council 
18  system, which has been around for almost three 
19  decades.  
20            MR. HOGARTH:  I think the last one, 
21  because we're going to have to break.  Tom.  
22            MR. BILLY:  Tom Billy.  
23            First, I would like to thank you for my 
24  appointment.  I look forward to participating with 
25  MAFAC and hopefully providing some useful input.  
                                                     121
 1            Based on the reading I did prior to the 
 2  meeting and what I heard this morning, I want to 
 3  personally strongly endorse the ecosystem approach.  
 4  I think it's the right way to go and has some real 
 5  strength that will help.  
 6            Having said that, as I've listened and 
 7  I've read, one of the things that seems to be 
 8  missing, from my point of view, is the vision.  What 
 9  I don't hear is that date 10 years from now, or 15, 
10  or whatever it is, what we would like to be through 
11  in terms of how ecosystems are managed for human 
12  kind.  I don't hear that or see that here.  
13            I hear how, why, when, where, which are 
14  all important to the process.  But I don't see the 
15  kind of strategic planning that will establish 
16  something that then the partners can take to the 
17  stakeholders, partners being the Fishery Management 
18  Councils and the Commissions and others that 
19  interact on a daily basis with the stakeholders, as 
20  well as NOAA and others.  
21            So I would like to encourage that more 
22  thought be given to the development of something 
23  that's kind of different that looks from the future 
24  in terms of what this is all going to deliver to 
25  people that makes it so important, that will help in 
                                                     122
 1  your budgeting process, as well as in terms of 
 2  moving forward.  
 3            MR. HOGARTH:  I think that's a good note 
 4  to end on for lunch, because I think we will talk 
 5  this afternoon, MAFAC can have further discussion.  
 6  I think some of the questions we've asked will get 
 7  into that discussion.  So I think it's a good point 
 8  to end on lunch, and we'll come back after lunch 
 9  with Kitty and Stephanie.  Then Dave Whaley.  Then 
10  we'll have an open discussion.  
11            We want to thank the Admiral again for 
12  coming, and all of you for coming.  Look to be back 
13  at 1:30 and ready to go to work.  
14            (Lunch break taken)
15            MR. HOGARTH:  We're going to delete one 
16  part of the agenda.  The Welcome to the Pacific 
17  Islands Region, I think you've already gotten that.  
18  So since we're behind, Bill and Sam will be around 
19  at the reception tonight and around during the week.  
20  You will hear more of them.  But since we're a 
21  little bit behind, we'll just continue with the 
22  ecosystem approach here.  
23            So next on the agenda will be -- Alvin 
24  will get his chance to participate as soon as we 
25  finish Ecosystems, we'll finish this portion and 
                                                     123
 1  then we'll get back on track.  
 2            So the next part of the Ecosystem Approach 
 3  to Management presentation will be Kitty, the 
 4  Executive Director of the Western Pacific Council, 
 5  and Stephanie Madsen, the Chairman of the North 
 6  Pacific.  I don't know which is going first.  I 
 7  guess Kitty.  
 8            MS. SIMONDS:  I'm first.  
 9            Thank you, Billy-Bob.  
10            MR. HOGARTH:  For some reason, I thought 
11  that would be the way it would be, Kitty.
12            (Fishery Management Council Perspective)
13            MS. SIMONDS:  I'll try not to use the word 
14  ecosystem.  I'll say, E or system or eco.  Because, 
15  my god, we heard it so many times this morning.  
16            MR. SISSENWINE:  EA is accepted 
17  internationally.  
18            MS. SIMONDS:  EA, okay.  Yeah.  Yeah.  
19            Okay.  I'm going to start off, though, 
20  with asking people if they were at this workshop 19 
21  years ago, NOAA Fisheries and the Councils had an 
22  Ecosystems Workshop.  It was in '86.  
23            Then following that workshop -- who was it 
24  -- it was Tony Callia (phonetic) was the NOAA 
25  Administrator, and Bill Evans was -- you know, 
                                                     124
 1  Bill's counterpart.  
 2            Then NMFS in about nine months then 
 3  developed a plan.  Actually, it was called, 
 4  Ecosystems Monitoring and Fisheries Management.  I 
 5  bring it up because first I noticed that I look at 
 6  all the references that the staff put together, and 
 7  this is missing from it.  
 8            This is really quite a wonderful document.  
 9  Everything that I've heard for the last how many 
10  years is actually in here, too.  Stakeholders, my 
11  goodness.  
12            So all of you really need to read this.    
13  Billy Bob, you need to read this, too.  
14            MR. HOGARTH:  Yes, ma'am.  
15            MS. SIMONDS:  So that was 19 years ago 
16  when we all started to talk about ecosystem 
17  management, bringing in other stakeholders other 
18  than fisheries.  So anyway, please add that to your 
19  references.  
20            MR. HOGARTH:  Kitty, if you don't mind, if 
21  we can borrow that, we'll have copies made.  
22            MS. SIMONDS:  Oh, and by the way, guess 
23  who was the coordinator who was hired by Evans, Gary 
24  Sharp.  
25            MS. BRYANT:  I'll get these probably 
                                                     125
 1  copied for tomorrow.  
 2            MS. SIMONDS:  Does anyone remember Gary 
 3  Sharp?  
 4            (Brief period of people speaking at the 
 5  same time)  
 6            MS. SIMONDS:  Anyway, quite a character.  
 7  He's still around.
 8            MR. SISSENWINE:  Kitty, I did have that 
 9  report listed on one of my slides.  
10            MS. SIMONDS:  You did?  
11            MR. SISSENWINE:  Yes.  
12            MS. SIMONDS:  When?  
13            MR. SISSENWINE:  This morning.  
14            I actually think that copy you have came 
15  from a PDF file that I sent around to a bunch of 
16  people.  I recognize that because of Gary Sharp's 
17  name on it.  
18            MS. SIMONDS:  Thank you.  And I'm inviting 
19  him to my workshop. 
20            Anyway, I'm just going to briefly tell you 
21  a little bit about what our council is doing out 
22  here in this region.  
23            I was happy to hear the Admiral say that 
24  we have all been doing ecosystem -- I wasn't going 
25  to use that word.  We've all been doing "that" kind 
                                                     126
 1  of work over the years, because the councils believe 
 2  that the Magnuson Act -- existing requirements in 
 3  the act have already taken us a long way down the 
 4  path toward managing our resources.  
 5            I think a couple people mentioned like the 
 6  habitat requirements, then the bycatch requirements, 
 7  those are all E-word type things.  
 8            What we think we need to do to continue 
 9  this -- to use the Admiral's term "evolution" -- is 
10  really establishing these guidelines that we hear 
11  about, but we've never seen.  Guidelines and 
12  guidance on indicators and translating those into 
13  what we, in the fisheries management world, have to 
14  deal with; control rules, reference points and 
15  thresholds.  Seems to me like that's a real tough 
16  job.  
17            So the challenge really is developing 
18  E-specific indicators sensitive enough to detect 
19  ecosystem change and ascribe it to natural or 
20  anthropogenic causes.  
21            The other is the development of 
22  operational models sophisticated enough to model 
23  dynamics against which we do our management 
24  alternatives so we can assess them.  That really is 
25  what we need.  
                                                     127
 1            So what the other councils, we've all been 
 2  working to further incorporate E-approaches into our 
 3  fisheries management.  
 4            In 1994 our Council began developing a 
 5  Coral Reef Ecosystem FMP.  It was finally finished 
 6  in 2001.  NOAA Fisheries approved this plan in 2004.  
 7            But I can tell you, it was very difficult 
 8  to develop this plan.  One of the reasons is that we 
 9  thought we would put together a great plan team of 
10  not just the fisheries scientists and data 
11  scientists, but also ecologists.  And that's where 
12  we had numerous meetings, people just not -- the 
13  scientists not agreeing on what should come first or 
14  we better not allow any of this until we know 
15  everything about whatever.  
16            So we've kind of been taken through the 
17  ringer on all of these things.  
18            I think we're smarter now because issues 
19  have evolved and we're all working on different 
20  things.  So that actually was our first step.  
21            Since that time -- by the way, that 
22  ecosystem plan includes all of the coral reef 
23  ecosystems in our jurisdiction, except for the 
24  Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, and that's a 
25  different issue that we can talk about at cocktails, 
                                                     128
 1  for those of you who have been following that.  
 2            So anyway, the Council has undertaken some 
 3  new initiatives.  
 4            What we decided to do is to transition our 
 5  fishery management plans into archipelago ecosystem 
 6  plans because of our geography.  Our entire 
 7  jurisdiction is made up of islands that are part of 
 8  a number of large marine ecosystems.  Not just the 
 9  ten that we have talked about, but our SSC believes 
10  that within the pelagic ecosystem of the Pacific 
11  that there are actually three large marine 
12  ecosystems.  
13            So in other words, we have to deal with 
14  all of our things regionally because we're all 
15  different, and that's the wonderful thing about the 
16  council process.  So we're going to be replacing our 
17  region-wide, species-based FMPs into FEPs.  
18            We're beginning with the Marianas 
19  Archipelago.  We're going to do the Hawaiian 
20  Archipelago later.  So that will include both the 
21  Main Hawaiian Islands and the Northwestern Hawaiian 
22  Islands.  
23            Then the Samoa Islands.  If you remember 
24  where we're all situated, our jurisdiction runs into 
25  so many other countries; Japan to the north, to the 
                                                     129
 1  south of our jurisdiction, all those other island 
 2  nations.  
 3            At one point, like with the Samoas, the 
 4  dividing point is just 40 miles away.  It's not 200 
 5  miles.  It's 40 miles away from the Independent 
 6  Samoa.  
 7            So another aspect of our FEP is 
 8  international.  It's always been that way.  It will 
 9  always be that way.  That's the best way to deal 
10  with it.  
11            The Samoas, both Independent and U.S., 
12  they're all related anyway.  They're all the same 
13  families.  Just one is independent and one is a U.S. 
14  Territory.  
15            So all of the plans that we have, all of 
16  the benthic-associated resources, will come under 
17  these FEPs.  But we will keep the Pelagic FEP 
18  separate, even though the pelagics are everywhere.  
19  We think that that should be a separate ecosystem 
20  plan, but the others will be archipelago plans.  
21  That suits us. 
22            So what we're going to do is, because we 
23  need to have broad participation in all of this, we 
24  are going to probably have several Regional 
25  Ecosystem Committees.  There is where we would 
                                                     130
 1  include the other partners that you all have been 
 2  talking about; the state agencies, communities.  We 
 3  really are going to have to be working with 
 4  communities on this.  
 5            So we're actually holding public hearings 
 6  throughout the region with communities.  
 7            Also, with NOAA Fisheries, we have gone 
 8  out to the public doing the Programmatic EIS as 
 9  well, so that we can get the broadest input from 
10  everybody.  
11            The other thing that we will need to do is 
12  to work with the Pacific Council.  We think that we 
13  need to at least -- we should talk to each other 
14  about the Pacific pelagic systems.  Whatever 
15  happens, happens.  But we need to discuss with the 
16  Pacific Council on the pelagic resources.  
17            I have to make this point.  About the 
18  Pelagics FEP, we plan to do that in conjunction with 
19  the newly-established Central and Western Pacific 
20  Fisheries Management Commission, because that makes 
21  sense.  
22            The other thing we're going to be doing in 
23  April is to convene an Ecosystem Science and 
24  Management Workshop for our particular region.  
25  We're all working together, all aspects of NOAA, the 
                                                     131
 1  Region and the Center and the Council are going to 
 2  be holding this.  
 3            Let's see.  The objectives.  One objective 
 4  that we have is it's just to determine the use of 
 5  existing data for assessing and monitoring the 
 6  health of the system and to identify missing  
 7  information in our part of the region.  
 8            Another one is to identify reasonable 
 9  approaches that we can implement based on current 
10  data, whatever we have now.  What can we do with 
11  what we have now.  
12            Then the other thing that some of our 
13  scientists have discussed is, we should probably 
14  start developing regional standards, not unlike the 
15  Ten National Standards.  Perhaps also include some 
16  guiding principles for each standard.  
17            So that is why, as we talk today and this 
18  morning and last night, if NMFS is developing all of 
19  these kinds of things it would be great for all of 
20  us to be working together.  Because we're going to 
21  try to do something anyway.  Whatever happens, 
22  whatever happens, the Council will continue to work 
23  on whatever needs to get done.  
24            Let's see.  So that's where we are.  
25            We talked about earlier today and 
                                                     132
 1  yesterday of hardships and collaborations.  We call 
 2  them -- I guess they're called -- you mentioned it 
 3  -- placed-based collaboration.  This terminology, 
 4  the way it's used, it includes individuals who 
 5  despite their diverse background and opposing 
 6  perspectives on natural resource management, share a 
 7  common understanding and appreciation for a specific 
 8  place and work together to define and address common 
 9  management issues bounded by geographic area.  
10            Finally, as always, we would love to have 
11  some money to do this.  But, you know, as the 
12  Councils and NOAA Fisheries have had to deal over 
13  the years, we've never had enough money to do what 
14  we were supposed to be doing 27 years ago.  So we 
15  will try to manage, but we hope that everyone will 
16  really get onboard to try to get the councils some 
17  funds, it doesn't have to be a lot, but every penny 
18  counts, to help us to do this work that we're going 
19  to have to do anyway.  
20            So either we rob Peter to pay Paul.  Or 
21  what we did in the early years was we went to 
22  foundations, and that's how we started actually our 
23  Coral Reef Ecosystem Plan.  The Fish and Wildlife 
24  Foundation had $30,000.  The councils can't really 
25  accept money from outside.  So we just orchestrated 
                                                     133
 1  a contract with the right scientists to do that 
 2  work.  
 3            So there are ways of dealing with outside 
 4  funds.  But preferably, we'd like to get funds come 
 5  directly to the Councils.  
 6            That's where we are.  
 7            MR. HOGARTH:  Rather than take questions, 
 8  let's let Stephanie go, then open up to questions 
 9  for the councils as a whole.  
10            MS. MADSEN:  Thank you, Bill.  I think I 
11  will be brief.  
12            I think, thanks to Mike's presentation I 
13  think you have a good feel for what the North 
14  Pacific has been doing as far as ecosystem approach 
15  management to fisheries for some time.  We do 
16  honestly believe that we've been doing it from the 
17  get-go and don't need any further legislation.  
18            From the Regional Councils' perspective, I 
19  think that the letter itself speaks for itself, and 
20  what our concerns were based on the information that 
21  we received when we were asked to come back in 
22  Baltimore.  
23            Clearly, the Admiral has responded to our 
24  letter and we feel much more comfortable.  
25            But just to kind of summarize where I 
                                                     134
 1  think the issue is, I believe there is a two-pronged 
 2  ecosystem track.  One of them is Magnuson-Stevens 
 3  Act and what may be coming down the pipe from a 
 4  congressional mandate to implement more specifically 
 5  ecosystem-based approach to management.  Even though 
 6  I feel strongly that we don't need any additional 
 7  legislation, there may be additional legislation.  
 8            There definitely needs to be guidelines so 
 9  that, quite frankly, we can get credit for things 
10  we've already been doing, because we don't call it 
11  that.  Maybe we're not calling it that, and we're 
12  not using the right terminology because we don't 
13  have those guidelines to kind of do the check off 
14  that says, we have accomplished these things and 
15  therefore this is a true ecosystem plan and you get 
16  a star because you have one.  
17            I think that if you've ever looked at the 
18  Programmatic EIS that the North Pacific Council 
19  produced, which was 7,000-and-some pages, that is 
20  definitely an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries 
21  management.  
22            But we didn't call it that.  We didn't do 
23  it for that, that's just the way we do business.  
24            So that's the one prong.  
25            What is going to come back from the 
                                                     135
 1  Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization?  I think that we 
 2  have several opportunities to interface with the 
 3  Agency; that would be the March conference that 
 4  you've heard about, that Chris is going to bring 
 5  some information and registration information later 
 6  this afternoon.  
 7            I think Dr. Hogarth has indicated to us 
 8  he's willing to allow us to work with his staff, or 
 9  our staff with his staff, in developing some 
10  guidelines for ecosystem-based approach to 
11  management.  So that we're real familiar with, that 
12  we've done in the past, and I think we're 
13  comfortable with that approach.  
14            What is new to us that I think you're also 
15  hearing concern from the Councils is the ecosystem 
16  -- the Regional Ocean Councils and the Regional 
17  Ecosystem Councils, and where do we fit as Regional 
18  Fisheries Management Councils within that system.  
19            I guess we're maybe egotistical, but we 
20  think that NOAA would be well-suited in their goal 
21  to be the lead agency among the agencies to kind of 
22  promote and highlight that we've been doing it.  So 
23  why reinvent the wheel?  
24            Why set up these Regional Ocean Councils 
25  separate and apart from Regional Fisheries 
                                                     136
 1  Management Councils?  
 2            Why not look at the system and see if 
 3  there isn't a better way to enhance what you 
 4  currently have in place instead of duplicating it?  
 5            I would believe that someone that was 
 6  looking at efficiencies and funding to do this would 
 7  say, well, they've got a good point, let's put them 
 8  in the lead role of developing these because they 
 9  have a system that already seems to be working when 
10  it comes to fisheries management.  So the tools 
11  could probably, and I believe are, there for them to 
12  look at the broader ecosystems.  I think that is a 
13  good portion of what Jack's presentation was.  
14            We're very concerned about that, though.  
15  I guess I should highlight two reasons.  
16            One is that we believe that when you start 
17  looking at oceans, fisheries is going to be the 
18  centerpiece and fisheries is going to be, quite 
19  frankly, where the authority is to regulate.  So as 
20  you look to how are we going to control things in 
21  this ecosystem, we're afraid that fisheries is going 
22  to be the focal point and everybody will have an 
23  opinion about how we should be managing our 
24  fisheries.  So why -- the problem is, instead of a 
25  different structure, when in fact you're going to 
                                                     137
 1  get right back to Regional Fisheries Management 
 2  Authorities.  
 3            Additionally, we are very concerned that 
 4  over time our authority and our ability to do the 
 5  work is going to be undermined because of money.  If 
 6  we have to start competing with Regional Ocean 
 7  Councils for funding, we're not going to make it.  
 8            As Kitty said, I can't sit here and say 
 9  the North Pacific is suffering thanks to Senator 
10  Stevens, but we're all in the same boat.  We are 
11  concerned about the funding of all the councils, and 
12  we're in this together.  I think that we're going to 
13  have a meeting tomorrow about budgets and how we 
14  survive.  
15            But as Kitty pointed out, we barely have 
16  enough money to do what we're supposed to be doing 
17  now.  And if we have to start competing for funding 
18  because there's another structure set up, over time 
19  we're not going to be able to do our job.  
20            Then people will say, well, they're not 
21  doing their job, so why not do away with them?  Or 
22  why not take their authority away and just give it 
23  to this Ocean Council?  
24            Maybe I'm -- you know, Chicken Little and 
25  the sky is falling.  But I think that for us to be 
                                                     138
 1  practical, at least from protecting the Regional 
 2  Fisheries Management Council, that I'm dedicated and 
 3  passionate about, I think you have to look 20, 25 
 4  years down the road.  Not five.  Because I think we 
 5  can hold our own for five.  
 6            But I'm not so sure we can hold our own in 
 7  20 and 25 if we have this other system that is 
 8  overshadowing us, that is an unclear mission.  
 9            So I guess those are our two concerns.  
10  Magnuson-Stevens, I'm pretty comfortable -- at least 
11  Stephanie is, and I think the North Pacific, that we 
12  have a plan to address Magnuson-Stevens and that 
13  we're going to be allowed to be part of the drafting 
14  teams, to have input at the right time.  
15            I'm unclear in looking to Jack and his 
16  Goal Team, to really do what he indicated today, and 
17  that is to look 18 months down the road and figure 
18  out how to bring the partners in and see if we can't 
19  take us and use us and the examples and the work 
20  that we've done, to position NOAA to be that lead 
21  agency.  Because I think we would all be better off 
22  having NOAA and its experience and its assets in the 
23  lead role.  
24            So those are the comments I have, and I 
25  don't want to take up your time because, as Mike 
                                                     139
 1  pointed out, I think we're saying a lot of the same 
 2  things, and I'll just stop there.  Thank you.  
 3            MR. HOGARTH:  Questions?  
 4            MR. DANIEL:  Just a comment.  
 5            Just that I agree with Kitty and Stephanie 
 6  100 percent.  I think what Stephanie just outlined 
 7  -- and I'll just reiterate a couple statements she 
 8  made, and that is that we've been doing this.  I 
 9  mean, we had a gear problem on habitat, we stopped 
10  it.  We had a bycatch problem, we addressed it.  
