JOINT MEETING: BILLFISH
AND HMS ADVISORY PANELS
8:00 a.m.
Thursday
February 10, 2000
NOAA SCIENCE CENTER
1301 East-West Highway
Silver Spring, Maryland
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
PARTICIPANTS:
Billfish Advisory Panel:
Jerry Abrams
Nelson Beideman
Raymond Bogan
George Bell
David Borden
Karyl Brewster-Geisz
Craig Brown
George Burgess
Sally Campen
Jose Campos
Maumus Claverie
John Dean
Jack Devneu
James Donofrio
Bob Eakes
Robert Fitzpatrick
Sonja Fordham
Jim Francesconi
Spencer Garrett
Marsha Hass
Bob Hayes
Roger Hillhouse
John Hoey
Russell Hudson
Bob Hueter
Rachel Husted
Joe Jancewicz
Pete Jensen
Gail Johnson
Mike Justen
Andrew Kemmerer
Joe Kimmel
Sari Kiraly
Rob Kramer
Liz Lauck
Rebecca Lent
Linda Lucas
Pamela Mace
Gary Matlock
Joe McBride
Mariam McCall
Charlie Moore
Mark Murray-Brown
Russell Nelson
Andy Oliver
Ellen Peel
Ellen Pikitch
Joe Powers
Tom Putnam
Vince Pyle
Paul Raymond
Rick Ross
Rich Ruais
Mark Sampson
Margo Schulze
Jerry Scott
Bob Spaeth
Jill Stevenson
Richard Stone
Mike Travis
Steve Turner
Alan Weiss
Peter Weiss
David Wilmot
John Wingard
Bob Zales
Highly Migratory Species Advisory Panel:
Nelson Beideman
Raymond Bogan
David Borde
Jose Abella
Maumus Claverie
Tristram Colket
John Dean
James Donofrio
Bob Eakes
Robert Fitzpatrick
Sonja Fordham
Jim Francesconi
John Graves
Marsha Hass
Robert Hueter
Ed Irby
Pete Jensen
Gail Johnson
Steven Loga
Joe McBride
Charlie Moore
Ellen Peel
Richard Ruais
Carl Safina
C O N T E N T S
PAGE
Bluefin tuna issues 8
Remarks - Dr. Andy Rosenberg 30
Time/area closure proposed rule 106
P R O C E E D I N G S
MS. LENT: While we are getting everybody seated here, let me just say good morning and thanks for coming back. I also wanted to express my appreciation. I think that we had 100 percent AP attendance at the hearing last night, and I was really happy about that. Thank you.
The two items that we wanted to add to the agenda for this part this morning on bluefin was some information on the bridge period quota, and Pat is going to provide that to you, what happened during that bridge period when we switched from a calendar year to a fishing year. And also, an update on the spotter plane rule.
I will spend a couple of minutes here while Pat is walking around the table giving his handouts telling you what I can about the spotter plane rule, what I know. Of course, we put out the proposed rule last year. We got thousands of comments. We have sifted through those comments. We have collected new information from those comments.
Also due to the long time period now between the proposed rule and the next step, we have also had a chance to go back and rerun the analyses that we did for the proposed rule. We have rerun those analyses using the 1999 season data, so we have some preliminary information that will help us decide what our next step is.
As of today, the agency has not yet reached a decision on what the next step will be. We are looking at a number of options. Obviously, the most obvious one would be to go out with the final rule, doing one of the options that came out in the proposed rule. There are other options as well. Maybe looking at some other possibilities and other aspects of this problem that we had not considered fully in the proposed rule, and issues that came up as part of comments and as part of how the season went in 1999.
Basically, those decisions are still pending. That is the best update that I can give you. This has been a long and unbelievably difficult process, more for you perhaps than for us, because you have been waiting for some decision from the agency on this. It is not an easy issue. It is very complex.
Miriam said yesterday that we are not driven by litigation, but we are driven by following the laws. But that is what litigation is all about. Someone says hey, you did not follow the law. So we are trying to be very careful about what we are doing. We are also under a continuous threat of contempt of court, just filing the proposed rule. The Secretary of Commerce was accused by the plaintiffs in the spotter plane case of being in contempt of court. So obviously, we are being very careful. Every step we take involves assembling a record, because we may need by the end of the week to assemble a record to take to the court.
So there is a lot of work involved and a lot of complex issues.
I will try to take a couple of questions on that, but that is about all of the information that I can give you. Rich.
MR. RUAIS: Well, I was hoping that we could get a little bit more information on some of the options that you might be looking at to effect the ban that I know the agency is seeking. Because obviously, this is an issue where the rumor mill is very strong all of the time. And my organization does not have a dog in this fight in terms of which way you go, whether you ban them or you do not ban them.
But we do have a concern about how you might achieve that, and the implications on the way that the general category and the harpoon category have traditionally been run. So if you are looking at options that have a significant impact on the way that the general category traditionally has operated or the harpoon category, that is what I am interested in trying to get a handle on.
You know, we have heard that limited entry is an issue that might be used in conjunction with some sort of a proposal to ban the airplanes. We have heard things like the possibility of restrictions on the use of harpoons on general category boats or stands on general category boats.
And I am very concerned that some of those things, that someone might perceive that those are required, having some effect on those operational aspects of the traditional fishery might be necessary in order to sustain some sort of a ban on planes. And if there is consideration of that going on, I would hope that we get some sort of the AP and plus the public, get some early notice of that before we just simply get into a rule, a proposed rule or final rule, that simply makes it a de facto situation.
MS. LENT: Thank you, Rich. I appreciate that. Peter.
MR. P. WEISS: I just want to make a statement. It seems rather ironic that this panel, the AP, which I have sat on since its inception and most of us have, has never reached consensus on almost any issue that I can remember except the airplane issue, where there were two abstentions I believe and all votes in favor of. That one issue that this panel reached what you consider consensus on was not brought to an end or the panel's recommendations were not followed. Nothing else do I remember here a consensus being reached on a matter of relative importance except when we adjourn I think.
MS. LENT: Thank you, Peter. That is certainly a strong point in support. Okay. If there are no more questions about this, I am going to pass the mike to Pat Cheta. Yes, that is Pat. He has got a goatee now. Andy Rosenberg will be joining us at some point in time. So we will just do a quick interruption to let Andy chat with you, and you might want to ask him some of these same questions. Thank you.
MR. CHETA: Thanks, Rebecca. There are some overheads that I am going to go through again. I do not have them on power points. We are just going to look at them through WordPerfect on the screen here. It is not going to be quite as pretty, but hopefully it will work. And we are just going to go through the effort controls for the general category, and then some discussion of the angling category of fishery.
And then we will talk about some of the bridge period quotas and things like that at the end, and what we might stand for next year as far as the kind of rolling over of some quota that was not caught this year, or if we had to do any subtractions for overages that we had.
There are some overheads. What I am presenting here should be on the table, and I think that they were passed out to you this morning. Okay. General category effort controls. Basically, they do two things. They divide the general category season into time periods. They divide the quota up. And we also have restricted fishing days where no fishing can happen in the general category.
In fact, we will continue our variety of objectives. Lengthening the season for market reasons consistent with achieving optimum yield. They address some allocation issues to where and when the fish are caught. There are set-asides in the split seasons. And lengthening the season is important for scientific data collection purposes, specifically for the catch effort for the rod and reel fishery in the general category, which is using stock assessments. And the 1999 general category effort control specifications for bluefin were in Appendix III of the final HMS FMP.
Okay. For the status quo, what we had for 1999. What you have on your overheads is justified, center justified. So on the overhead on the screen