11  We've had Marine Reserves for ten years.  
12            But just one little point that I bring up, 
13  and this is something that our council has been 
14  looking at, and that is the interaction amongst all 
15  the different fisheries.  I think that we may be the 
16  first ones that have looked at these types of 
17  issues.  But we took the trip ticket data that you 
18  helped architect, Bill, and followed some of our 
19  fisheries.  
20            For example, our snapper grouper fishery.  
21  We looked at these individual people, and we looked 
22  at what happened to these guys when we closed the 
23  gag grouper in March and April, what did they 
24  physically do.  
25            What we did in the South Atlantic when we 
                                                     140
 1  closed gag grouper in March and April to a 
 2  one-fish-one-hook fishery, vertical handline type 
 3  fishery, was instead of fishing one hook and 
 4  catching one fish with minimal bycatch, the majority 
 5  of these guys are now fishing with four to six 
 6  thousand yards of gillnet, small-mesh gillnet, in 
 7  the nearshore coastal ocean and catching 10 million 
 8  pounds of fish biomass for 150,000 pounds of gag 
 9  grouper biomass.  
10            So the question becomes, I guess one of 
11  our quotes that we use a lot is, we've got a lot of 
12  carbon out there, what form do you want it in.  
13  That's the question.  
14            So we're looking at this thing from, if we 
15  close mackerel, where are these guys going.  We know 
16  now from our trip ticket program, and how all the 
17  states in the South Atlantic have these programs, we 
18  can actually see what the impacts of what we're 
19  doing is having to the ecosystem.  
20            In many instances the actions that we're 
21  taking are having very negative equal and opposite 
22  reactions.  The impacts to sea turtles, to marine 
23  mammals, to a whole host of things, when you start 
24  putting net reels and six thousand yards of gillnet 
25  to replace a hook and line, how does that impact the 
                                                     141
 1  ecosystem.  
 2            So those are the kind of just evolutionary 
 3  process that we're looking at in the ecosystem at 
 4  the South Atlantic level, how do we build on our 
 5  existing habitat plan; and the advisors that we have 
 6  involved in that plan, and how do we expand that and 
 7  start looking at some of the real pertinent 
 8  ecosystem-wide issues that we have to deal with, 
 9  like permits and like closed seasons, and start 
10  dealing with that now in the first iteration of this 
11  fishery ecosystem plan.  
12            Then as we evolve and start learning about 
13  the diet -- we need diet data for these ecosystem 
14  models, these Ecopath models.  I don't know of any 
15  diet data that is being collected right now, at 
16  least down in the South Atlantic -- or anywhere, for 
17  that matter.  
18            So there's a lot of information that's 
19  going to be needed to be gathered as we press 
20  through this.  
21            But I agree with what Stephanie has 
22  outlined and what Kitty has said.  Certainly, if we 
23  can't move forward and figure out where the bottom 
24  line level in this is.  So we can progress and 
25  outline what's been done thus far, it's just going 
                                                     142
 1  to be reinventing the wheel, I think.  
 2            MR. HOGARTH:  Randy.  
 3            MR. FISHER:  Yes.  That kind of raises an 
 4  interesting question I never thought about before.  
 5  I guess this would be directed to Jack.  
 6            That is, in terms of your long-term 
 7  vision, is it a plan or is it a process you're 
 8  working toward?  
 9            The question to you is, if you took a 
10  fishery management plan, or anybody's plan, and you 
11  had a check list like they're saying, you could say 
12  all these boxes are checked off, your ecosystem 
13  planning is wonderful.  
14            Or are you looking at a process instead, 
15  which would be you've got a plan but you've got to 
16  have a guaranteed process to make sure you're 
17  looking at these sorts of things, and that's what 
18  you want the councils to have?  
19            MR. DUNNIGAN:  I would think the answer is 
20  a lot closer to the latter.  I think the ecosystems 
21  are dynamic, things always change.  You need to have 
22  continuously iterative improvement loops in your 
23  decision-making.  
24            The question is, when are we going to get 
25  through with ecosystem management and go on and do 
                                                     143
 1  something else, the answer is never.  I mean, this 
 2  is the way we need to live and do our work in the 
 3  future.  It's not something we're going to be able 
 4  to do and then move on to something else.  
 5            Although, I predict that within five or 
 6  ten years the buzzword will change.  
 7            MR. FISHER:  It appears to me that's what 
 8  we're doing here.  Is you guys -- you want us to 
 9  walk around and say we're doing ecosystem planning, 
10  so everybody is going to high-five each other and 
11  the environmental community will --  
12            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Like we've been saying, 
13  we've been moving in this direction for a long time.  
14            New England groundfish.  The original 
15  fishery management plan was cod, haddock and 
16  yellowfin.  Then it became demersal finfish plan.  
17  Then it became a multi-species plan.  They've been 
18  gradually adding to that over the years.  It's 
19  moving in an ecosystem direction.  
20            The West Pac, basically moving along 
21  towards -- what?  
22            MS. LENT:  NEPA.  
23            MR. DUNNIGAN:  What about NEPA?  
24            MS. LENT:  Better NEPA.
25            (Brief period of people speaking at the 
                                                     144
 1  same time)  
 2            MR. DUNNIGAN:  The Coral Reef Ecosystem 
 3  Plan and what West Pac is talking about doing in 
 4  moving all of their plans away from a 
 5  species-orientation to a place-based orientation, 
 6  that's getting there.  
 7            But likewise to say, and what makes a lot 
 8  of sense to me is, we've been doing it for a long 
 9  time, we're doing it better today than we did five 
10  years ago and we'll be doing it better five years 
11  from now.  But we will continue to evolve that, 
12  whatever we end up calling it.  
13            Rebecca is right, the emphasis that we 
14  have put on NEPA over the last couple years has 
15  improved our decision-making by putting -- making 
16  sure that a greater array of issues are on the 
17  table.  We don't need NEPA to do that, obviously, 
18  but we have.  It's benefiting our decisions, as well 
19  as benefiting our litigation position.  
20            So we're evolving.  We will.  
21            MR. RAYBURN:  Kitty, when you evolve your 
22  fishery management plans to your fishery ecosystem 
23  plans --  
24            MS. SIMONDS:  Right, FEPs.  
25            MR. RAYBURN:  You were asking for 
                                                     145
 1  guidelines.  What additional considerations does a 
 2  plan encompass when you make that transition?  
 3            MS. SIMONDS:  This is what we've been 
 4  discussing with the lawyers over the last year or 
 5  so, because we wanted some guidance on how we should 
 6  do this.  
 7            So we can first simply change the name, 
 8  because like everybody said, we're already working 
 9  on the E-approach.  
10            Actually, we sent a letter to Bill just to 
11  give him some food for thought about pelagics.  
12            What other kind of guidance?  Well, to 
13  make sure that we're doing everything in a legal way 
14  when we do make these changes.  But as I said, you 
15  need to have all these people helping to tell us 
16  what to do.  Well, the Magnuson Act already gives us 
17  wide latitude in putting together committees of 
18  anyone, wherever, from any walk of life.  
19            We're not stuck with a certain kind of 
20  certain people, certain backgrounds, or whatever.  
21  Whoever we need to help us do our job, we're allowed 
22  to go out there and have these committees that are 
23  FACA-exempted, too.  We do this all the time.  
24            So I'm not sure, as I said, the legal part 
25  of it I still haven't heard.
                                                     146
 1            MR. RAYBURN:  But you're making that 
 2  transition to the new planning terminology?  
 3            MS. SIMONDS:  Right.  
 4            MR. RAYBURN:  But do I understand then 
 5  that you're not exactly sure what additions to the 
 6  old plans you will need to --  
 7            MS. SIMONDS:  Oh.  Well, we already -- you 
 8  know, we have a Coral Reef Ecosystem Fishery 
 9  Management Plan, and that plan, which was approved 
10  last year, took ten years, embodies the ecosystem 
11  principles.  In there we talk about -- like there 
12  are thousands of coral reef fishes, the species that 
13  we need to identify if we want to manage in an 
14  ecosystem way.  
15            Where normally we'd probably take all the 
16  top few that people are fishing for.  But there are 
17  all these other fishes out there.  So that is 
18  already in this Coral Reef Ecosystem FMP.  So we'll 
19  be doing the same thing.  
20            We're using all these approaches that have 
21  been developed and defined, and whatever.  
22            MR. HOGARTH:  One of the things we'll be 
23  talking about, and I think Kitty is saying, how do 
24  you mold this into one type -- you take a 
25  Programmatic, for example, a Programmatic EIS and 
                                                     147
 1  turn it into an ecosystem plan.  Then how do you 
 2  manage under that?  Can we get to a faster system 
 3  now of reacting, by using framework or notice 
 4  action, and things like this, too, if you've got 
 5  your big picture.  
 6            How do you fold the other sort of 
 7  fisheries management plans and management actions 
 8  under this so that you're not going back each time 
 9  and having to do another massive document.  
10            Because this whole system I think was 
11  created to look at the big picture.  So how do you 
12  look at a piece of that once you've looked at the 
13  big picture.  You've got to take a snapshot at 
14  times.  
15            So I think it's some things we need to 
16  think about as to how we do it, how big it is.  
17            I was talking to Mike and them in PR 
18  before I left town on the East Coast, about doing a 
19  Programmatic EIS or something for the turtles on the 
20  East Coast.  If we did that, that would be the 
21  ecosystem for turtles, but then you've got to go 
22  into allocation, would that be something that you 
23  want to not do or do and have it fit in if you were 
24  doing an ecosystem plan.  
25            So I think it's just how do you break up 
                                                     148
 1  the issues, or break up the geographical area, that 
 2  you could look at.  
 3            MR. RAYBURN:  Is there a vision that at 
 4  some point in time there would be enough data, as 
 5  much as the Admiral I think pointed out, that if you 
 6  see the ocean currents changing, you can be 
 7  proactive in your management and instead of waiting 
 8  for a stock assessment to come back, you would have 
 9  the information available to go ahead and be 
10  proactive on setting a tact or something based on a 
11  particular oceanographic condition.  
12            Again, if it's a turtle moving in a 
13  certain spot or warm water species moving up north, 
14  you could adjust just as a matter of data collection 
15  in a proactive way rather than a reactive way.  Is 
16  that a concept --  
17            MR. HOGARTH:  That's a concept Mike can 
18  probably speak to.  
19            But I asked them earlier, looking at the 
20  West Coast about two years ago, watching the 
21  sardines, the biggest sardines I've ever seen in my 
22  life, and things like that.  I mean, it looked like 
23  as far as you can see on the West Coast there were 
24  sardines.  
25            Then you look at the environmental 
                                                     149
 1  conditions.  
 2            We've had some work done in looking at how 
 3  we could react to those type of environmental 
 4  conditions so that we could make changes quick 
 5  enough to take advantage of when the conditions are 
 6  right, or when they're not right, to go the same 
 7  direction.  
 8            We got a report now.  We just got back, I 
 9  don't know if it's been discussed with the council 
10  yet, but it should be discussed pretty quick with 
11  the Pacific Council to look at how we can take 
12  advantage of that.  So I think that is part of it.  
13            Look at what type of conditions, and then 
14  how do you take those conditions to be able to 
15  manage better and quickly.  
16            Scott.
17            MR. BURNS:  Thanks.  I just want to 
18  comment on one aspect of the Western Pacific 
19  Council's plan that Kitty mentioned, that is their 
20  inclusion of the New Central and Western Pacific 
21  Tuna Commission and the process for developing the 
22  plan for the Pelagic Fisheries.  I think that's good 
23  both because in the end what that Commission does is 
24  going to touch directly on the success or failure of 
25  what's done with the Western Pacific Council.  
                                                     150
 1            But beyond that, I think because what we 
 2  do in the Western Pacific Council can serve as a 
 3  model for forming with some of the other nations 
 4  that participate in the New Commission will do.  But 
 5  I would urge the development of similar 
 6  relationships in the context of some of the 
 7  archipelago plans with foreign fisheries agencies.  
 8            MS. SIMONDS:  Thank you.  
 9            MR. HOWARD:  One of the things that Jack 
10  mentioned was as we get to ecosystem management, 
11  it's so dynamic that we have to be more adaptive.  I 
12  read that as more timely.  
13            Right now, because we are evolving to  
14  ecosystem management, every time we do an action we 
15  have to consider impact on habitat, impacts on 
16  bycatch, impact on other fisheries, and the 
17  management of that in the directed fishery or 
18  indirected fishery. 
19            So our plans under NEPA have become 5,000 
20  pages, that the industry doesn't know what's 
21  happening, Council members hardly know, or will read 
22  5,000 pages, because we're really addressing all 
23  those things at once.  
24            Now, I think on the ecosystem management 
25  we'll be addressing even more things than just 
                                                     151
 1  habitat and bycatch, but other things that will come 
 2  down the pipe.  
 3            So as we look at adaptive management, we 
 4  really have to find a way that gets us more 
 5  streamlined instead of creating thicker documents, 
 6  cut to the chase, get rid of some of the redundancy 
 7  with other laws.  
 8            MR. HOGARTH:  We're going to talk about 
 9  Magnuson this afternoon.  I agree.
10            I think -- and something we haven't said 
11  much about, but I think one of the concerns I have 
12  with this, if it's not, maybe some further work done 
13  in the Magnuson is, we -- and we get criticized a 
14  lot of the time when we do our status of stocks 
15  report is that we have 600 stocks that we don't know 
16  anything about.  
17            So is this going to be the Achilles tendon 
18  to go on ecosystem-based management, that we will be 
19  in court defending that we're doing ecosystem-based 
20  management, but you've got five or six -- we don't 
21  really know enough about the trophic levels or the 
22  bottom or the number of the species to really make 
23  those decisions.  
24            I'm really personally concerned about 
25  that, unless there is some clarification in 
                                                     152
 1  Magnuson, that we could be getting ourselves into a 
 2  point where you don't have the data so you can't 
 3  make decisions, and therefore you can't allow 
 4  harvest, type thing.  
 5            There hasn't been a lot discussed about 
 6  that, but I think it's something that people should 
 7  start thinking about as something we should discuss, 
 8  because there is that potential.  Because we do get 
 9  criticized quite a bit about the way we've done the 
10  status of stocks, by taking the major stocks, and 
11  things like that.  So I don't think we need to dance 
12  around it.  I think we need to talk about it 
13  sometime.  
14            Other questions here before we get to Dave 
15  Whaley?
16            MR. RAYBURN:  I think each region has a -- 
17  seems to be an infrastructure building up on the 
18  global observations systems.  I've had a hard time 
19  getting my hands around it.  But I mean, basically 
20  to establish a regional association that is going to 
21  organize and set up this national backbone for ocean 
22  observing.  
23            Are the Councils engaged in developing the 
24  requirements within that new system, and it seems to 
25  me that will be one of the major assets that you 
                                                     153
 1  would want to go to in an ecosystems approach to 
 2  management.  Are the Councils engaged in that?  Or 
 3  is that something of any profile in your area?  
 4            MS. SIMONDS:  Well, we've not been asked 
 5  to participate in any discussion.  
 6            MS. MADSEN:  We, in Alaska, we're not 
 7  directly involved, but they've reached out.  
 8            They've come to try to have an 
 9  informational seminar.  In Alaska, we're just -- the 
10  IOOS Program in Alaska is just now trying to get up 
11  and running.  They have a governance board.  We've 
12  been invited to participate, but we only have so 
13  much time.  So I think they're reaching out.  
14            I think they recognize that it would be 
15  helpful for them to have our support, but we haven't 
16  been -- and they're in a pretty formative stage.  So 
17  I'm not sure that we've been involved in any of the 
18  details on how they see this program developing for 
19  Alaska.  
20            But certainly they recognize that we are 
21  out there and need to coordinate with us.  So we'll 
22  report back.  
23            MR. HOGARTH:  Mike, do you want to comment 
24  on that?  
25            MR. SISSENWINE:  Yes.  
                                                     154
 1            I've been involved in the evolution of 
 2  what is being started to be called GOOS, Global 
 3  Ocean Observing System, and its living marine 
 4  resource module since the mid 1980s -- the late 
 5  '80s.  
 6            It really has been a schizophrenic thing.  
 7  There's lots of attempts to justify the system on 
 8  fisheries.  Particularly in the global area, most 
 9  ocean science have to do with fisheries.  The U.S. 
10  is interested in other things, like climate and 
11  other more high-tech science activities.  
12            But in the global arena, if you can't get 
13  global support in an organization like the 
14  Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, from the 
15  fisheries people, it's not going to fly.  
16            But there has been a tremendous tension as 
17  to whether they're using fisheries as a 
18  justification as compared to actually delivering.  
19            I just encourage people to clamor as much 
20  as you can to make sure that fisheries are really 
21  being served, not being used as a justification.  
22            There is a problem in that the coastal 
23  activity is being organized around these regional 
24  associations that are supposed to be meeting the 
25  regional observing system process.  They've tended 
                                                     155
 1  to carve out turf based on what their spheres of 
 2  influences are.  
 3            For example, the California Current, which 
 4  we know is a single system and a single council is 
 5  responsible for it, has three regional associations.  
 6  So we've been working very hard on a program, that 
 7  actually Bill Fox is co-chairing for us on the West 
 8  Coast, trying to make sure that those three regional 
 9  associations are linking up, which is our program 
10  that covers the entire California Current system, as 
11  well as working with Canada and possibly Mexico.  
12            But there are lots of glitches and there's 
13  lots of tendency for some of the state and regional 
14  associations to have a more natural affiliation with 
15  the Coastal Zone Management Programs in their 
16   states. 
17            Since your council members are all those 
18  state fisheries senior officials, they need to start 
19  weighing in at the state level to make sure that 
20  these things are being responsibly -- because I can 
21  tell you right now, at the state level this process 
22  is going to have the Department of Environment and 
23  the Coastal Zone Management, not with the Department 
24  of Fish and Wildlife, or whatever it is called in 
25  the various states.  
                                                     156
 1            There's similar problems in the Gulf of 
 2  Mexico where basically the various people that look 
 3  towards the University of Miami for their ocean 
 4  science expertise, those that look towards Texas A&M 
 5  for their ocean science expertise, split up the Gulf 
 6  of Mexico.  There's basically an eastern half and a 
 7  central and western half, which works pretty well 
 8  for them.  But it doesn't work very well for the 
 9  ecosystem in the Gulf of Mexico.  
10            We've got to try to make sure we work 
11  those things out.  
12            This is a struggle.  I don't think the 
13  councils and their needs have received enough 
14  attention.  
15            MR. HOGARTH:  Okay.  Other comments?  I'll 
16  go to Dave Whaley.  
17            Dave, again, we're glad to have you here.  
18  You pay a lot of attention to the councils and us 
19  and fisheries, and we really do appreciate it.  It's 
20  nice to have you here.  
21            (Congressional Perspective)
22            MR. WHALEY:  I appreciate being invited.  
23            I know most of you, but for those of you 
24  that don't know me, my name is Dave Whaley.  I work 
25  for the House of Representatives on the Resource 
                                                     157
 1  Committee.  
 2            I wear two hats.  I work for Chairman 
 3  Pombo, who is the Chair of the full committee.  He's 
 4  a Congressman from California.  
 5            I also work on the subcommittee, which 
 6  deals with fishery ocean issues, the Fisheries 
 7  Conservation, Wildlife and Ocean Subcommittee, 
 8  chaired by Mr. Gilchrest from Maryland.  
 9            So I take those hats on and off a lot, and 
10  I will do that today as well.  
11            Secondly, I will do this any time a 
12  meeting with any of the council folks or anybody 
13  else, as somebody mentioned earlier, there are some 
14  prohibitions on folks from councils lobbying 
15  Congress.  I always do this, but I throw out an open 
16  invitation for you to send us information or 
17  comments.  So this is a request that you can fulfill 
18  rather than you lobbying me.  So that's just for the 
19  lawyers that are here.  
20            We're just starting a new Congress, which 
21  means everything that was introduced last year or 
22  the year before is gone.  It all has to be 
23  reintroduced.  So there was a lot of the stuff that 
24  was going on last year, there were a lot of 
25  discussions on different legislative packages.  The 
                                                     158
 1  Senate passed a bunch of bills at the very last 
 2  minute and sent it to us.  Those are all gone.  
 3  We're starting fresh.  
 4            So that's both good and bad.  
 5            On our committee, we're going to be losing 
 6  very few members at this point.  We have a couple 
 7  openings on the Republican side -- and I should have 
 8  said I work for the Republicans on the committee.  
 9            Having said that, we're a very bipartisan 
10  committee on fishery and ocean issues.  
11            We're losing a few folks.  I've heard 
12  rumors about a number of people from coastal areas 
13  who might want to get on our committee, which would 
14  be great.  Because a lot of the issues that our 
15  committee deals with are western inland issues.  
16  There are timber issues.  There are grazing issues. 
17  There are mining issues.  There are oil and gas 
18  issues.  We have very few coastal members.  So it is 
19  helpful to have more coastal members.  
20            For those of you that have relationships 
21  with members on the committee, coastal or not, 
22  again, don't lobby, but if you're in their offices 
23  and want to educate them on issues dealing with 
24  fisheries, that's great.  
25            Since nobody is here from the Senate, I'll 
                                                     159
 1  tell you what I know about that is going on in the 
 2  Senate.  
 3            Senator Stevens is the new chair of the 
 4  Commerce Committee, which deals with all the ocean 
 5  issues.  Senator Inouye from Hawaii is going to be 
 6  the Ranking Democrat, although at the last meeting 
 7  they had a confirmation hearing they had for the new 
 8  Secretary, Senator Inouye called himself the 
 9  co-chair and Senator Stevens smiled, that kind of 
10  was the signal that there's going to be a very 
11  bipartisan effort from their committee this year.  
12            As you may remember, last year it was 
13  chaired by Senator McCain, who does not have a 
14  coastal district, was not very interested in some of 
15  the coastal fisheries issues.  
16            I think Senator Stevens and Senator Inouye 
17  have already signaled that these are going to be 
18  very big agendas for them.  
19            The other thing that I've heard -- this 
20  hasn't been finalized yet, but last year there was a 
21  subcommittee that dealt with both ocean and fishery 
22  issues.  My understanding is that will be split into 
23  two separate subcommittees on the Senate side.  So I 
24  don't know what that means for coordinated policy, 
25  but that's an interesting dynamic that's new this 
                                                     160
 1  year.  
 2            On the House side as well, on the 
 3  Appropriations Committee, we have a new Full 
 4  Committee Chairman, Jerry Lewis from California.  We 
 5  think that's going to be a real good thing for 
 6  fishery and ocean issues for the next couple of 
 7  years.  
 8            Our chairman is also from California, has 
 9  a very good working relationship with him.  So we 
10  hope that a lot of the things that we do as an 
11  authorizing committee will then be funded by the 
12  Appropriations, which isn't always the case.  
13            We've got a big agenda for this year.  
14            As you all know, the Ocean Commission came 
15  out with its report.  The White House has now made a 
16  number of recommendations to Congress.  We're going 
17  to be looking at all of those.  
18            It's a very big agenda, even from the 
19  White House.  
20            Mr. Pombo, putting on my full committee 
21  hat, his biggest agenda is ESA, the Endangered 
22  Species Act Reform.  He ran for Congress because of 
23  the things that the federal government was doing to 
24  him as a property owner, and ESA was a big issue for 
25  him.  So ESA reform is his number one priority.  
                                                     161
 1            Opening ANWR to oil and gas development is 
 2  probably the number two agenda item, and also in the 
 3  top tier is doing the NOAA Organic Act.  
 4            NOAA doesn't have an act that says, you do 
 5  these things.  There are a bunch of acts that tell 
 6  NOAA what to do, but there's not an act that tells 
 7  NOAA what it is supposed to be doing.  That was also 
 8  one of the recommendations in the Ocean Commission.  
 9  So we're going to be looking at that.  
10            Having said that, there are a number of 
11  members on our committee, especially on the ESA 
12  issue, that don't understand why the Department of 
13  Interior has one set of regulations and NOAA has a 
14  different set for the species they manage.  
15            That's true of MMPA as well.  
16            So there are some of our members who would 
17  like to take NOAA and put it in Department of 
18  Interior.  Now, I don't know how far that is a going 
19  to go, and I suspect the Senate is not going to go 
20  along with that idea.  But the idea of having one 
21  entity from the federal government that does 
22  resource management is an interesting idea.  
23            But anyway, that's an issue that is 
24  probably going to pop up at some point for our 
25  committee.  
                                                     162
 1            Putting on my subcommittee hat, Mr. 
 2  Gilchrest.  MMPA Reauthorization is a big issue.  We 
 3  got a bill out of committee last year, which we 
 4  thought was pretty good.  We'll probably start from 
 5  that again this year.  
 6            Magnuson Act is going to be a big one.  
 7            The whole issue of tsunami warnings and 
 8  ocean observation issues, big.  It's in all the 
 9  news.  Everybody is all excited about it.  The 
10  Admiral talked a lot about it today.  
11            There was a bill that came out of the 
12  Senate that authorized programs that had about a two 
13  billion dollar price tag.  
14            Our members are not real excited about the 
15  price tag.  
16            The House did some rule changes this year, 
17  a little esoteric threat.  We used to have a 
18  procedure where we could expedite bills going to the 
19  floor.  It meant we could take a bill to the floor 
20  and people could not offer amendments.  
21            That procedure has now changed.  If we 
22  want to do that for a new program, we have to get 
23  the approval at a Republican conference, which means 
24  we're probably going to use that procedure a lot 
25  less.  
                                                     163
 1            Now, the downside of that is, we're going 
 2  to have a lot more open rules, which means we're 
 3  going to get whacky amendments.  On fishery and 
 4  ocean issues, a lot of times we get whacky 
 5  amendments that are hard.  So that's just a warning 
 6  that things have changed a little bit on the House 
 7  side.  
 8            Magnuson Reauthorization.  Probably the 
 9  big three issues that we're going to look at are 
10  ecosystem management, as we talked about today, 
11  Council reform, which has become an issue for some 
12  in the environmental community, and MPAs.  I think 
13  those are probably going to be the big three.  
14            If we have to take bills to the floor and 
15  work with whacky amendments, I'm concerned about all 
16  three of those issues.  
17            When we're going through Reauthorization, 
18  one of the things that I hope our members are going 
19  to keep in mind is some of the lessons we learned 
20  from the Sustainable Fisheries Act.  We have a fine 
21  line between nudging councils to do new initiatives 
22  or new things that we don't think they're doing that 
23  they should be doing and mandating things that are 
24  going to set them up for lawsuits.  
25            Some of the things we did in SFA crossed 
                                                     164
 1  the line in opening them up to lawsuits.  I think 
 2  we're going to be very sensitive to that in the next 
 3  Reauthorization.  
 4            One of the things that was talked a lot 
 5  about at last Congress on ecosystem management was 
 6  how do we get there from a congressional policy 
 7  perspective.  
 8            Mr. Gilchrest in the bill that we reported 
 9  out of committee that he authored had a three-step 
10  process.  First was, let's identify the science that 
11  we need to do this, and identify where the gaps are.  
12  What don't we know that we should know before we can 
13  do something that we call ecosystem management.  
14            Second was, let's set up a science program 
15  to fill in those gaps once we've identified them.  
16            Third was, let's do pilot projects.  
17            So we're making progress, but we're not 
18  doing mandates that people are going to trip over.  
19  We're not doing tight timelines that we're not going 
20  to meet, that sort of thing.  
21            I think that was partly echoed in what the 
22  President released a couple weeks ago, where there's 
23  a call for science review.  Let's go out and figure 
24  out what kind of science we have, what we need, how 
25  we can get it.  So I think we're consistent on that 
                                                     165
 1  message, and I think that's something that the 
 2  councils and MAFAC can help us identify, what don't 
 3  we know that we really ought to know, so we can move 
 4  forward.  
 5            One of the other things I wanted to talk 
 6  about a little bit was if we do ecosystem management 
 7  or ecosystem-based approaches to management, 
 8  whatever we're calling it this week, are there 
 9  inherent conflicts within the act or between acts.  
10            In looking at the Magnuson Act, there is a 
11  fair amount of stuff that looks at single-species 
12  management.  When we look at rebuilding plans, those 
13  are all targeted for single species.  In some cases, 
14  I think the Agency have set rebuilding targets based 
15  on one species alone, and not the interaction 
16  between different species.  
17            In other words, we're not looking at the 
18  carrying capacity or we're not looking at the 
19  existing ecosystem to find out where it needs to be 
20  rebuilt to, but we're setting the standard for some 
21  historical level.  I think that's setting us up for 
22  some problems, and maybe we need to look at whether 
23  we should refine that.  
24            That's just one of a number of them that 
25  we've looked at.  
                                                     166
 1            Again, that's going to be difficult to do.  
 2  I'm not sure all of our members are going to want to 
 3  do that.  They kind of like the idea of rebuilding 
 4  plans for single species.  But in the discussions 
 5  here, I know people will try to identify some other 
 6  ones that we may need to look at.  
 7            Are we looking at habitat from an 
 8  ecosystem perspective; or are we looking at it from 
 9  a single species?  
10            When we're looking at closed areas, are we 
11  doing it for single species; or can we identify 
12  areas that are very productive for a whole bunch of 
13  species, and look at how to protect those?  
14            Anyway, those are some things that we need 
15  to think about in the long run.  
16            To look at conflicts and interactions 
17  between different acts.  MMPA, Marine Mammal 
18  Protection Act, is set up for single species 
19  protection.  We have rebuilding plans again for 
20  single species.  
21            The Endangered Species Act is a single 
22  species focus.  If you look at critical habitat for 
23  single species, those are things that Congress needs 
24  to look at, and it will be very difficult to reform.  
25  But those are things that we need to look at.  
                                                     167
 1            Conflicts between NEPA and Magnuson.  
 2  Those are mostly timeline conflicts, but those are 
 3  things we need to deal with.  
 4            When I was thinking about ESA and 
 5  ecosystem management, one of the examples that 
 6  popped up that still annoys me to this day deals 
 7  with the stellar sea lion issue.  At some level 
 8  within NOAA there was a decision made that the 
 9  Office of Protected Resources and the Sustainable 
10  Fisheries Office could not speak to each other 
11  because one was the consulting agency and one was 
12  the action agency.  
13            What that meant was, the marine mammal 
14  guys were going to come out with a recovery plan 
15  that did not take into account any of the fishery 
16  management things that had been done for the last 20 
17  years.  It was being done in a vacuum.  That is 
18  wrong.  That is not ecosystem management.  
19            My understanding, that little glitch where 
20  the two couldn't talk to each other was only in the 
21  North Pacific.  None of the other regions agreed 
22  with that interpretation.  People at Headquarters 
23  didn't necessarily agree with that interpretation.  
24  The Secretary didn't agree with that interpretation, 
25  but that was the way it was being done for a long 
                                                     168
 1  time through the process.  
 2            And that is something we all need to keep 
 3  an eye on.  
 4            Let me throw out one other example of 
 5  where an ecosystem type approach has been used that 
 6  is not in the fisheries management world.  There's 
 7  an act called the Sikes Act which deals with 
 8  wildlife management on military bases.  There is a 
 9  procedure within their program called INRMP, it's 
10  Integrated Natural Resource Management Plan, where 
11  military bases can take a look at their activities 
12  and look at their land and they can basically come 
13  up with a management plan for the base that will 
14  allow them to continue their activities.  
15            Camp Pendleton is a great example.  They 
16  have a plan where they can continue to do their 
17  beach assaults and they can continue to do some of 
18  their warfare stuff, but they've also protected 
19  corridors and they've protected specific habitat 
20  types, and this gets them out from under Critical 
21  Habitat Designations under the ESA.  That's an idea 
22  that is way ahead of its time on ecosystem 
23  management, but it's something that is an example of 
24  something that we might be able to do on a regional 
25  area in the ocean.  
                                                     169
 1            There is that precedent that Congress 
 2  allowed.  So that is an example you guys might want 
 3  to take a look at when you're talking to your 
 4  members of Congress on how to do ecosystem 
 5  management, and that sort of thing.  
 6            I think that was pretty much what I wanted 
 7  to talk about.  I know you guys have got a lot of 
 8  questions.  I guess those are the big ones.  
 9            I'll just throw out one other thing.  
10            People keep telling me that the fishing 
11  industry right now is about where the timber 
12  industry was about ten years ago.  It's under 
13  assault from a lot of lawsuits.  It's being put in a 
14  corner under regulations and different acts are 
15  pushing it.  
16            What we've found out in the timber 
17  industry after things like that spotted owl, is now 
18  we have three big companies, and that's it.  All the 
19  little guys are gone.  
20            We need to be a little more proactive in 
21  the fishing industry to make sure that we don't get 
22  to that level.  
23            Thanks.  
24            MR. HOGARTH:  Paul.
25            MR. HOWARD:  First, a quick comment.  
                                                     170
 1            It seems a little disconcerted that after 
 2  talking about ecosystem management for a whole day 
 3  and the bigger picture, that that Senate Committee 
 4  on Fisheries and Oceans will split up.  It seems 
 5  kind of -- taken back a little bit.  
 6            My question is, that on the executive part 
 7  of the government is looking at these National Ocean 
 8  Councils and further moving down to perhaps Regional 
 9  Ecosystem Councils, what is the role of the House 
10  and the Senate in looking at different governance 
11  issues?  Or are you just going to wait to see what 
12  happens?  
13            MR. WHALEY:  Our members were not real 
14  excited about having yet another layer of 
15  bureaucracy that didn't have stakeholder 
16  involvement.  There has been some question whether 
17  Fishery Management Council roles established under 
18  the Magnuson can be broadened to do other ecosystem 
19  management authorities.  That's an interesting 
20  question.  
21            But we certainly think the councils have a 
22  big role in advising the Secretary and advising 
23  whatever structure is in place to do this ecosystem 
24  management.  But we're not real excited about a 
25  mandatory new layer of government that's D.C.-based 
                                                     171
 1  without stakeholder involvement.  
 2            MR. HOGARTH:  Dave.  
 3            MR. ORTMANN:  The first thing in the 
 4  President's Action Plan that was talked about in 
 5  terms of Reauthorization objectives is the idea of a 
 6  market-based approach to fishery management.  I was 
 7  surprised that you were silent on that issue when 
 8  you talked about the Reauthorization.  
 9            MR. WHALEY:  Well, yeah.  IFQs are going 
10  to be a big issue, I believe.  But I'm not sure if 
11  they're going to be -- I think everybody thinks that 
12  IFQs ought to be authorized and that there ought to 
13  be some guidelines or standards in the act.  So I 
14  don't think it's going to be a big fight.  
15            MR. HOGARTH:  Other questions?  Ralph.
16            MR. RAYBURN:  Is there any -- Dave, thanks 
17  for being with us, by the way.  
18            How much overlap is there in the House 
19  jurisdiction of the committees on the issues in the 
20  ocean and on the Ocean Action Plan or the 
21  commission, and is there any sense of how those 
22  committees can work together to ensure that there is 
23  some collaboration and common purpose involved?  
24            MR. WHALEY:  That's a very good question.  
25            There is a lot of overlap.  On just NOAA 
                                                     172
 1  Authorization issues, we split between the Resources 
 2  Committee and the Science Committee.  We basically 
 3  do the wet side.  They do the dry side.  
 4            But to get into nuances, you may not have 
 5  picked up on this, but the new OSCAR DYSON is a fish 
 6  survey vessel, which makes it our jurisdiction.  
 7            Had it been a fishery research vessel, it 
 8  would have been the Science Committee jurisdiction.  
 9  So that's just a little nuance, but that's the kind 
10  of thing we have to deal with when we're drafting 
11  legislation.  
12            We have sole jurisdiction over fishery 
13  issues, marine mammal issues.  The bigger picture 
14  science issues can be split.  
15            When you get into coastal issues, you 
16  bring in the Transportation Committee.  
17            On trade and a lot of the other seafood 
18  issues, we bring in the Energy and Commerce 
19  Committee.  
20            When you start talking about the 
21  international stuff, we have sole jurisdiction over 
22  international fish commissions and treaties.  
23  However, that doesn't include the Whaling 
24  Commission, because those aren't fish and the 
25  jurisdictional statement doesn't includes whales or 
                                                     173
 1  marine mammals.  So we deal with almost all of the 
 2  fisheries in international commissions.  
 3            When you get into other things, like 
 4  global observations, international agreements, we 
 5  probably have no jurisdiction, except for the 
 6  domestic side.  
 7            Homeland Security, which is a new 
 8  committee in the last Congress, now has authority 
 9  over all Coast Guard activities, port security 
10  issues, some of the aviation issues.  They may try 
11  to get into some of the food safety issues, which 
12  will get into seafood and seafood transportation.  
13            I guess those are probably the main ones, 
14  but a lot of overlap.
15            MR. RAYBURN:  Does the ocean caucus, I 
16  mean would that provide any venue to try to bring 
17  the different parties together?    
18            MR. WHALEY:  I'm going to take off both my 
19  hats and just speak personally.  
20            In the last Congress the four co-chairs of 
21  the Ocean Caucus, none of them were on committees of 
22  jurisdiction.  All of them tend to be very liberal 
23  and green in the environmental sense.  
24            Most of the things that they were 
25  recommending were coming from the Pew Commission.  
                                                     174
 1  So from my point of view, they were not very 
 2  helpful.  
 3            MR. RAYBURN:  Thank you.  
 4            MS. LENT:  Just a quick question.  
 5            You mentioned that MSA and ESA are all 
 6  single-species type acts.  So I was just curious as 
 7  to whether you think we do need a legislative change 
 8  to do ecosystem-type management.  
 9            Also, you mentioned possible legislative 
10  changes for MPAs.  Can you give us more info on 
11  that?  
12            MR. WHALEY:  Yeah.  Let me do the first 
13  one first.  
14            I'm not sure you need new authority under 
15  Magnuson to move forward with ecosystem-based 
16  management.  But if you're going to start doing 
17  ecosystem management plans or fishery ecosystem 
18  plans, you may.  
19            And I guess I would argue if you want to 
20  start doing fishery rebuilding plans that deal with 
21  multiple complex -- or multi-species complex, you 
22  may need changes.  
23            On that note, I thought it was a little 
24  ironic that some environmental groups who advocate 
25  ecosystem management are also the same ones who want 
                                                     175
 1  to close down multi-species complexes if one 
 2  component is overfished.  I never thought that made 
 3  sense.  
 4            One of the things that we did in the bill 
 5  last year was to clarify that councils have the 
 6  authority to do time/area closures, gear closures, 
 7  that sort of thing.  
 8            There, I think, is going to be a real push 
 9  legislatively for new closed areas.  There were 
10  several bills last year that would have closed 
11  specific areas to specific gear types, and those 
12  were done legislatively.  
13            That concerned a lot of our members 
14  because we think the councils have already done a 
15  lot of that, they're already working toward doing 
16  more of it where it makes sense, and if it's going 
17  to be adaptive, you can't do it in legislation 
18  because then you can't change it without doing new 
19  legislation.  
20            So we thought that those ought to be done 
21  through fishery management plans and done by the 
22  councils, not legislatively.  
23            I think there's going to be discussion 
24  later about the Deep-sea Coral Bill.  Again, that 
25  was a legislative proposal that would have mandated 
                                                     176
 1  closures in statute.  I'm not sure that's the way we 
 2  want to go.  
 3            But I think there are some members who 
 4  would like to do that in the Magnuson rather than 
 5  clarifying existing authorities.  
 6            MS. LENT:  Thank you.  
 7            MR. HOGARTH:  Rob.
 8            MR. KRAMER:  Thanks again, Dave.  
 9            You mentioned that the committee, in 
10  looking at the Reauthorization of Magnuson, had 
11  identified ecosystem management, council reform and 
12  MPAs were the top three.  How did those make it to 
13  the top three?  
14            MR. WHALEY:  Those -- I should say that 
15  was my view of what the top three are going to be 
16  based on legislative proposals.  
17            MR. HOGARTH:  Pete and Jim.
18            MR. LEIPZIG:  I understand that 
19  Congressman Young has introduced legislation that 
20  would allow fishery management plans to satisfy NEPA 
21  requirements.  
22            MR. WHALEY:  He introduced that bill last 
23  Congress.  
24            MR. LEIPZIG:  Is that going to see the 
25  light of day again?  
                                                     177
 1            MR. WHALEY:  I think he'll probably 
 2  reintroduce it.  It was a pretty short sentence that 
 3  basically just set timelines for -- or the process 
 4  for Magnuson FMPs would satisfy the requirements 
 5  under NEPA.  
 6            I'm not sure that's a real popular idea, 
 7  but at least it started the discussion on how we can 
 8  make those more -- make them mesh better, and we 
 9  never got much discussion at all.  
10            MR. LEIPZIG:  Is that something that 
11  through the Magnuson process could be rolled into or 
12  --  
13            MR. WHALEY:  Very possible, yes.  
14            MR. HOGARTH:  We plan to.  We hope to.  
15            MR. GILMORE:  There seems to be a little 
16  schizophrenia in the NOAA presentation this morning, 
17  don't worry, fishery managers sitting around here, 
18  that we've already been doing ecosystem-based 
19  management, ecosystem approach to management.  
20            At the same time, we're implementing new 
21  programs here emphasizing ecosystem approach, 
22  creating that nervousness I think that, where are 
23  things going.  
24            Maybe my overly simplistic analysis is -- 
25  well, two national commissions said the oceans are 
                                                     178
 1  in crisis and that we need to do something about it, 
 2  and this is a pretty common sense way of approaching 
 3  it.  
 4            From a congressional standpoint, are the 
 5  oceans in crisis?  So do we have to do something on 
 6  ecosystem approaches to management in the Magnuson 
 7  Reauthorization to address the fact the oceans are 
 8  in crisis?  
 9            (Brief period of people speaking at the 
10  same time)  
11            MR. WHALEY:  I'm not sure that a lot of my 
12  members -- again, on the Republican side of our 
13  committee -- think that there is a crisis.  
14            I think there is certainly room for 
15  improvement, and I think there is a lot more we can 
16  do better.  But I'm not sure crisis is the right 
17  word.  
18            A lot of the stuff that was in the Ocean 
19  Commission Report dealt with things like coastal 
20  source management, nonpoint pollution.  Originally 
21  some of the recommendations looked like they wanted 
22  these regional ecosystem councils to do onshore land 
23  management.  That's certainly something most of my 
24  members are excited about.  
25            A lot of the inland guys don't like 
                                                     179
 1  dealing with ocean issues, and they certainly don't 
 2  want ocean managers telling them what they can and 
 3  can't do on shore, especially the federal government 
 4  entities telling the states what they can and can't 
 5  do.  
 6            So maybe I better stop there.  
 7            MR. HOGARTH:  Anyone else?  Steve.  
 8            MR. ATRAN:  Do you know what is going on 
 9  with the Freedom to Fish Act?  
10            MR. WHALEY:  Yes.  In the last Congress 
11  Congressman Saxton from New Jersey introduced the 
12  bill.  We had a lot of discussions with different 
13  interest groups, including the commercial industry, 
14  to expand it so that there would be a bill that 
15  would set standards for when you can and can't close 
16  areas, and that would include using the council 
17  system more, rather than just mandating closures.  
18            If that makes sense.  
19            The idea is, we don't want to just close 
20  areas because somebody thinks it's a good idea.  If 
21  we're going to do closures, let's do -- if it's a 
22  gear-specific problem, let's deal with that gear.  
23  If it can be solved with a time/area closure, let's 
24  do that.  Let's base it on science.  If there's not 
25  a reason for excluding somebody, let's not.  
                                                     180
 1            I expect that that bill will be introduced 
 2  early in Congress that reflects those thoughts.  
 3            MR. ATRAN:  Because ecosystem management 
 4  is so heavily based on geographic type management, 
 5  that sort of bill is going to definitely influence 
 6  any ecosystem plan that we can come up with.  So it 
 7  seems to me that needs to be rolled into whatever 
 8  comes up as far ecosystem management.  
 9            MR. WHALEY:  I don't think the Freedom to 
10  Fish Act was saying you can't do closed areas.  
11            The concern was, you shouldn't do closed 
12  areas and exclude people or activities if they don't 
13  have an effect on the area or if it's not going to 
14  make a difference in the management.  
15            MR. HOGARTH:  Ken.  
16            MR. ROBERTS:  Dave, thank you for your 
17  presence and your frank comments.  
18            I have a question about ocean councils.  
19  If ocean councils are going to materialize, would 
20  they come through legislation?  Or could they be 
21  created by the White House, let's say?  
22            MR. WHALEY:  Might be a better question 
23  for the lawyers.  I don't think the White House 
24  would do it without sending up legislation.  
25            Whether they could do it, I guess it 
                                                     181
 1  depends on whether they have any regulatory 
 2  authority.  If they do, I would think they would 
 3  have to do it through legislation.  
 4            If they're advisory only, no.  
 5            MR. ROBERTS:  To follow up, since you 
 6  didn't mention that in some of your activities that 
 7  you thought would come through the committee, is it 
 8  not even being discussed?  
 9            MR. WHALEY:  I'm sure it's going to come 
10  up in other discussions, but I'm not sure there's a 
11  real excitement about doing ocean councils.  
12            MR. HOGARTH:  Ralph.  
13            MR. RAYBURN:  Is there going to be any 
14  oversight over CEQ as they take on the action plan?  
15  I mean, will your Resource Committee plan on doing 
16  that?  
17            MR. WHALEY:  Yes.  
18            MR. RAYBURN:  Will there be periodic 
19  hearings?  
20            MR. WHALEY:  Yes.  
21            MR. RAYBURN:  Any other committees are 
22  going to do the same?    
23            MR. WHALEY:  I would guess the Science 
24  Committee will as well.  I don't know if any other 
25  on the House side will.  
                                                     182
 1            MR. RAYBURN:  Thank you.  
 2            MR. HOGARTH:  Okay.  We've sort of gone 
 3  through all the presentations.  I guess where we are 
 4  now is to decide what MAFAC, what you would like to 
 5  do.  
 6            Last fall you gave us a good discussion 
 7  and a paper on ecosystems.  We've sort of thrown out 
 8  some discussion points about what the Administration 
 9  is recommending the Congress do, what should the 
10  Agency do, what should the councils do.  So I'm 
11  looking to ask what you want to do as the next step.  
12            Do you want to review what you've already 
13  sent us in Committee?  
14            Do you want to have further discussion 
15  here?  
16            Or, as I've heard from some people who are 
17  sick and tired of hearing of ecosystem today, do you 
18  want to move on to Magnuson, and do some more of 
19  ecosystems in Committee?  
20            So it's up to the Committee now to decide 
21  what you would like to do next.  
22            We can continue the discussion.  
23            I think -- I'm not sure what we need, to 
24  be honest with you.  
25            I think we do need to look at some 
                                                     183
 1  guidelines, and I think we have set up a process to 
 2  work with the councils to look at guidelines and to 
 3  move forward with the ecosystem.  
 4            Are there things that we should ask 
 5  Congress to do, as far as the ecosystem is 
 6  concerned?  
 7            In discussion today, I think everyone -- I 
 8  think Tom said he didn't think there was enough 
 9  vision for the future in this.  Is that something 
10  you want to discuss, and give us more vision.  
11            I don't know personally that we have a lot 
12  -- as much vision for management for the future of 
13  fisheries as we should have anyway.  I was going to 
14  talk a little bit about that tomorrow when I talk 
15  about the Status of Fisheries and some things that 
16  we've talked about doing internally.  
17            I guess, do you think we're going in the 
18  right direction?  Would you direct us in another 
19  direction?  Do you think -- I think that's what 
20  we're looking at.  
21            MR. KENT:  I'd say based on the warning of 
22  the reminder that Dave gave us a minute ago about 
23  the term sustainability, the can of worms that can 
24  be if it's poorly defined and get it crossed.  
25            I think you're going in the right 
                                                     184
 1  direction, as far as trying to get within your 
 2  organization a clear definition of what ecosystem 
 3  management is.  I think your next step is to take 
 4  that to your partner organizations, to your 
 5  councils, and try to get a consensus from them as 
 6  well as to what they envision it being.  
 7            It sounds like some of the issues they 
 8  reflect in the letter to the Admiral and his 
 9  response would work to the advantage of the 
10  Fisheries Service to bring the councils in a lot 
11  sooner on this sort of thing and get them involved.  
12            The things unknown are the ones that cause 
13  people the most concern, and having them be a part 
14  of that process I think would be very valuable.  
15            I think somebody earlier today was saying 
16  -- I think, Jack, you were talking about the whole 
17  budgeting process.  It's really a multi-year process 
18  in looking at how that comes together.  It seems to 
19  me you're going to need about three generations of 
20  systems ecologists, and really large computers to do 
21  the job right.  So you need to be thinking about in 
22  the next 15 to 20 years what NOAA Fisheries is going 
23  to look like to really implement this over time and 
24  start laying the groundwork for that now.  
25            MR. HOGARTH:  Yeah.  We've got to figure 
                                                     185
 1  how we maintain the involvement of the people.  
 2            Scott.  
 3            MR. BURNS:  Thanks, Bill.  
 4            I think given our overall mandate, we 
 5  might consider planning some sort of an ongoing role 
 6  in helping Jack and his colleague in the development 
 7  of the requirements.  
 8            MR. HOGARTH:  Bob.  
 9            MR. FLETCHER:  Stephanie I think really 
10  hit on a key element.  We keep looking at this whole 
11  area and we keep coming back to, which ones are 
12  easiest to manage, and it always ends up with us 
13  fishers.  
14            I remember when we were working on EFH for 
15  the Salmon Fishery Management Plans a few years ago.  
16  When we started talking about EFH for salmon, and we 
17  started working our way up the river, we suddenly 
18  just got attacked by god knows how many 
19  organizations that had never been involved in the 
20  process because we suddenly were saying that the 
21  rivers and the gravel upstream was EFH for salmon.  
22  We really got jumped on.  
23            Then we started talking about, well, some 
24  of the coastal areas are being degraded because of 
25  nonpoint source pollution, the next thing I know 
                                                     186
 1  every meeting we were swarmed over by County Board 
 2  Supervisors and different interest groups 
 3  representing different big companies that told us we 
 4  should be going elsewhere, don't worry about all 
 5  this thing.  
 6            So I guess it brings it back to, we need 
 7  to be taking this on a step-by-step basis and kind 
 8  of this is evolutionary, not revolutionary.  I think 
 9  that's the reality.  
10            We're still not any closer to dealing with 
11  my basic problem, which is sea lions.  I don't know 
12  that we will get much closer.  
13            I think we need to just be trying to pull 
14  together as much as we can with the recognition of, 
15  as Jack said, inconsistent mandates.  I mean, we're 
16  going to struggle for years to come on making this 
17  thing a reality.  But as long as we're moving in the 
18  right direction, I think we need to do those things 
19  that can be done.  
20            You know, when I was at Cal Fish and Game,  
21  the byword from the Secretary of Resources was you 
22  manage fisheries on a species-by-species and 
23  area-by-area basis.  That came right down from the 
24  top.  
25            Well, you know, that's going to take a 
                                                     187
 1  while to overcome.  So I think we're going to be 
 2  involved a lot longer -- by we, I mean MAFAC and 
 3  NOAA Fisheries -- than I'm going to be around, I 
 4  think, before we'll ever come close to beginning to 
 5  address some of these impacts.  
 6            It's just evolutionary, and we move 
 7  forward as we can, and try to reach out and pull 
 8  together as many people as we can.  But it's not 
 9  going to happen in the next few years.  
10            MR. HOGARTH:  I think, too, it would be 
11  helpful if we hear what you think you're hearing 
12  from constituent groups, and all.  Are people really 
13  behind ecosystem?  Or do they not know what it is?  
14            When we talk about it -- we need to get 
15  groups together to look at guidelines or criteria, 
16  should these be just sort of general guidelines?  I 
17  think this is an area that needs to be really looked 
18  at. 
19            Do we want -- as I said earlier, how much 
20  we want Congress involved in it.  And if they are 
21  involved, we want to know enough I think to lead 
22  them to the right thing without another mandate like 
23  Essential Fish Habitat.  We're still suffering from 
24  Essential Fish Habitat, in my opinion.  
25            MR. BILLY:  One suggestion I have is I 
                                                     188
 1  looked through the subcommittees and I noted there 
 2  is no subcommittee for ecosystem.  I recommend that 
 3  you form one.  
 4            I think that subcommittee could be helpful 
 5  when working with the Agency.  
 6            MS. RAYMOND:  Tom, we had a task force for 
 7  two years that worked on ecosystems, and produced 
 8  that report that was --  
 9            MR. BILLY:  Yeah, I read through that.  I 
10  remember that, that's a task force.  
11            It sounds to me like this should be an 
12  ongoing area that is specific support for MAFAC to 
13  the Agency, and it would be logical to have a 
14  subcommittee to do that.  
15            MR. HOGARTH:  That is tomorrow afternoon 
16  at 4:15, we'll talk about sort of the mission and 
17  planning for MAFAC.  I think that is an issue that 
18  will be talked about then.  
19            MR. BILLY:  The evolutionary approach I 
20  think can work, and it sounds like things are well 
21  underway, particularly listening to the comments 
22  made by the various representatives of the Fishery 
23  Management Councils.  
24            The other and final area I wanted to 
25  stress again was strategic planning.  I think there 
                                                     189
 1  is room for much more of that with stakeholder 
 2  input.  Certainly, the councils are in a position to 
 3  do this on a council-area basis.  But then I think 
 4  there's also a need for something national.  Perhaps 
 5  that would speak to the development of the 
 6  guidelines that you talked about, and some of the 
 7  other things that are needed now.  
 8            MR. LEIPZIG:  I would hope that Congress 
 9  doesn't take any action.  Just going back to the 
10  Sustainable Fisheries Act and Essential Fish 
11  Habitat, there's all sorts of things that were 
12  required there that, one, tied up the council 
13  process for a long time, and that also brought a lot 
14  of lawsuits.  
15            I can see ecosystem-based management or 
16  ecosystem management, or whatever you're calling it, 
17  if it falls into Congress' hands to do something, 
18  getting balled up with some mandates and 
19  requirements that cannot be fulfilled, and will be a 
20  road map for future litigation.  
21            I hope we can avoid that.  
22            It's been stated in the presentations that 
23  we've been moving in that direction and it's thought 
24  we will continue to move in that direction.  People 
25  have said it's evolution.  If we are properly 
                                                     190
 1  evolving in that direction, then I think that we're 
 2  doing something good.  
 3            I think if Congress doesn't get involved, 
 4  it could be an opportunity for the Agency, the 
 5  councils and the stakeholders and partners to 
 6  continue talking about it.  It's better to define 
 7  what it is we're trying to achieve here, and why and 
 8  do it in a more deliberate fashion than having some 
 9  legislation cast upon us that could be some -- 
10  what's the term, with some whacko legislation that 
11  may be inserted at the last minute, that may be 
12  taking us down a path that we don't want to go.  
13            So I would hope that Congress doesn't get 
14  involved.  Let's do it ourselves.  
15            MR. RAYBURN:  I was going to say what Tom 
16  said, I mean, about the subcommittee structure.  
17            I think certainly the point that we have, 
18  the bycatch, seems like that would be one.  We've 
19  dealt with the standardized reporting of bycatch, 
20  and I know that's one of those issues that would be 
21  ongoing, but as far as having a Standing Committee 
22  within MAFAC, it may be something more significant 
23  in the ecosystem realm.  
24            I suspect that the new members will be 
25  organizing subcommittees anyway.  So it may be then 
                                                     191
 1  what Pete says, a challenge to that subcommittee 
 2  could be following along the lines of what we did 
 3  with bycatch, albeit not with a congressional 
 4  mandate, but developing some type of standardized 
 5  methodology or standardized guidelines, or something 
 6  like that, to consider ecosystem-based management, 
 7  beyond the scope of what Bonnie's report was.  
 8            But the bottom line would basically be 
 9  that we're still going to keep four standing 
10  subcommittees, it may be that bycatch would morph 
11  into something more appropriate from the ecosystems 
12  management standpoint.  Thank you.  
13            MR. O'SHEA:  Bill, at least on the 
14  Atlantic side, I'm not sure you have much support 
15  from the states on this.  
16            We had Doug DeMaster come up to our annual 
17  meeting.  He did a terrific job, in my view.  
18            I've listened to his presentation a second 
19  time.  Even after that, I think it boils down to, 
20  philosophically, the state directors agree that this 
21  approach makes sense, but they're terrified of the 
22  fiscal resources that are required to do it, and 
23  their concern is it's going to become a black hole 
24  and just suck everything into it.  So it seems to 
25  me, number one, we're going to have to get them 
                                                     192
 1  onboard if you want to proceed, because they have 
 2  all the stuff up in the estuary, they have the 
 3  upland areas.  They've got to be a partner in this 
 4  thing, from the doing standpoint.  
 5            So it seems to me an argument that says, 
 6  we could do a lot of this with existing resources, 
 7  just depending on how we frame it, that may take 
 8  some of the fear and objections from some of those 
 9  folks.  
10            I don't think my initial report, I think 
11  you're aware of that.  I don't know how the other 
12  folks are, but I think you know where our guys are 
13  coming from.  
14            Thank you.  
15            MS. RAYMOND:  Bill, I would support MAFAC, 
16  the discussion tomorrow of the Committee to be more 
17  involved in providing specific advice to you.  
18            But I still remain concerned about the 
19  issue I brought up earlier, which is the council 
20  letter and their concerns about their involvement.  
21  Because I think, as a stakeholder, that's my best 
22  opportunity for continued involvement in this 
23  process as it goes along, is through my partners in 
24  the council.  
25            I'd just like to reiterate that.  But I 
                                                     193
 1  would hope that the rest of MAFAC would support that 
 2  strong position, that Regional Councils need to be 
 3  involved in this on a continuous, ongoing, regular 
 4  basis process.  So I would just throw that out.  
 5            I hope that everybody could just agree to 
 6  that by consensus, that that would be a strong 
 7  recommendation that we would make about this process 
 8  as it goes forward.  
 9            MR. HOGARTH:  Let me just say, I think 
10  what I've heard, I think we all are somewhat in 
11  agreement and on the same page that we're ready to 
12  move forward.  I think that we know that we have to 
13  -- we don't have to, we want to work with the 
14  councils.  
15            From a NOAA Fisheries' standpoint, I think 
16  as you heard, there are basically two levels.  There 
17  are fisheries through our mandates, and all that we 
18  have that we have to move forward.  
19            Then NOAA on the big picture, looking out, 
20  observing and bringing in other federal agencies is 
21  another thing.  
22            So I think from our perspective, we want 
23  to move forward and we plan to move forward.  I 
24  think we will work with the councils and set up this 
25  working group that will start to work sort of 
                                                     194
 1  regionally to look at some general guidelines.  
 2            I guess I, for one, think these can be 
 3  very prescriptive because I think this has got to be 
 4  by regions and all, there's differences.  I think 
 5  there are some general guidelines.  
 6            First, I would like for MAFAC, when they 
 7  meet tomorrow and talk, is to look at an ecosystem 
 8  committee or subcommittee, whatever it is called, to 
 9  sort of follow this through.  I think that as we 
10  work through it and work as a working group, that 
11  maybe this MAFAC Committee will want to look at what 
12  we've done with the councils through this other 
13  working group and supply help there, plus getting 
14  this word out.  
15            So I think this is one of the real issues 
16  for this coming year I think.  We need to be 
17  prepared for it.  So that would be what I would ask 
18  for MAFAC.  I think ya'll can think about that 
19  tonight.  
20            You have the report you've already given 
21  us, which I think you ought to go back and read that 
22  report.  I think it's a very perceptive report that 
23  was given by MAFAC.  I'm not sure how much of it is 
24  really different now.  But there may be some things 
25  you may want to add, but I think it was a very 
                                                     195
 1  perceptive report on ecosystem and where we're 
 2  going.  
 3            I think this group, the MAFAC, can really 
 4  give us some advice, and the councils.  We consider 
 5  the councils our partners, and I think this group 
 6  could work together very well on this issue.  
 7            We want to continue to move.  I think 
 8  we're moving in the right direction.  
 9            I think what now we've got to do is decide 
10  how do we call it, and what we're going to do when 
11  we do it.  But let's just continue to move.  
12            So with that, if it's okay, we will close 
13  the ecosystem.  We will take a short break and we're 
14  going to come back and Jack is going to bare his 
15  soul to you on Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization and 
16  tell you everything we know about what we're doing, 
17  and talk seriously about Magnuson Reauthorization. 
18            We would like to hear -- the Council 
19  members are here, too, we'd like to hear you talk 
20  about what you really think.  Let's think out of the 
21  box, what needs to be done on Magnuson to make it a 
22  better act for us.  Is it perfect the way it is, or 
23  are there things we can do to make it more 
24  responsive to our fisheries.  
25            So let's take a ten-minute break and come 
                                                     196
 1  back.  
 2            (Brief break taken) 
 3            MR. HOGARTH:  We will now talk about the 
 4  Magnuson-Stevens Act Reauthorization.  I think 
 5  you've heard quite a bit about the fact that it's no 
 6  doubt that this year will be a big year as far as 
 7  the Magnuson.  Senator Stevens has made it very 
 8  clear that he's going to move forward.  He wants a 
 9  lot of input.  He wants to listen to a lot of 
10  people.  
11            The Administration, we've had one bill 
12  that went through the system I think last year.  It 
13  didn't get anywhere because Congress ended.  Now 
14  we've got to start over.  
15            The Admiral and I have talked quite a bit.  
16  I do think we need to be a little bolder in looking 
17  at the Magnuson Reauthorization than we've been.  I 
18  think we definitely need to look at what can we do 
19  to make this process more responsive to conditions 
20  we see, more responsive than we have been.  
21            I think we do need to -- my personal 
22  opinion, I hope this doesn't get taken out of 
23  context, I do think this Magnuson-Stevens is 
24  basically a NEPA document.  I think you can satisfy 
25  the NEPA requirements, and I think we need to look 
                                                     197
 1  towards that.  
 2            Looking at alternatives, I think is 
 3  probably one of the only things that I see that 
 4  probably needs to be done.  But I think we need to 
 5  look at that.  
 6            I think the IFQ issue, we're in the 
 7  process of looking at IFQ guidelines.  You'll hear 
 8  more about that tomorrow.  
 9            But please, give us your input into this.  
10  I think this is a fine example of where we can work 
11  together with the councils and with MAFAC and come 
12  up with a very good deal and very good input for 
13  Senator Stevens.  I know they will pay close 
14  attention to what we come up with.  
15            Here's an opportunity, we need to take it, 
16  seize it.  We may not get this opportunity again.  I 
17  know we won't while I'm around.  I'm not sure how 
18  long you will, because, you know, Senator Stevens, 
19  every time I talk to him, he says, you know, I'm 
20  getting old.  And I -- when you talk him about the 
21  Reauthorization, I think he's going to really be 
22  pushing this, and it's his legacy he'll leave.  I 
23  think we need to take advantage.  
24            Things are improving in fisheries, and I 
25  think we need to make sure that we leave something 
                                                     198
 1  here that's a business-like process so fishermen 
 2  have more say-so, so to speak, in what they do, and 
 3  we can be responsive and operate this as the big 
 4  business that it is.  
 5            So with that, I'll get off my soapbox and 
 6  let Jack get on his sailboat. 
 7            (MSA Reauthorization) 
 8            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Yeah.  Right.  
 9            Thank you, Bill.  Again, I want to thank 
10  Alvin Katekaru and the Regional Office for getting 
11  you these handouts.  We're being defeated by 
12  technology here this afternoon.  We can't get into 
13  that.  
14            So why don't we just go ahead and start 
15  working off of the handout that you have, and I'll 
16  speak from my copy of it.  If we actually get the 
17  process working again, we'll have the process 
18  working again.  But if not, that's okay.  
19            This is I think the last item we have on 
20  the agenda today.  So I am sensitive to the fact 
21  that I'm standing between you and the bar.  
22            On the other hand, this meeting for MAFAC 
23  on this issue is a big one.  The reason is, this is 
24  really our opportunity to talk to Bill about what we 
25  really think needs to happen with the 
                                                     199
 1  Magnuson-Stevens Act.  I will give you a little bit 
 2  of background on how we see that process developing.  
 3            We're going to talk a little bit about 
 4  where are we right now with this.  There are a 
 5  number of principal issues that we've identified 
 6  that we would like to get some discussion going on 
 7  so we can have some input, and work with it over the 
 8  next couple of months.  
 9            There are other issues.  We have a long 
10  list of 30-some issues that we're working from that 
11  I didn't think were significant enough to try to 
12  take up even more of your time this afternoon.  But 
13  if any of you think that they are and want to have 
14  some further discussion on any of those, we can.  
15  But at least you'll have a sense of the scope of all 
16  of the issues that we're working with.  
17            Then we'll close by talking a little bit 
18  about what's next and how we see the process 
19  operating out in the future.  
20            Where are we now?  As Dave Whaley said 
21  earlier, the 109th Congress has begun.  Everything 
22  that went before it is important historical 
23  information.  But it's not on the table.  Everything 
24  has to start over.  
25            Now, you'll recall that in the 108th 
                                                     200
 1  Congress, which was last year, the Administration 
 2  had a bill on the Reauthorization of the 
 3  Magnuson-Stevens Act.  
 4            In the 107th Congress we almost had a 
 5  bill.  We worked on it for a couple of years.  We 
 6  talked to MAFAC.  We talked to a lot of people.  
 7            We started for the 107th Congress with the 
 8  premise that we didn't want to do anything big.  The 
 9  Sustainable Fisheries Act was still relatively new.  
10  We were learning a lot.  We wanted to give it an 
11  opportunity to work its way out, and that the only 
12  changes that should be made in the Reauthorization 
13  -- remember, we're talking more than four years ago 
14  now -- was things on the margins, that the SFA 
15  really ought to have an opportunity to continue to 
16  mature.  
17            That was our position.  
18            We didn't get the bill done until the very 
19  end of the 107th Congress.  As a matter of fact, it 
20  got cleared from OMB the day that Congress went 
21  home.  So it never got sent to the Hill in the 107th 
22  Congress.  
23            In the 108th we had to start all over 
24  again.  So what we decided for the 108th Congress 
25  was not to spend a lot of energy going back, 
                                                     201
 1  relooking at things and reinventing the wheel.  We 
 2  basically took the bill that we had and began 
 3  running it back through the system.  
 4            So what you saw in the Administration's 
 5  bill last year was basically an accumulation of 
 6  ideas that had been worked on for a couple of years.  
 7  There was nothing really earth shattering in there.  
 8  it was a lot of smaller issues working, as I said, 
 9  around the margin.  
10            For the 109th Congress, however, we very 
11  early on, as we were beginning to scope this out 
12  last year, came to the conclusion that we were now 
13  four years farther down the road than we were 
14  before, and that we probably ought to be trying to 
15  give some of this stuff a fresh look.  
16            So rather than start from the premise that 
17  we weren't going to do anything or propose anything 
18  that was very grand, we decided instead to start 
19  from the premise that everything could be on the 
20  table.  We can do a complete re-examination of what 
21  was in the Magnuson-Stevens Act and what we needed 
22  to do to try to make the law work better.  
23            Okay.  So all of our options are open and 
24  none of our positions are established yet.  
25            When we and the councils started talking 
                                                     202
 1  about beginning to put together the second Managing 
 2  the Nation's Fisheries Conference, everybody 
 3  realized this would be a perfect time to focus the 
 4  attention of the community at-large on questions 
 5  relating to Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization.  So 
 6  that's really from the beginning has been the basic 
 7  subject for that conference in March.  
 8            Bill decided that we would not want to go 
 9  into that conference with our mind made up on any 
10  issue, as moving forward with the councils and 
11  providing some leadership to the community, we 
12  wanted to have all of our options open.  So 
13  everything that we've been working on in connection 
14  with Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization for this year 
15  has been to try to identify issues and develop 
16  background and inform ourselves so that we can fully 
17  participate in the discussions that will be 
18  occurring in Washington during that last week in 
19  March.  
20            So our whole focus right now is on that 
21  last week in March.  
22            Now, we're going to talk about a number of 
23  issues here today, and the presentation that you've 
24  got highlights the six major issues and talks about 
25  basically what the issue is, maybe some of them have 
                                                     203
 1  some background characteristics that are associated 
 2  with it, and identify some of the pros and cons of 
 3  some alternatives.  
 4            But it would be helpful to us to have your 
 5  thinking about those pros and those cons, and how 
 6  they should be evaluated.  
 7            Also, whether or not you think, as MAFAC 
 8  -- and the councils certainly are welcome to weigh 
 9  in, too -- whether you think there are some 
10  recommended positions that we ought to be providing 
11  greater weight to.  
12            The other question we would like to know 
13  for any of these issues, are there other 
14  alternatives?  Are there some other things that we 
15  ought to be considering and maybe doing some 
16  background research on, or fleshing out ideas, 
17  before we get to the conference in March.  
18            You need to remember in all of these, the 
19  status quo is an alternative.  
20            For example, we talked today about 
21  ecosystems.  We're going to talk a little bit more 
22  about ecosystems.  Pete earlier said, we don't think 
23  we need anything -- he doesn't think we need 
24  anything on ecosystems stuff in the Reauthorization.  
25  That's a perfectly fine position to take.  We're 
                                                     204
 1  more than willing to take that position if it's the 
 2  right one.  
 3            So I don't have status quo listed under 
 4  the alternatives on any of these, but right up front 
 5  let's recognize that status quo is always an 
 6  alternative.  
 7            (Brief technical interruption)  
 8            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Okay.  On Slide 5 we get to 
 9  the first of the major issues that I would like to 
10  bring to you today, that's this whole question we've 
11  been talking about, about ecosystems.  
12            The real question out there about whether 
13  the Magnuson-Stevens Act should be amended to become 
14  more compatible with ecosystem approaches to 
15  management and what does ecosystem approaches to 
16  management mean in the context of fisheries 
17  management, specifically, how would it differ from 
18  the way that we do business today.  What's different 
19  between Jack's old boat and Jack's new boat?  
20            Linda's old boat, Linda's new boat.  
21            What is the relationship between fishery 
22  management plans that we've been working on, and 
23  fishery ecosystem plans that were contained in a 
24  couple of the amendments that were out there last 
25  time around, that Kitty says that her council is 
                                                     205
 1  working on, four pilot projects going on.  
 2            What's the essential difference between 
 3  those, and if that's something that needs to be 
 4  worked into the Magnuson-Stevens Act.  
 5            What role should the councils play in 
 6  ecosystems management, and how do they relate to  
 7  possible ecosystem level groups.  I avoided using 
 8  the Ecosystem Council word there.  
 9            But if there's going to be some other 
10  government structure for issues that transcend just 
11  fish issues, do we need to say something there about 
12  the relationship between them and the councils?  
13            Now, there are some considerations that 
14  are important here.  One complicating the process is 
15  this idea of litigation risk.  
16            If we amend the Magnuson-Stevens Act to 
17  include a lot of ideas that are revolving around 
18  ecosystems, do we then just throw more wood on the 
19  fire for the lawyers, who are unhappy with the 
20  decision -- these lawyers can come from anywhere.  
21            But someone who is unhappy with the 
22  decision, does this just create more litigation 
23  fodder without really advancing the process.  
24            Another real consideration I think we need 
25  to keep in mind is how stressed the council process 
                                                     206
 1  is and the NOAA Fisheries process is right now with 
 2  just managing the system that we have.  So I think 
 3  we don't want to create something that's going to 
 4  put a lot of extra burden on in a budget climate 
 5  where I think we have to be sort of sanguine about 
 6  our possibilities for seeing a lot of new resources 
 7  come to it.  
 8            Now, we've been thinking about three major 
 9  types of options that you could do in the 
10  Magnuson-Stevens Act.  
11            The one that you can have is an ecosystem 
12  plan and a fishery management plan.  That works 
13  something like this, somebody -- we don't need to 
14  say at this point who, somebody writes a fishery 
15  ecosystem plan and then somebody writes a separate 
16  fishery management plan that is a subset of that.  
17  That's one way of doing that business.  
18            Another way of doing that business is to 
19  have fishery ecosystem plans and fishery management 
20  plans.  That would be the Council writes a fishery 
21  ecosystem plan that becomes an umbrella document for 
22  all of the fisheries within the Council's 
23  jurisdiction.  Then the Council also writs fishery 
24  management plans that tier off that.  
25            Then a whole third approach is basically 
                                                     207
 1  to move completely away from fishery management 
 2  plans, as we have them, and make them instead 
 3  fishery ecosystem plans written by the councils.  
 4  But you would have the situation where -- let's pick 
 5  one, the Gulf of Mexico.  
 6            Instead of having -- how many plans, 
 7  Steve?  
 8            MR. ATRAN:  Eight.  
 9            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Instead of having eight 
10  plans, you would have one fishery ecosystem plan for 
11  the Gulf of Mexico.  
12            You might do the same thing in the 
13  Northeast.  
14            Or maybe you would have nested ecosystems 
15  within the Northeast, Gulf of Maine.  Georges Bank 
16  in Southern New England.  Mid Atlantic five.  That 
17  would be nested ecosystems within that North 
18  Atlantic Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem, that would 
19  have separate plans.  
20            But the plan would be oriented towards the 
21  ecosystem rather than coastal pelagics.  
22            So those are three general different 
23  approaches for fishery management plans that we 
24  thought of, and how to deal with it.  
25            One of the things that we could do is just 
                                                     208
 1  go through the law and add the word "ecosystem" in 
 2  100 different places and see whether or not that 
 3  moves us forward.  
 4            Most of us don't think that would actually 
 5  do much, and would probably be more litigation 
 6  fodder than anything else.  
 7            But I'd be glad to hear whatever thoughts 
 8  you had.  Because the way I plan to go through this 
 9  is just to lay each of these issues out and see what 
10  kind of discussion we have.  
11            We've talked about this somewhat today 
12  already.  So if anybody wants to add more to that.  
13            Mr. Chairman, do you want to call on 
14  people?  Or do you want me to do that?  
15            MR. OSTERBACK:  I have a question for you.  
16            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Yes.  
17            MR. OSTERBACK:  This is your Chairman 
18  today.  
19            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Do you want to call on 
20  people?  Or do you want me to do it?  
21            MR. HOGARTH:  You can do it.  
22            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Okay.  Alvin.
23            MR. OSTERBACK:  Under any one of the three 
24  types of plans, since this would basically change 
25  the way you're operating today in a council, how 
                                                     209
 1  would it affect where you have a fishery that's like 
 2  joint jurisdiction between the Feds and the State?  
 3  Would you have to then go in and have a meeting with 
 4  the State, as far as how their plan would operate?  
 5            I mean, would it have to mesh?  
 6            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Yeah, I would think so.  I 
 7  would think so.  
 8            That's highly characteristic of the 
 9  Atlantic experience right now.  It might be a 
10  complicating factor for doing that.  
11            MR. OSTERBACK:  Like in the State of 
12  Alaska, we have a lot of fisheries that they are -- 
13  that they overlap with one another.  
14            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Right.  Right.  
15            Jim.
16            MR. GILMORE:  Well, I guess recognizing 
17  that the status quo of the Magnuson Act is a part of 
18  this, these seem like the most activist sort of 
19  options out there, that other options would be 
20  direct the Agency to work with the councils to 
21  develop ecosystems principles for management; or 
22  here are ecosystem principles for putting in the law 
23  that would apply to the councils.  
24            I guess my thought is, that as you prepare 
25  for March, maybe include those options as well.  
                                                     210
 1            Because I think these three options are 
 2  very similar, but would contemplate a pretty 
 3  significant change in the act that would have people 
 4  bring --  
 5            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Well, do I imply from your 
 6  comment you think that would be a better way of 
 7  doing it than any one of these, is to have the 
 8  Service and the councils sit down and work out a 
 9  system of guidelines and principles that would have 
10  the councils applying more of an ecosystem approach?  
11            MR. GILMORE:  Well, my preferred 
12  alternative would be to not have anything in the 
13  law.  
14            But I think in terms of presenting options 
15  for people to discuss here and in March, would be a 
16  range, in a sense, that nothing -- or something in 
17  the law that directs the Agency, or something in the 
18  law that says here are ecosystem principles for the 
19  Agency to go to, or do all separate plans.  
20            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Bob.  Miguel.  Then Scott.  
21            MR. MAHOOD:  Under the options, Option 2, 
22  Fishery Ecosystem Plans and FMPs.  That's what we're 
23  in the process of doing right now.  We're developing 
24  a Fishery Ecosystem Plan and at the same time it 
25  will have a comprehensive amendment.  
                                                     211
 1            The plan itself will not have any 
 2  regulations in it.  It will just be more of a source 
 3  document, a source of the information relative to 
 4  the South Atlantic ecosystem, which is what we're 
 5  looking at right now.  
 6            The comprehensive amendment we would then 
 7  do relative to the FEP each year, would amend the 
 8  appropriate fishery management plans based on the 
 9  regulatory needs and the state of information we've 
10  developed during that year period.  
11            We look at -- this is something we're 
12  doing now.  I don't think that takes an amendment to 
13  the Magnuson Act.  It's one way to approach it.  
14            We're looking at this really in a very 
15  positive light in that instead of doing several FMP 
16  amendments each year, and all the related work that 
17  goes with that, we would do one comprehensive FEP 
18  each year, which would in turn then amend the 
19  necessary fishery management plan in a coordinated 
20  ecosystem-based approach.  
21            That's kind of the tact we're taking.  
22            MR. ROLON:  On both plans, I had a 
23  question.  
24            The present system allows you to write 
25  management plans across a range of species, from the 
                                                     212
 1  shoreline through the EEZ.  
 2            The problem is the relationship with the 
 3  management measures in both plans.  So how we going 
 4  to fix that so we will be able to have an 
 5  ecosystem-based management plan or fishery ecosystem 
 6  management plan, and then implement whatever 
 7  additional in that plan, have the regulations 
 8  throughout the range of the fishery?  
 9            I mean, it seems like we're preempting the 
10  states in that way.  
11            MR. DUNNIGAN:  I don't think I follow.  
12            Is your comment like Alvin's, that there 
13  has to be some provision for greater coordination?  
14            MR. ROLON:  No.  No.  I was just asking 
15  the question, how do you see this, the consistency 
16  -- you are always talking on the level to where we 
17  prepare the management plan based on ecosystem 
18  principles, or you're pushing that into the 
19  regulation aspect of fishery management.  
20            For example, right now we have our 
21  management plans -- comprehensive amendments on all 
22  of the plans we have.  The regulations are 
23  implemented in the EEZ --  
24            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Right.  
25            MR. ROLON:  -- only.  So you want us to 
                                                     213
 1  keep that regulation, you are not implying that we 
 2  go into the regulation part of management --  
 3            MR. DUNNIGAN:  We had thought about that, 
 4  and thought about proposing that, that this should 
 5  be used as a vehicle for extending federal 
 6  jurisdiction to within state waters.  
 7            Scott, and then Paul.  
 8            MR. BURNS:  Just to build on the point 
 9  that Jim Gilmore made.  
10            I think if you look at most of the 
11  positive examples of past efforts to build ecosystem 
12  ideas into fisheries management, they're all really 
13  done in the context of the existing fishery 
14  management planning process.  So the fourth option 
15  really would be to operate in that way.  
16            But to the extent the councils feel it's 
17  more efficient in some cases to do over-arching 
18  ecosystems plans, and amend on an annual basis, it's 
19  not clear to me that it makes that much difference 
20  which end the process begins at.  
21            It's more a matter of identifying what are 
22  the next steps going to be that address these 
23  issues.  
24            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Paul.  
25            MR. HOWARD:  I'll follow up on Miguel's 
                                                     214
 1  question.  
 2            Right now we manage throughout the range 
 3  of the species.  Say, for instance, scallops, 
 4  primarily Georges Bank.  But there's also New York 
 5  and Mid Atlantic.  
 6            So if we were to manage on the ecosystem, 
 7  it may complicate things more so than throughout the 
 8  range.  So we have to look at -- we have these 
 9  sharing agreements with Canada that say cod and 
10  haddock go into the Canadian waters.  So we agree on 
11  a percentage, and then we manage and they manage 
12  their percentage.  
13            I can envision doing the same thing with 
14  the Mid Atlantic.  Say, for instance, we did the 
15  Georges Bank scallops.  They would do Mid Atlantic 
16  scallops within their ecosystem, and we have some 
17  type of a scientific agreement as to which stock, 
18  how much this stock is in Georges Bank and how much 
19  is in Mid Atlantic.  
20            There's a lot of questions that need to be 
21  answered.  
22            MR. DUNNIGAN:  But isn't the implication 
23  also that you might not be managing scallops.  You 
24  would be managing at the ecosystem level, somewhat 
25  up from scallops.  It would be more than just 
                                                     215
 1  scallop resources.  
 2            Tony.
 3            MR. DILERNIA:  Paul made a point, and I 
 4  guess this goes back to that question that Mike 
 5  asked us -- or someone asked about, what is an 
 6  ecosystem.  
 7            Paul just took the Northeast, about three 
 8  or four ecosystems.  Is that what we're trying to 
 9  do, that finite of a separation?  
10            I mean, if you look at the observing 
11  systems that we were discussing about before, is the 
12  Northeast Ocean Observing System, as most 
13  oceanographers would agreed, that ecosystem 
14  basically is from Hatteras to the Scotian Shelf.  
15            So I need to know which ecosystem we're 
16  talking about.  Are we talking about the Northeast 
17  ecosystem, which is Hatteras to the Canadian Line?  
18  Or are we talking about the Mid Atlantic, the 
19  Georges Bank, the Gulf of Maine, the Southern New 
20  England ecosystems?  
21            Until I know that, I can't go to the next 
22  step to give you any advice.  
23            MR. DUNNIGAN:  I mean, depending on the 
24  nature of your question, you may be talking about 
25  different levels, depending on what it is you're 
                                                     216
 1  concerned about.  
 2            I can see some things that would be 
 3  relevant only within the Gulf of Maine and the Gulf 
 4  of Maine ecosystem approach would deal with those 
 5  issues perfectly well.  
 6            There would be other issues that have got 
 7  to be resolved on a Cape Hatteras to the Scotian 
 8  Shelf basis.  
 9            MR. DILERNIA:  And if you would discuss 
10  their Regional Ecosystem Council there, I would be 
11  looking at the larger entity?  
12            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Right.  But right now we've 
13  sort of left that mostly behind.  
14            MR. DILERNIA:  Okay.  
15            MR. DUNNIGAN:  We're talking about 
16  fisheries here.  We're not talking about trying to 
17  manage a lot of other issues that are important in 
18  the ecosystem; marine transportation, tourism, 
19  energy extraction.  
20            Just now we're talking about ecosystem 
21  approaches to fisheries within the Magnuson-Stevens.  
22            Yes, Bob.  
23            MR. FLETCHER:  I guess I'm a little 
24  concerned.  
25            I like Jim's approach because it builds on 
                                                     217
 1  what information is available and identifies the 
 2  gaps.  I think that makes a lot of sense, because 
 3  you're not even -- right now the councils don't even 
 4  have enough money to do what they're already 
 5  required to do.  
 6            If you get into one of these options 
 7  you've identified, you're talking about a lot of 
 8  money.  So it seems as if we need to know what's 
 9  going to be available, what resources are going to 
10  be available before we take too big of a bite.  
11            Since we're talking about evolutionary and 
12  not revolutionary approach, then Jim's concept is 
13  kind of taking small steps and beginning to build a 
14  framework upon which we can establish this bigger 
15  picture when the knowledge and the money may be 
16  available to implement it.  
17            Because how long is the council's funding 
18  -- I mean, that's just a real basic concern that a 
19  lot of us have had for a long time.  
20            Is there going to be a lot more money for 
21  us, Dave?  
22            MR. WHALEY:  No.  
23            MR. FLETCHER:  No.  
24            (Brief period of people speaking at the 
25  same time)
                                                     218
 1            MR. SCHWAAB:  Well, you know, part of my 
 2  experience was I worked on the Chesapeake Bay FEP.  
 3  I think that influences probably my leaning toward 
 4  your second option here, which is Fishery Ecosystem 
 5  Plans and FEPs, as long as -- what we dealt with in 
 6  Chesapeake Bay was really an FEP that was very broad 
 7  and was -- ultimately, the hope was that at best it 
 8  would be kind of a broad strategic guidance.  
 9            I mean, what it started out with was that 
10  was kind of a general sort of characterization of 
11  the system.  
12            And the strategic guidance that it could 
13  offer would be things like, here are the key 
14  relationships within the system.  So that as we then 
15  look at individual FEPs, we can begin to sort of 
16  look at the ways that various FMPs might interact or 
17  not.  So here are the broad relationships.  Here  
18  are the things that need to be addressed.  
19            And then in the very broadest sense, 
20  establish some priorities for research, for 
21  information, as well as for some of these ultimate 
22  single-species-based management decisions in 
23  relationship with each other.  
24            I think, if that sort of characterization 
25  of what that FEP would be, based on the experience 
                                                     219
 1  that I had with the Chesapeake Bay FEP, I would lean 
 2  that way in the sense that you have sort of one 
 3  broad kind of strategic background that identifies 
 4  relationships and priorities in areas of 
 5  investigation as you move forward with individual 
 6  management decisions.  
 7            MR. DUNNIGAN:  That sounds a lot like what 
 8  Bob was describing as the model that South Atlantic 
 9  was working on.  
10            MR. SCHWAAB:  And I was intrigued by that.  
11            The only thing I heard there that I wasn't 
12  quite ready to leap to yet was this idea that you 
13  would sort of make decisions that would then filter 
14  down into each FMP, which might be great.  I just 
15  don't know how it would -- see how it works.  
16            MR. MAHOOD:  What you would do is you 
17  would consider how the action could affect the 
18  components of the FMP.  
19            So I think as Louis was saying earlier, 
20  whereas before in single-species management, we made 
21  management decisions on snapper grouper, we didn't 
22  pay any attention to what it did to the mackerel 
23  fishery or anything else.  
24            Now when we look at it, we'll be looking 
25  at what are the human impacts and how would it 
                                                     220
 1  impact the fishery to do relative to the rest of the 
 2  ecosystem.  
 3            At some point we hope we'll be able to 
 4  have predator/prey relationships where we can be 
 5  able to tell how it affects fish and their 
 6  interactions.  But that's a long way down the road.  
 7            MR. RAYBURN:  It's occurred to me that 
 8  perhaps the Essential Fish Habitat consideration 
 9  that the councils make in their management plans may 
10  be a first step into the ecosystem consideration, 
11  ecosystem-based management.  I'm wondering what 
12  lessons learned there were from the implementation 
13  of Essential Fish Habitat considerations, and 
14  whether those lessons learned may be applicable to 
15  these ecosystems as you continue to expand the 
16  consideration for the councils for an overall 
17  ecosystem approach, whether there's any benefit to 
18  consider that in your decision on where it should be 
19  placed and how it should be implemented.  
20            MR. DUNNIGAN:  You said about the lessons 
21  --  
22            MR. RAYBURN:  The lessons learned --  
23            MR. DUNNIGAN:  About the substance or 
24  about how difficult it was to do?  
25            MR. RAYBURN:  I think both.  
                                                     221
 1            My sense would be, and I wasn't directly 
 2  involved in the process, but what experiences there 
 3  may have been relative to implementation of an 
 4  Essential Fish Habitat consideration in the 
 5  development of a fishery management plan and what if 
 6  any of those lessons would provide you as far as how 
 7  to go about setting the stage for an ecosystem-based 
 8  management approach.  
 9            Whether it would be greater detail within 
10  a statutory implementation, through a regulatory -- 
11  or providing some guidelines to the councils.  If 
12  there is any -- if there's any similarity between 
13  those two and whether that might be helpful in 
14  making those decisions.  
15            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Gary and then Chris.  
16            MR. REISNER:  I just wanted to address 
17  your issue about the concerns about the budget and 
18  whether or not we're biting off more than we can 
19  chew.  
20            That's sort of a chicken-and-an-egg issue.  
21            It's true that a lot of people believe 
22  that the budget sort of controls substance versus 
23  substance controlling the budget.  But from the 
24  Reauthorization perspective -- and I'll defer to 
25  Dave on this -- it would seem to me we have to 
                                                     222
 1  identify those activities and those authorities we 
 2  think we need to best manage the fisheries, or the 
 3  ecosystems, or both, identify how much that's going 
 4  to cost and include within the authorization 
 5  sufficient funds to cover that.  
 6            Now, there are two issues.  
 7            But the Administration will look at that 
 8  and they'll trade off, and they'll say, no, we don't 
 9  want to put that much money in it.  So we'll either 
10  take out some of the stuff that we're asking you to 
11  do, or they'll leave it in there and there won't be 
12  enough to cover it.  
13            Those issues will come up on the Hill.  
14            But I can guarantee you, you're more 
15  likely to get money appropriated for these 
16  activities if there's an authorization calling for 
17  it than waiting until you get money or trying to get 
18  money without the authorization.  
19            So I would just recommend you not limit 
20  your discussion for fear that you're not going to 
21  get money appropriated for it, because there's a 
22  much better chance of getting the money appropriated 
23  for it if the authorization is in the 
24  Magnuson-Stevens.  
25            I don't know.  Dave?
                                                     223
 1            MR. WHALEY:  That's right.  
 2            MR. OLIVER:  It just seems to be a lot of 
 3  semantics in this discussion that I think is worth 
 4  underscoring.  
 5            Because, as Mike pointed out this morning 
 6  in some of the discussion, a lot of what some of the 
 7  councils and NOAA are doing now, we're not calling 
 8  it an ecosystem plan or ecosystem management.  We're 
 9  calling it single-species management.  I think we're 
10  giving it an unfair label in many cases.  
11            Because you look at it, and it's a fairly 
12  comprehensive, in some cases, ecosystem approach.  
13            Even in Bob's example earlier, it turns 
14  out, well, single-species management, now we're 
15  starting to look at impacts on other fisheries.  
16            Well, even now under what we're calling 
17  single-species management, and in our case in the 
18  North Pacific we have a Groundfish Complex FMP.  So 
19  we're sort of always looking at the complex.  
20            But even within that, when we do an 
21  amendment that may be specific only to the cod 
22  fishery, we're required by existing law in the 
23  Magnuson Act to look at impacts on other fisheries.  
24  So we're required to look at species -- so-called 
25  single-species management, to look at impacts on all 
                                                     224
 1  the other fisheries and fishery participants, and we 
 2  are doing a lot of that now.  
 3            So I think that single-species label is an 
 4  unfair label in many ways.  
 5            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Good point.  
 6            I have to say I'm not detecting any ground 
 7  swell around the room that a major new legislative 
 8  change is required to get us to begin thinking and 
 9  moving more in an ecosystem approach.  
10            Well, in the sense that many of us have 
11  under way already anyway.  
12            MR. WHALEY:  Let me just throw out this 
13  idea.  
14            One of the reasons I cited this as being a 
15  big priority for members is a lot of members are 
16  talking about the need to mandate councils to do 
17  ecosystems plans.  So there are going to be members 
18  who are going to throw out that idea.  
19            So if you don't like that idea, I need the 
20  help from the Agency, from MAFAC and from the 
21  councils telling us why we don't need that and what 
22  progress is already under way.  I need a good 
23  argument why we don't need that.  
24            So think about that in the case of all of 
25  the issues we're talking about here.  If you don't 
                                                     225
 1  think action is needed, give me the reasons why it's 
 2  not needed.  I need that help.  
 3            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Or is there something else 
 4  that we can do that would address this concern.  
 5            If ecosystem is sort of the hot thing, 
 6  people are going to expect Congress to do something 
 7  about it.  
 8            Let's have Dan.  Then Mike.  Then Steve.  
 9            MR. FURLONG:  That's a good point.  
10            I think SFA is a good example of a bad 
11  effort as it relates to Essential Fish Habitat.  The 
12  definition that Congress gave for Essential Fish 
13  Habitat is so broad that everything became Essential 
14  Fish Habitat, and consequently nothing -- it became 
15  absolute.  
16            If you go into ecosystems, I think both 
17  Chris and Bob have made the comment that we're 
18  already doing it.  
19            We, in our single-species approach, we do 
20  address bycatch.  Specific changes, change in gear 
21  sizes, or time/area closures.  We do the same thing 
22  for Essential Fish Habitat.  We consider whether or 
23  not particular gears have certain effects.  So we're 
24  doing it.  
25            What we need to do is we just need to put 
                                                     226
 1  on a good PR program to convince those members that, 
 2  hey, this ecosystem management is already being 
 3  done.  We're just not getting credit for what we're 
 4  doing.  We do address bycatch.  We do deal in 
 5  Essential Fish Habitat.  So in the more wholistic 
 6  sense, you can call it single-species management, 
 7  but that might be a bad label.  We really need a 
 8  good PR program.  
 9            But Essential Fish Habitat is a good 
10  illustration of how Congress in the Sustainable 
11  Fisheries Act created a monster.  
12            MR. WHALEY:  Nobody that I talked to in 
13  Congress when we passed that thought that what we 
14  got was what we were telling the Agency to do.  The 
15  word "necessary" for reproduction, et cetera, was 
16  kind of ignored in what the Agency came out with, I 
17  think, which opened it up to everything is  
18  essential.  
19            We were looking for discrete 
20  identifications of various or specific fisheries.  
21            MR. FURLONG:  I think it was a good 
22  definition that the group came up with, as far as 
23  ecosystems.  Everybody agreed to a definition, but 
24  no one really has a specific understanding so that 
25  maybe we could move forward.  
                                                     227
 1            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Mike.  Steve.  Then Bob.  I 
 2  want to see if we can move on.  We've got some other 
 3  things to talk about.  
 4            MR. SISSENWINE:  I don't have any strong 
 5  view as to whether there needs to be some 
 6  legislative action on this or not.  
 7            But I do want to comment that while there 
 8  is a lot of packaging that needs to be done -- and 
 9  there are places where I go where they actually make 
10  a speech that says it's time to declare victory on 
11  this so that we don't continue to sort of beat 
12  ourselves up for doing nothing.  
13            I wouldn't want to give the impression 
14  that everything we do is a sufficient ecosystem 
15  approach.  I think I can look around the country and 
16  see things that are being done on every topic that 
17  somebody might think is important for an ecosystem 
18  approach.  
19            But I can't look to anywhere and see that 
20  they're all being done in that way in a systematic 
21  manner.  
22            So I do want to make sure that in some of 
23  the things that I've said, and perhaps others have 
24  said, to be very positive about the good things that 
25  are being done, but we don't get lulled into 
                                                     228
 1  thinking it is simply an advertizing campaign and 
 2  we're doing at all.  
 3            I think we are doing a lot of the right 
 4  things.  We can learn from what's being done in one 
 5  system that isn't being done in another.  We can do 
 6  it all more systematically so we have a greater 
 7  sense of confidence that we've actually gone through 
 8  a process that's doing the most reasonable job we 
 9  can under the circumstances.  
10            Now, if we can put together guidelines and 
11  work together to agree to those and see how they get 
12  implemented with or without legislation, I'm not 
13  really commenting on whether we need legislation or 
14  not, but I think we're not being honest nor are we 
15  going to convince anyone that it's all being done 
16  adequately right now.  
17            There's lot of good stuff being done, but 
18  there's a lot more that needs to be done in a more 
19  systematic manner if we're really going to be 
20  credible in the statements that can be made about 
21  this evolution.  
22            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Steve.
23            MR. ATRAN:  Listening to this, I'm 
24  thinking that we may need to make some changes that 
25  incorporate the ecosystem approaches in the Magnuson 
                                                     229
 1  Act the next time it's reauthorized, not this time.  
 2            It seems as though we're still feeling our 
 3  way around and still trying to figure out exactly 
 4  what we want to do and what direction we want to go 
 5  in here.  I'm afraid if the Magnuson Act tries to 
 6  create some legislative restrictions on us, it's 
 7  just going to put us in a straitjacket that we may 
 8  not be ready to be put in it.  
 9            I think we need the flexibility right now 
10  to go ahead and see how we're going to develop this 
11  ecosystem approach, then maybe five years down the 
12  road, or whenever the next time the Magnuson Act is 
13  going to be reauthorized, we'll have a better idea 
14  of what we're doing and we'll be able to put some 
15  appropriate guidelines into the legislature.  
16            MR. MAHOOD:  Just a quick comment. 
17            I think where the problem comes in, we saw 
18  these at our workshop, in fisheries management a lot 
19  of what we do is based on ecosystem-approach type  
20  management.  What we heard people say, though, who 
21  are in favor of ecosystem management, is you don't 
22  have authority to control water quality.  You don't 
23  have authority to control land development, 
24  destruction of habitat, this type of thing.  
25            Until someone in the group has that, you 
                                                     230
 1  really can't do ecosystem management.  
 2            So from our own viewpoint, we're doing 
 3  ecosystem-based management.  But they're right, we 
 4  don't have those other authorities.  
 5            But we're not going to get those other 
 6  authorities by changing the Magnuson Act.  That's 
 7  not going to happen.  
 8            But I think that's where the disconnect 
 9  comes from sometime from our point of view and from 
10  other people's point of view.  
11            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Anything else?  Move on.  
12            Let's go look at the next one.  The next 
13  one is National Standard 1.  
14            MR. HOGARTH:  I'm leaving the room, 
15  because again, we haven't gotten this out and we 
16  were supposed to have it out by Christmas.  So I'm 
17  leaving the room.  I don't want to hear it anymore.  
18            I was waiting for that, Jack, because I 
19  was going to leave anyway. 
20            MR. DUNNIGAN:  You're going to leave 
21  anyway.  
22            MR. HOGARTH:  National Standard 1 was 
23  supposed to be out and it's still not out.  I can't 
24  figure out what the holdup in the Agency is on 
25  getting it out.  
                                                     231
 1            MR. DUNNIGAN:  I'm afraid to tell you.  
 2            MR. HOGARTH:  Nobody will tell me.  That's 
 3  true.  
 4            MR. DUNNIGAN:  I was going to give my 
 5  little prelude speech.  Do you want to go right into 
 6  this, Scott?  
 7            MR. BURNS:  Well, I was just going to 
 8  suggest that this is an issue we've talked about 
 9  quite a bit.  
10            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Right.  
11            MR. BURNS:  I think some of the other 
12  issues, I think we really haven't talked about.  So 
13  why don't we spend more time talking about that.  
14            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Is everybody comfortable 
15  with that?  That's where we'll head.  
16            The next issue we've got here is the 
17  separation of science and allocation.  Should the 
18  Scientific and Statistical Committees set total 
19  allowable catches and leave Councils to allocate 
20  allowable harvest.  
21            This is not a new issues.  It's been 
22  talked about in the community at-large for many, 
23  many years.  
24            There were some other things that were in 
25  the USCOP report about SSC, including how they are 
                                                     232
 1  appointed, whether they are compensated and some 
 2  conflict of interest issues that got picked up there 
 3  as well.  
 4            Some of the basic considerations that 
 5  we've had is as to whether or not it's really 
 6  possible to separate harvest issues from allocation 
 7  issues, that they're just really two sides of the 
 8  same coin and that taking this kind of approach will 
 9  really just transfer a lot of the political issues 
10  that are associated with the process to the SSC 
11  rather than having them ironed out at the political 
12  body, which is the council.  
13            So some of the alternatives that have been 
14  brought forward are, one would be a lesser sort of 
15  action, which would be just more clearly articulate 
16  the relationships between the respective roles of 
17  NOAA and the scientific committee and the council.  
18            Another would be to require the councils 
19  if they're not accepting advice that was given to 
20  them by the SSC is to specifically say why and make 
21  sure that record is clearly established.  
22            Another alternative is to go with the 
23  USCOP recommendation, which would be to have the SSC 
24  set the allowable catch level and then it would just 
25  be up to the council to divide that up among the 
                                                     233
 1  various user groups.  
 2            Then the fourth alternative would be to 
 3  try to clarify the issues as to the matter of 
 4  National Standards and not try to deal with it in 
 5  the area of legislation.  
 6            Chris.
 7            MR. OLIVER:  Andy Rosenberg gave a 
 8  presentation last week in Seattle that I happened to 
 9  be able to catch.  He, of course, was on the Ocean 
10  Commission and he was talking about ecosystems and 
11  the separation of science.  
12            I asked him this question, and I ask you 
13  this question, when people say separate science and 
14  allocation, how much of that is all about setting 
15  TAC and then everything else about allocation.  
16  Because to me, even in that sense, there are often 
17  some considerations that become difficult -- where 
18  science and allocation become implied.  
19            When you get past just setting TACs, there 
20  are some of these other issues, it does become 
21  impossible to separate the two.  
22            But I guess my question becomes --  
23            MR. DUNNIGAN:  It's possible or 
24  impossible?  
25            MR. OLIVER:  It's impossible.  
                                                     234
 1            So how much of this sentiment of 
 2  separating science and allocation is really just 
 3  about setting TACs?  Or is it other stuff, too?  
 4            MR. DUNNIGAN:  I'm not really sure.  There 
 5  are some councils that don't like to manage with 
 6  TACs, and have other approaches.  I'm not sure 
 7  whether that complicates -- I think it probably 
 8  complicates the matter of trying to have some 
 9  separation here.  
10            But the basic idea is to have scientists 
11  decide how many fish you can take out of the ocean 
12  rather than a political one.  
13            Tony.  Then Jim.
14            MR. DILERNIA:  Jack, the Council is where 
15  it is happening as far as bearing the responsibility 
16  doing recommendations to the Secretary.  So I would 
17  leave the final decision with the councils.  
18            I would require the council to give a real 
19  good explanation as to why they don't accept the 
20  advice that they've gotten from the SSC.  So I guess 
21  the option there is, have them make the final 
22  decision.  But if they don't take the advice given 
23  by the SSC, to provide a detailed explanation would 
24  be my recommendation.  
25            But while we're on the subject of the SSC, 
                                                     235
 1  I also believe that the members of the SSC should be 
 2  compensated for their work.  These folks are -- if 
 3  you want good work, these folks are at the top of 
 4  their game, they're very, very busy.  To expect them 
 5  to break away from their schedules, and whatever, 
 6  and give you quality work would be presumptuous at 
 7  times.  So I believe they should be as compensated 
 8  as Council members, if not more, for the work that 
 9  they do.  
10            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Jim.  Vince.  Miguel.  
11            MR. GILMORE:  The slide that suggests the 
12  SSCs set TAC levels -- and I don't know if this was 
13  intended to reference the Ocean Commission's 
14  recommendations, but their recommendation was that 
15  the SSC should set the ABC levels and the councils 
16  should set TAC at or below that level.  
17            Well, that's certainly for various 
18  groundfish, that's a substantial difference there 
19  when you set TACs below the ABCs.  
20            MR. DUNNIGAN:  This is my slide.  I wasn't 
21  being that careful to draw that distinction.  
22            I was just trying to convey what the 
23  thought that the scientists would set the harvest 
24  limit, and it would be up to the council to --  
25            MR. GILMORE:  Then with respect to the 
                                                     236
 1  second one there, the SSC's compensation, another 
 2  thing you might add to that is be sure there are 
 3  qualifications in the act for SSC members, because I 
 4  think that gets the issue of if the councils will 
 5  continue to employ SSC, may be one way of modifying 
 6  those who perhaps -- you know, to have 
 7  qualifications in there for the scientists, as well 
 8  as conflict of interest.  
 9            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Qualifications established 
10  by --  
11            MR. GILMORE:  In the act, say to be 
12  qualified to serve on the SSC, you must have the 
13  following qualifications.  
14            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Have that in the statute?  
15  You think that's a good idea?  Or you think that's 
16  an option?  
17            MR. GILMORE:  Both.  
18            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Vince.  Miguel.  Bob.  Ken.  
19  Oh, boy.  Chris.  Dan.
20            MR. O'SHEA:  Thanks, Jack.  
21            Following up on what Tony said, it seems 
22  to me that in some Council's justification, slash, 
23  rationalization of why the SSC advice is not taken, 
24  it's already being articulated.  So I guess my 
25  question is if you mandated that such rationale be 
                                                     237
 1  put out there, to what end would that be?  
 2            Would that be that rationale would have to 
 3  meet some sort of standard; and if it fails to meet 
 4  that, the Secretary would take some sort of action?  
 5  Then if so, what entity will be making the 
 6  decisions?  
 7            So maybe I don't understand the proposal.  
 8  But I don't see why that's going to get a different 
 9  outcome than what's happening right now.  
10            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Okay.  Miguel.
11            MR. ROLON:  I've got two points.  
12            I am all for paying the SSC, but given the 
13  situation of lack of funds that we have, you may end 
14  up getting as much science as you can pay for, which 
15  probably could be less than we have now.  
16            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Thank you.  
17            MR. MAHOOD:  I'm going to defer to some of 
18  the MAFAC members here because I get to talk to you 
19  all the time.  
20            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Ken.
21            MR. ROBERTS:  I guess as a practical 
22  point, I think the situation -- let me paraphrase, 
23  in the Gulf, probably is getting pretty thin on 
24  access to the scientific community for all of the 
25  committees that keep getting created, which may have 
                                                     238
 1  to delve into a pool of people who aren't as 
 2  committed, and therefore you get a problem with 
 3  forums, and things like this.  
 4            But I think if you put the Scientific and 
 5  Statistical Committee in charge of making a policy 
 6  choice, like setting the TAC, you're going to cut 
 7  your pool down because, I have to approve people 
 8  doing service on boards and commissions, and 
 9  whatnot, and you're going to lose most of my people 
10  because I'm not going to allow them to do it.  
11            The second thing is, if you compensate 
12  them, I have to make them turn in a Presidential 
13  Memorandum or letter, which means they have to take 
14  annual leave to get that money.  So it's one of 
15  these practical things with universities that you 
16  may cut into your pool, even though you're not 
17  intending to do that.  
18            Just be cautious about it.  
19            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Thank you.  Chris.
20            MR. DORSETT:  I want to stress my strong 
21  support for this concept of separating science and 
22  allocation.  I know there are issues that have to be 
23  worked out with how it's going to work, but I think 
24  it's fundamental to sound management.  
25            I also want to support what Vince said on 
                                                     239
 1  this second bullet here, documentation of reasons 
 2  why they do not follow the SSC advice.  I think 
 3  that's already being done.  And if you choose to go 
 4  that route, you should have come criteria there for 
 5  what accounts for a good excuses and what doesn't.  
 6            I think there are two other issues that 
 7  the Fishery Service should consider here.  One is  
 8  it's fine to set a total allowable catch level, but 
 9  you have to have accounting systems or a management 
10  regime in place that keeps mortality within those 
11  limits.  So even if you have scientists defining 
12  what the TAC should be, if you don't have the 
13  management system in place that's going to stay 
14  under those levels, you still have a problem.  
15            That's all.  
16            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Thank you.  Dan.  
17            MR. FURLONG:  Let me ask you a question, 
18  Jack.  Assuming that the SS Committee is the 
19  absolute authority with regards to setting the TAC, 
20  does that mean the Secretary forfeits his 
21  prerogative?  
22            MR. DUNNIGAN:  I mean, we're talking about 
23  changing the law, so.  
24            MR. FURLONG:  I'm thinking anything the 
25  council puts in the system, we don't make the 
                                                     240
 1  regulations, the Agency does.  
 2            MR. DUNNIGAN:  That's right.  
 3            MR. FURLONG:  So in that context, if the 
 4  Secretary doesn't agree with what the SSC Committee 
 5  says is the TAC, he can change that.  
 6            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Probably.  Unless we change 
 7  the law.  
 8            MR. FURLONG:  So to me, it's somewhat -- 
 9  not a very critical issue to me, because the 
10  regulatory authority, i.e., the Agency, is the one 
11  that has the decision as to whether or not a TAC is 
12  A, B or C, and whether or not the allocation is D, E 
13  and F.  
14            So what the council does is a hand-off to 
15  the Secretary.  The way this is being presented is 
16  like, hey, here's what the SSC says and, Mr. 
17  Secretary, you're stuck with it.  
18            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Well, I've never read that 
19  implied into the arguments that people have made.  
20  I've seen that there are people who are proposing 
21  this more as a check on the councils.  But you raise 
22  a good point.  
23            (Brief period of people speaking at the 
24  same time)  
25            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Pete.
                                                     241
 1            MR. LEIPZIG:  My comment is basically the 
 2  same as Dan.  
 3            This is confusing to me because the 
 4  council is the advisory body to the Secretary, the 
 5  Secretary has overturned councils in the past.  If 
 6  people don't like it, deal with the Secretary.  
 7            MR. DUNNIGAN:  In other words, unnecessary 
 8  if the Secretary is doing his job?  
 9            MR. LEIPZIG:  Absolutely.  
10            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Ralph.  Then Eric.  
11            MR. BROWN:  Thank you, Jack. 
12            One of the things in the Pacific Region, 
13  having to do with rebuilding the species, we're told 
14  every year that the ABC is the change relative to 
15  how we allocate percentage commercial or 
16  recreational.  So to some degree on that one, it's 
17  possible to separate allocation from ABC. 
18            The second is TAC, for sure, and often 
19  ABC, becomes a consideration of risk policy, what 
20  the acceptable risk is to the stock, and that's a 
21  policy decision.  I don't know that scientists are 
22  really the ones that should be making policy 
23  decisions.  
24            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Eric, let me go back to 
25  Rick.  He had his hand up first.  
                                                     242
 1            MR. SAVAGE:  Well, I thought if you're 
 2  going to separate the allocation and science you're 
 3  really... (Laughter).  
 4            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Eric.  
 5            MR. SCHWAAB:  Well, I was thinking about 
 6  this in the context of ecosystem-based management, 
 7  particularly multi-species decisions.  This might 
 8  make really complicated the councils' ability to 
 9  make good effective multi-species management 
10  decisions down the road.  
11            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Alvin.  Then maybe we can 
12  move on. 
13            MR. OSTERBACK:  You know, in the area I 
14  come from I think, the system, the way it is works 
15  fine.  
16            So if there's a problem with their SSC, 
17  they need to fix it.  Or if there's a problem with 
18  the council, then they need to fix that, you know, 
19  wherever this problem is taking place at.  
20            But ours works fine the way it is.  So I 
21  don't want to see any changes in it.  
22            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Before I move on, let me 
23  just say that as I've been talking about this issue 
24  with people, the people who I know who are most 
25  opposed to doing this are the National Marine 
                                                     243
 1  Fisheries Service scientists.  It just seems this is 
 2  really sort of confusing their role.  
 3            Any further comments before I go on?  
 4  Let's move on.  
 5            Okay.  Council appointments is the next 
 6  issue.  Paul.
 7            MR. HOWARD:  I was just going to say the 
 8  issue is really based on the best available science.  
 9  That's the issue.  What's the best available 
10  science?  
11            When you get down to an SSC, we don't use 
12  our SSC to give us advice, quite frankly.  We've got 
13  a peer review system that is independently peer 
14  reviewed and the TAC or the effort is determined.  
15  So then we give it to our plan team that says, based 
16  on this peer review you need to reduce that by this 
17  and this equates to the landings, that's the best 
18  available science.  
19            The SSC only comes into play when we have 
20  conflicting assessments, like say, the Canadians and 
21  our U.S. assessment, we ask them for advice.  
22            But because of single-species management 
23  and because of FMPs must have measurable criteria, 
24  status determination criteria, it becomes very 
25  formulated.  This is the current F.  This is the 
                                                     244
 1  current B.  What do you have to do, councils?  
 2            So we have to be careful, even the SSC is 
 3  too much, you know, power when it's not needed.  
 4            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Okay.  Can we move ahead 
 5  then, and talk about Council appointments?  Council 
 6  appointments.  
 7            The common criticism of the council system 
 8  is its voting members are drawn excessively from 
 9  user groups, particularly the fishing industry, that 
10  means commercial and recreational, and don't include 
11  adequate representation of nonuser groups.  
12            Another point, governors often nominate 
13  only from specific sectors and not broadly based.  
14  Also, that the Magnuson-Stevens Act currently only 
15  requires on the councils that there be an equitable 
16  distribution of seats on each council between 
17  commercial and recreational and that there are other 
18  sectors or interests that need to have some mandated 
19  coverage within the law.  
20            So there are some considerations that we 
21  have to be concerned about here I think.  First of 
22  all, is that any kind of formula may end up tying 
23  the hands on representation so that you can't mold 
24  the representation on a particular council to the 
25  particular needs of that region.  
                                                     245
 1            Also, sometimes it's very hard to put 
 2  council member interest into clear boxes.  I'm going 
 3  to pick on a good friend in the Mid Atlantic 
 4  Council, Larry Sims, who is the Executive Director 
 5  of the Maryland Commercial Fishermen's Association.  
 6  He's also a charter boat captain.  So where do you 
 7  put Larry?  
 8            Most people would probably characterize 
 9  him as commercial, but certainly it's good to have a 
10  foot in either camp.  
11            We find that a lot of times.  We found it 
12  in a number of West Pac nominations as well, where 
13  it's really hard to put labels on people.  
14            But the issue keeps coming up.  I think 
15  there have even been some recommendations that there 
16  be mandated either a quality among sectors, or 
17  statutory mandated requirements that nonuser groups 
18  be represented.  
19            Another proposal is to require the 
20  governors for each vacancy to submit qualified 
21  nominations from a broad suite so that a governor 
22  couldn't submit only nominees from a commercial 
23  fishing sector, or only nominees from the 
24  recreational sector, or even providing the council 
25  balance by requiring mandated representation from 
                                                     246
 1  different user groups.  
 2            Not a new issue.  What should we do?  
 3  Rick.  
 4            MR. SAVAGE:  There's 21 people on our 
 5  council, and there are five of us that fish or have 
 6  fished, or something.  Then if we could convince all 
 7  of the rest of the people, then we're wasting our 
 8  time fooling with the council.  We ought to be down 
 9  there lobbying somewhere.  
10            So far for the last four or five years 
11  we've had -- I made a tie at one time.  
12            But other than that, our votes are like 
13  18/1, 18/2, 17/2.  There's not anything that's -- 
14  we've never been divided completely by commercial, 
15  recreational lines, that doesn't happen.  
16            This is like -- it's a problem that -- 
17  it's just something that people talk about is a 
18  problem, but I don't think it's a problem.  It never 
19  has been.  I've been on the council 20 years.  
20  There's never been a problem on our council in all 
21  this time.  
22            It's like holes in the sky.  
23            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Ralph.  Then John.
24            MR. RAYBURN:  Working with the Appointment 
25  Office at the Governor's, I mean, I can't see 
                                                     247
 1  putting any more responsibilities on the Governor.  
 2  They all -- at least in Texas, it seems that there's 
 3  so many hoops they have to jump through in making 
 4  appointments -- just appointments, not even the 
 5  nomination process.  
 6            I think if you continue to try to load up 
 7  these hurdles for the governors to jump over, 
 8  they're going to blow it off.  It seems to me the 
 9  whole point is if the person from that state is 
10  representative of the governor of that state, then 
11  it's incumbent on the people in that state to work 
12  with the governor to ensure that he or she makes the 
13  process of nominations.  
14            If you load them up, they're going to blow 
15  it off.  It's too much work for them as it is, for 
16  just a nomination, not even the appointment process.  
17            MR. DUNNIGAN:  John.  
18            MR. FORSTER:  Thank you.  
19            I'm just wondering what members of 
20  existing councils would think about the idea of 
21  aquaculture as an up and coming constituent of the 
22  fisheries community.  It still has a long way to go, 
23  so no one is expecting big things or sort of massive 
24  representation up front.  
25            But I'm wondering about a way of 
                                                     248
 1  introducing the idea and getting the concept more 
 2  familiar to everybody to have at least some 
 3  direction to encourage some aquaculture membership 
 4  on the councils.  It seems to me a way that might 
 5  introduce some comfort in some cases, certainly a 
 6  level of education in some cases, and to sort of 
 7  take in what we heard this morning from both Bill 
 8  and the Admiral that aquaculture is something they 
 9  want us to include, and maybe it should be included 
10  in some way in the council process.  
11            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Vince.  Ralph.  
12            MR. O'SHEA:  Thanks, Jack.  
13            I've sat on four councils now.  The North 
14  Pacific Council, with 11 members, is a 
15  small-numbered council, compared to, as Rick said, 
16  the Mid Atlantic is 22.  
17            It seems to me that the smaller council, 
18  is one of the outcomes is it's going to be you're 
19  going to be able to make tighter decisions; and that 
20  the more representation is more likely to have -- 
21  the lines are going to be drawn, it's a lot broader 
22  to accommodate the interest.  
23            But in the North Pacific Council, there's 
24  20-some-odd members on the advisory panel.  That 
25  seems to me to be an interesting way to include 
                                                     249
 1  other groups into the process to get their input.  
 2  So my sense is to urge caution on putting any more 
 3  seats on the council, but instead to try to use the 
 4  advisory panel process to bring other groups to the 
 5  table.  
 6            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Thanks.  
 7            Ralph Brown.  Then Frank.
 8            MR. BROWN:  That was my point.  Two 
 9  different times -- and both times I had to run 
10  around and find people to put their name in so we 
11  have three people on the list.  
12            Then I see big articles in the newspaper 
13  complaining because you don't have balanced 
14  representation.  
15            There's currently nothing in the 
16  regulations now, as far as I know, to prevent people 
17  from outside the region to put their name in, and 
18  yet we sure didn't have --- the State of Oregon -- 
19  didn't happen.  
20            First time I was appointed I was actually 
21  number two in terms of the priority of the governor.  
22  The number one priority was an economist who had no 
23  interest in the fishing industry other than in an 
24  intellectual way.  
25            The next two times I had to find people to 
                                                     250
 1  oppose me just to get the nomination.  
 2            In my times on the council I've seen one 
 3  time -- this is before I was on the council -- that 
 4  somebody was self-serving.  
 5            I know I have recused myself four or five 
 6  times from issues that under the guidelines truly 
 7  weren't a conflict of interest, but they just kind 
 8  of didn't smell right.  I think it's a nonissue.  
 9            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Let's not -- let's make 
10  sure that we do love our economists.  Frank.  
11            MR. BLOUNT:  I would agree with that, too.  
12            I think the governors do have a hard time 
13  coming up with names, the way it is now, especially 
14  after Paul's statement.  
15            But our council is a little different, the 
16  Mid Atlantic Council.  
17            But one thing, I think you have to be very 
18  careful when you put into law what the makeup of 
19  councils should be.  I mean, if there's a lot of 
20  conflict and the council is very unbalanced, mostly 
21  commercial, and whatnot.  
22            But in New England there's one species 
23  that the council deals with of recreational species 
24  of all the species we have.  So if you're going to 
25  balance off the council and say it has to be half 
                                                     251
 1  recreational or a third, most of the issues have 
 2  nothing to do with the recreational side of it.  
 3            So it's different when you get to Mid 
 4  Atlantic.  It's different when you get to different 
 5  regions.  
 6            But in New England, if you're going to put 
 7  it in the law that it has to be balanced, you've got 
 8  a lot of people in there that have no interest in 
 9  what you're doing.  You've got to be careful about 
10  that.  
11            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Thank you.  Manuel.
12            MR. PIZZINI:  One of the recommendations 
13  of the Heinz Report was that the councils look at 
14  the actual process of appointing the 
15  representatives, and be a more open process.  Is 
16  that a consideration also here?  
17            MR. DUNNIGAN:  No.  We haven't identified 
18  that, but we could.  I mean, go ahead.  
19            MR. PIZZINI:  I'll just make a comment 
20  that the Heinz Report actually made a comment on not 
21  only standing, but of participants and council 
22  members, to include nonuser groups, but also to make 
23  the process more open to the public, more democratic 
24  and less political.  
25            Of course, I'm not talking about my 
                                                     252
 1  council, I have good friends here.  (Laughter)  
 2            I'm speaking again about the whole process 
 3  being political.  
 4            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Thank you.  Bob.  Pete.
 5            MR. MAHOOD:  Just a couple comments.  
 6            Having worked in two states where I have 
 7  written a letter of recommendation for the governor, 
 8  governors don't like to be told that they can't pick 
 9  the person they want to pick to be number one on the 
10  list.  
11            I know Bill is very much aware of that, 
12  and that you're very much aware of that.  
13            I agree that if you start dictating to the 
14  governors, you don't do this and you don't do that, 
15  you won't get it.  
16            The other observation, the thing that's 
17  always bothered me the most about this issue is that 
18  we hope, especially the Executive Director, we hope 
19  we get council members that will vote looking out 
20  for the resource, and doing the right thing, not 
21  looking out for constituent groups.  
22            In my experience over almost 20 years now 
23  as the ED, and eight years as a Council Member, 
24  we've had that.  I mean, I don't see people voting 
25  along constituent lines.  
                                                     253
 1            But unfortunately, we come from a country 
 2  with a political process that's very polarized in 
 3  this country right now, and people look at that.  
 4            Now, how do you overcome that with 
 5  legislation?  I don't know.  But I think it's a very 
 6  difficult task.  
 7            And I understand Bill's problem trying to 
 8  -- he's getting beat on to do the right thing.  You 
 9  go to the governors and they'll give you the guy who 
10  they want and they don't want anybody else.  
11            What do you do?  How do you fix that with 
12  legislation?  I just don't see it.  
13            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Pete.  
14            MR. LEIPZIG:  Just a reaction to Manuel's 
15  comment.  
16            From my experience, the council process is 
17  the most open and public and democratic fisheries 
18  forum that I've participated in.  
19            I've dealt with three State Legislatures 
20  and three State Fish and Game Commissions, and the 
21  council process is extremely transparent and it's 
22  open for anybody to get involved and to have an 
23  impact and influence, in terms of the 
24  decision-making process, much more than anything 
25  that I've ever experienced. 
                                                     254
 1            Just on the side, my experience is much 
 2  like Rick's.  We don't have 22 people on the Pacific 
 3  Council.  We had 13 when I was on the council.  But 
 4  the votes tended to be lopsided like Rick's 
 5  experience.  
 6            I just want to add that I lost every 
 7  motion I ever made.  (Laughter).  
 8            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Tony.
 9            MR. DILERNIA:  Jack, wasn't there -- I 
10  thought I saw a document that's produced each year 
11  on what the Council membership and what the upcoming 
12  year is expected -- the upcoming term.  Is that 
13  document still produced?  
14            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Every year.  It's our 
15  annual report on Council balance.  
16            MR. DILERNIA:  Okay.  
17            MR. DUNNIGAN:  We go to every council, and 
18  it's mainly directed towards the statutory 
19  requirement of balancing commercial and 
20  recreational.  But then it also notes people that 
21  are in other categories as well, so that you get a 
22  sense of where that is.  
23            It only deals with Secretarial 
24  appointments.  So State Directors are not -- and 
25  then some of them may have a more recreational or 
                                                     255
 1  more environmental or more commercial connotation.  
 2            MR. DILERNIA:  So that document already 
 3  describes who's where.  
 4            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Right.  
 5            MR. DILERNIA:  And in some cases, you 
 6  might have to put an "R" and a "C" next to the name, 
 7  like in the case of Larry Sims, both for 
 8  recreational or for commercial.  
 9            But it also anticipates the needs the 
10  council will be facing for the next year, does it 
11  not?  
12            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Yes, it does.  
13            MR. DILERNIA:  So based on what those 
14  needs are, based on who's there, I don't think you 
15  need any more guidance other than that.  That's all 
16  the Secretary -- that tells the Congress who's 
17  there, here's the work we're going to be doing.  
18            Based on that work, Members of the 
19  Congress, be sure your nominees include individuals 
20  with expertise in these areas, and that's it.  I 
21  think you've already got it there.  I don't think 
22  you need to add any more.  
23            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Another thing that's 
24  helpful to know, this is something that Bill has 
25  been doing, is in the last couple of years we've 
                                                     256
 1  noted some things that we thought were out of 
 2  kilter.  
 3            The representation on the Gulf of Mexico 
 4  Council, a couple years ago, we said we thought that 
 5  it was overly balanced towards recreational and 
 6  needed some commercial representation and we 
 7  encouraged the governors to come forward with 
 8  nominees from the recreational sector -- I mean, 
 9  from the commercial sector, and there has been a net 
10  change in the seats there.  
11            Same thing in the New England Fishery 
12  Council, where we advised the governors for a couple 
13  of years that we thought that there was not 
14  sufficient recreational representation on that 
15  council and encouraged the governors to submit 
16  recreational nominees.  There was a switch in a seat 
17  that was made last year.  
18            We've started targeting the letters to the 
19  governors, too.  So we would send one to the New 
20  England Governor that was different from everybody 
21  else's saying, that we have determined that in this 
22  council there's a particular need for recreational 
23  representation and we strongly encourage you to do 
24  that.  We wrote a very pointed letter to one Gulf of 
25  Mexico governor, who will remain nameless, a couple 
                                                     257
 1  years ago.  
 2            MR. HOGARTH:  I'll just add a couple 
 3  things.  
 4            We have the last four years, since I've 
 5  been involved in this, we have spent a lot of time 
 6  calling Governors' Offices.  I think what Bob Mahood 
 7  says is exactly right.  
 8            The governors get very adamant about what 
 9  they send and who they send, and felt like it's our 
10  prerogative to send who we want to send.  So you can 
11  choose from that or not.  
12            It puts the Secretary and us in a very 
13  awkward position because if we don't want them, 
14  don't like the names, the only choice we have is not 
15  to appoint someone.  I've always felt like then that 
16  cuts the State out of having an input.  So we have 
17  done that, and many times we have called the 
18  Governor's Office and talked to the performance 
19  people and tried to -- once I think they did change 
20  and gave us a new list, but most of the time they 
21  don't.  
22            We have looked very hard at the 
23  appointments.  I think we, in this Administration, 
24  has tried very hard to take the comments we've heard 
25  and take them to heart in the appointment process. 
                                                     258
 1   I think every environmental person in the four 
 2  years that's been nominated has been put on the 
 3  council, except maybe one since we've been in the 
 4  process for four years.  So it's a tough process.  
 5            The thing about it, is we take the beating 
 6  for it, and the Secretary takes a beating, and he 
 7  doesn't have much choice.  
 8            If the governor doesn't send you 
 9  something, then you're stuck with that.  It's not 
10  us.  The process is the governor submits and the 
11  Secretary has to choose.  So if it was just -- I 
12  don't know if the process can be improved or not, 
13  but that's life.  
14            So we, again, it's the Secretary who does 
15  it, do the balance of it.  But the Secretary doesn't 
16  have any choice but to choose from where he gets his 
17  names.  
18            MR. DUNNIGAN:  In order to help Dave out, 
19  though, let's be honest, there is one major 
20  criticism that is going to play out this year; and 
21  that is, that in all the council memberships, how 
22  few of them really are nonuser group 
23  representatives.  This is somewhat representative of 
24  the statute.  
25            Dave is going to need help on this issue 
                                                     259
 1  when it happens.  
 2            MR. HOGARTH:  Jack, do you remember when I 
 3  made the suggestion, thought that we ought to 
 4  solicit council appointments by the Federal 
 5  Register, and I almost got killed when the word got 
 6  out.  I got lambasted from -- I was very innocent 
 7  about this, and god, I never thought -- what I'd 
 8  done then.  I just suggested, here's another 
 9  alternative, go to the Federal Register and ask for 
10  it that way.  Wow.  
11            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Dave.  Then Al.  
12            MR. ORTMANN:  When we're looking at the 
13  balance on the councils, let's not forget the number 
14  of folks on -- the voting members that are agency 
15  representatives.  These are folks that most 
16  ordinarily take the leadership role on the important 
17  issues.  
18            I was already wondering, what's a nonuser 
19  group person?  
20            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Well, we're using that 
21  instead of environmentalist.  Or academic.  Yeah.  
22            MS. LENT:  As long as they don't eat 
23  seafood. (Laughter)  
24            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Somebody who is 
25  knowledgeable about the fishery, but doesn't clearly 
                                                     260
 1  come from and represent the commercial sector or the 
 2  recreational sector fishery.  
 3            Ralph.
 4            MR. RAYBURN:  I would just go back to say 
 5  that the council is a lot of work.  Someone to be 
 6  committed to get on the council, they have to have 
 7  an interest in what it's all about.  
 8            It just seems to me that you've got so 
 9  many opportunities for anyone to -- and it's a 
10  political process.  You've got to go to the 
11  Governor's Office.  You've got to meet with their 
12  appointment people, show an interest over time.  
13            You get a minimum of three, but they can 
14  name as many as they want for any given position.  
15            So anyone who is not able through that 
16  process to get on a nominations list, even as an 
17  also ran, I just don't see you're going to mandate 
18  to the governor nominating a blonde-haired, 
19  brown-eyed person just to balance out.  
20            Again, when I was more active and working 
21  with the Department and trying to educate the 
22  governor's staff on why they have to go through the 
23  steps, and all, it was very frustrating for them. 
24  They typically deal with the politics of it, and 
25  they appoint who they want to appoint, and you go 
                                                     261
 1  through all this work, the most work of any 
 2  appointment they have to do as a nomination to the 
 3  Secretary, it's just really more work -- I mean, you 
 4  really impose a great burden on them that is already 
 5  beyond what most of them have to deal with.  
 6            So I would just argue the point that there 
 7  is a process, that there's an available nomination 
 8  process that takes political activity as a statement 
 9  to get on the list, but it's not closed.  There's 
10  not a limit.  
11            You should be able to get your name on 
12  that list if you're really interested in serving.  
13  Thank you.  
14            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Alvin.  
15            MR. OSTERBACK:  I've -- both sitting up 
16  there on the North Pacific Council, which is the 
17  council up where I'm at, and Board of Fish Meetings 
18  for the last quite a few years, we've been in issues 
19  where we've totally lost out both at the council and 
20  both on the state level.  So we kind of looked at 
21  everything; paid boards, professional boards.  
22  Sometimes I think at a council meeting when we 
23  totally lost, I wished the whole board was little 
24  green people from somewhere else.  
25            But the thing is, though, I think when you 
                                                     262
 1  get right down to it, every time we've looked at it, 
 2  every which way we've gone, it always come back to 
 3  the same thing, is that you need the user groups up 
 4  there making decisions because they're the people 
 5  that understand it.  
 6            I mean, if you have, say, all doctors or 
 7  people that don't know anything about fish up there 
 8  trying to make a decision, it's just -- we figured 
 9  out it wouldn't work.  
10            I've been sitting in front of the North 
11  Pacific Council since they formed the thing, and the 
12  Board of Fish way before then, and we've looked at 
13  all of these issues and there was -- we wanted to 
14  try different things, but it wouldn't work.  
15            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Yes, ma'am.  
16            MS. PAUL:  Yes.  I'm an environmentalist.  
17            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Name?  
18            MS. PAUL:  Linda Paul.  
19            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Thank you.  
20            MS. PAUL:  I guess my question is to Bill 
21  Hogarth, because I was nominated by the Governor of 
22  Hawaii two years ago as an environmental rep and was 
23  not chosen by the Agency.  So I would say that I'm 
24  in favor of the Agency having a mandate in the law 
25  that they do have to expand the councils to include 
                                                     263
 1  other stakeholders.  
 2            I do recreationally fish, but it's not my 
 3  primary -- it's not something I do all the time.  
 4  But I do have an interest in fish.  I have a Masters 
 5  in Zoology in fisheries, and I would like to see the 
 6  ocean have more fish in it.  
 7            So I guess my question to Mr. Bill Hogarth 
 8  is, what is the transparency in the Agency when you 
 9  do get these nominations from the governor?  
10            MR. HOGARTH:  The transparency?  I'm not 
11  sure that is -- yeah, we have a process we go 
12  through, which is through the process of, we look at 
13  the council, we talk to various people.  Then 
14  finally give it to the Secretary of Commerce.  It's 
15  a very thorough process.  
16            If particular people did not get -- we'd 
17  have to go back and look to the specific case, but 
18  we do go through a process that is very extensive, 
19  talking to the Governor's Office and talk to people 
20  on the council, the Regional Administrator, the 
21  Science Center Director.  It's an extensive process.  
22            Now, I make the recommendations.  The 
23  Secretary either ups or downs them.  
24            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Let's take one last 
25  comment. 
                                                     264
 1            MR. HOGARTH:  Let me say one thing real 
 2  quick.  
 3            There is one thing I should probably say, 
 4  and I think it's probably obvious and I think 
 5  probably the Secretary would say, is that there is a 
 6  lot of deference given to the Governor on the 
 7  Governor's seat, so to speak, of their at-large 
 8  seats.  
 9            If it's an obligatory seat, it's usually 
10  given to who the Governor wants.  I don't remember 
11  in the four years that I've been involved that we 
12  have not given the Governor the obligatory seat if 
13  they actually wanted one.  
14            There may have been one instance, I'm not 
15  sure.  
16            But their at-large seats are usually 
17  different.  We look at those in a lot of different 
18  ways.  
19            MR. PIZZINI:  My comment is this type of 
20  issue, if you move towards ecosystem management in 
21  the future, you would need to look at the position 
22  of the councils to include nonuser groups, 
23  especially when you look at the wholistic approach 
24  to ecosystem management that includes different 
25  components of our society and different areas 
                                                     265
 1  looking to management.  
 2            If you move towards that, using the 
 3  international type approach for ecosystem 
 4  management, you will need to consider that.  
 5            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Can we move on?  We've got 
 6  two more to go.  
 7            The next one is not a new issue, NEPA and 
 8  the Magnuson-Stevens Act.  You can read the first 
 9  slide, which is about all the important issues here 
10  that we've talked about, and the councils and we 
11  have talked about many times.  
12            Slide 13 says there are a couple 
13  alternatives, one would be to amend the 
14  Magnuson-Stevens Act to exempt fishery management 
15  actions from NEPA.  
16            Another approach would be to include  
17  revisions to the Magnuson-Stevens Act to ensure that 
18  NEPA concerns are addressed.  
19            Of course, the third alternative, the 
20  status quo, leaves it up to us to continue to try to 
21  work out the timing and other issues that are 
22  associated with trying to get these laws and other 
23  applicable laws working together.  
24            Tony.
25            MR. DILERNIA:  Jack, go to the second 
                                                     266
 1  bullet for just a little bit.  Include revisions to 
 2  Magnuson-Stevens Act to insure that NEPA concerns 
 3  are addressed.  
 4            To me, it's like those two bullets are at 
 5  the two extremes of the continuum of choices there.  
 6  I'm saying that I don't understand the second 
 7  bullet.  
 8            MR. DUNNIGAN:  I think that the second 
 9  bullet refers to the idea that Dave mentioned 
10  earlier that was in Congressman Young's bill last 
11  year, where you would say that properly following 
12  the Section 303(a) and (b) provisions and the 
13  process provisions of Section 304 and 305 would 
14  satisfy requirements under NEPA.  
15            MR. DILERNIA:  Okay.  Yeah.  I guess -- I 
16  didn't like that when I heard it.  I like it when I 
17  hear it again the second time. (Laughter).  
18            I wanted to make sure that's what I heard 
19  the first time.  To me, that seems to make a lot of 
20  sense.  
21            MR. HOGARTH:  Tony, the other point to 
22  that is the one I mentioned earlier, that some 
23  people are not sure -- and I'm one of them -- that 
24  the Magnuson is clear enough that you have to 
25  evaluate a series of alternatives.  I think there 
                                                     267
 1  may be something you could tweak in Magnuson to make 
 2  sure that you analyze a series of reasonable 
 3  alternatives, something like that.  
 4            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Chris. 
 5            MR. OLIVER:  Thanks, Jack.  
 6            I guess you know I can't resist talking 
 7  about this one.  I'm trying to quit smoking, too, so 
 8  I've to get some stress out.  (Laughter)  
 9            I wanted to talk a little bit about 
10  relevant to the comments Dave Whaley made earlier, 
11  and he, I think -- I guess I'm respectfully 
12  disagreeing with you, Dave, when you couched it as 
13  it's mainly a problem with timing.  I think it's 
14  way, way much more than that.  
15            I hope this doesn't get lost in the 
16  Reauthorization because of some of these other big, 
17  big ticket issues.  
18            This is way more than bad timing, and I 
19  guess our process is this process on a project I 
20  really believe that we'll never really be fully able 
21  to address the NEPA requirements in the way that the 
22  attorneys would like us to, and trying to force fit 
23  into the -- the little bullet-proofing against 
24  litigation, for example, has caused us to get -- and 
25  I won't get into a specific examples, but we have 
                                                     268
 1  gotten in some cases where we're trying to do this 
 2  is really absurd.  It's really threatening to 
 3  cripple our process.  
 4            I don't know what the answer is.  There is 
 5  some language from Congressman Young, and others 
 6  introduced a couple different bills last year.  I 
 7  think we really have to do something.  I hope -- I'm 
 8  just trying to -- but my point is, I hope people 
 9  really don't let this get lost or fall through the 
10  cracks.  I think we have to do something.  
11            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Scott.  And then Chris.
12            MR. BURNS: I used to teach law and judges 
13  have the saying that the hard case make bad law.  I 
14  think this has the potential to be a case in point.  
15            I certainly understand the real 
16  frustration that a lot of us around the table feel 
17  is a result of some of the litigation surrounding 
18  NEPA, the burden that's placed on the Agency and 
19  this issue of bullet-proofing council decisions per 
20  NEPA to deal with litigation problems.  
21            At the same time, I think we really need 
22  to be really careful about making really fundamental 
23  changes in this area.  
24            MR. DORSETT:  I remember back in 2000 when 
25  NEPA was on everyone's radar screen after AOC versus 
                                                     269
 1  Daley.  I remember the memo that Dr. Hogarth 
 2  produced providing guidance to the councils and this  
 3  whole regulatory streamlining process, front-loading 
 4  the process and make better decisions on the back 
 5  end.  We've gone through that, and I don't see here 
 6  from the Agency's perspective what the problem is.  
 7            Is the Fishery Management Council system 
 8  crippled now?  Things seem to move at roughly the 
 9  same pace that they've always moved.  I thought that 
10  this whole process was to get to better decisions.  
11  Why scrap it now?  
12            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Pete.  Dan. 
13            MR. LEIPZIG:  I think to get to Chris' 
14  question, I think in the Pacific arena, the system 
15  has become crippled as a result of those lawsuits 
16  that you mentioned.  
17            We've gone from an annual cycle where we 
18  produce stock assessments, have them reviewed, 
19  implemented for the following year's quota.  
20            Now we're in a two-year cycle.  We're 
21  using old data.  We're having stock assessments 
22  produced now that will be implemented two years down 
23  the pipe.  
24            The data is not as timely as it should be. 
25  I think the system has been distorted.  
                                                     270
 1            MR. DORSETT:  Look at it pre-NEPA.  
 2            MR. LEIPZIG:  Pardon me?  
 3            MR. DORSETT:  Look at it pre-NEPA.  
 4            There are a lot of decisions that led to 
 5  groundfish becoming overfished and requiring almost 
 6  100 years to rebuild the complex.  
 7            MR. LEIPZIG:  I don't think that had 
 8  anything to do with the decisions made by the 
 9  council, and I don't think that you'll find any of 
10  the stock assessments to support that position 
11  either.  
12            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Dan.  
13            MR. FURLONG:  I just want to say, NEPA was 
14  never -- from '76 until '96 -- or actually '98 when 
15  SFA really began having an effect.  What happened?  
16            I mean, NEPA was just a club that 
17  environmentalists used to advance their agenda.  
18            And what was the cost?  The cost was the 
19  lack of production at the councils, the redundancy 
20  of doing the same job twice because you have to go 
21  back and go through the administrative record.  The 
22  Agency has to go back and get all of its employees 
23  to go through the same process.  So it has to go 
24  into a court of law and produce the records.  
25            In the meantime you're doing that, nothing 
                                                     271
 1  else is getting done.  That's crippled.  
 2            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Bob.  Then Rebecca.
 3            MR. FLETCHER:  It's clearly crippled the 
 4  council process.  And I agree with Pete, we don't 
 5  get stock assessments done the way we should.  The 
 6  councils have been stifled financially.  It has hurt 
 7  other plans at times.  It's not something that I see 
 8  helping the council process.  
 9            Unless there is additional funding, it 
10  will continue to cripple the process.  So I don't 
11  know that there's a solution.  I think we have 
12  reacted by doing a lot better job with what we had 
13  when we didn't have NEPA.  Because this goes back to 
14  unless there's more funding, the councils are going 
15  to continue to struggle.  
16            As Pete said, we're into a biannual cycle 
17  now that is crippling the industry on the West 
18  Coast, and it will continue to do that.  
19            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Rebecca.
20            MS. LENT:  Really quickly.  
21            I just think it is important for us to 
22  sort out what it is that is crippling.  I'm hearing 
23  a lot of different things here.  I think some of the 
24  court cases had to do with framework in NEPA.  
25            It's also important to point out that it's 
                                                     272
 1  not just the NGOs who have tripped us up on NEPA, 
 2  this has come from all user groups.  
 3            What would be really great is at our next 
 4  Council Chairs and our MAFAC meeting to see the 
 5  diagnostics of litigation.  The fact of the matter 
 6  is we're doing better on litigation and we think 
 7  that's discouraging bringing new lawsuits.  
 8            Wherever NEPA ends up, whether it's 
 9  blended into Magnuson-Stevens, or wherever, I think 
10  we want to stay true to that idea, that analyzing 
11  different alternatives in a good range, I think it 
12  helps us make better decisions and we have more 
13  information from everybody in the room who comes to 
14  debate that.  
15            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Thank you.  Dave.  Miguel.  
16  Then Chris.
17            Let me just tell you all it's after five.  
18  I'm willing to stay.  
19            MR. WHALEY:  I'll be real quick.  
20            I don't think anybody's intention is to 
21  ignore NEPA.  The idea is where there's duplication 
22  or redundancy, to make it work better so that we're 
23  not causing more.  
24            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Miguel. 
25            MR. ROLON:  Along the same lines.  I 
                                                     273
 1  received two letters from the public comment period 
 2  that just ended, it came from the West Coast, a 
 3  network of environmentalists.  So it seems that 
 4  everybody agrees that NEPA is a -- the way that 
 5  we're doing it, this idea of covering our behind 
 6  from all angles is really what is crippling the 
 7  system.  
 8            MR. OLIVER:  Just a quick thought.  
 9            That if you look at the provisions of the 
10  Magnuson-Stevens Act, I believe they really address 
11  the underlying conservation intent of NEPA.  It's 
12  not as if we're trying to get out of that underlying 
13  conservation mandate.  I think Magnuson satisfies 
14  it.  
15            MR. HOGARTH:  Jack, we have to get out of 
16  the room.  They have another use for this room.  
17            MR. DUNNIGAN:  Okay.  Let me just do a 
18  quick wrap, okay, on this issue.  Literally 15 
19  seconds.  
20            We'll not talk about Essential Fish 
21  Habitat here this afternoon.  
22            The rest of the slides are basically a 
23  list of all of the issues that we've got in our 
24  working groups looking at -- if you have any 
25  questions about any of them, or particular areas of 
                                                     274
 1  interest, let me know.  
 2            Another thing we'd like to know is, what 
 3  are we missing so far?  I think that will be 
 4  important for the council to hear, too, as we all 
 5  get ready as a community for the discussion at the 
 6  end of March.  
 7            Look at Slide 21.  We're going to continue 
 8  to be reviewing these issues over the next two 
 9  months for going to that conference.  Coming out of 
10  that conference we'll be preparing final NOAA 
11  recommendations.  That will be during the month of 
12  April.  
13            I note that there's a Council Chairman's  
14  meeting at the end of April where I hope we'll have 
15  a chance to discuss our reactions to the conference.  
16  I don't know whether MAFAC is meeting in April or 
17  not.  So we need to move.  
18            Senator Stevens has made it clear that he 
19  wants this process to get going this year.  He may 
20  even have hearings before our conference in March. 
21  So ultimately, we will be preparing -- even once we 
22  prepare the Administration Bill to the Hill, I think 
23  our sense is going to be that that's a starting 
24  position.  There's going to be very little of our 
25  feet will be embedded in concrete, but we'll be 
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 1  unable to continue to revise our recommendations and 
 2  talk to you all and the community at-large as we 
 3  move ahead over the next year.  
 4            MR. HOGARTH:  There may be some time 
 5  tomorrow morning on the agenda for a little more 
 6  discussion on this issue also.  
 7            MR. DUNNIGAN:  That's it.  Thank you very 
 8  much.  Good discussion.  (Applause)  
 9            (Brief logistical announcements by Laurel 
10  Bryant)
11            (Meeting adjourned for the day at 5:09 
12  p.m.)
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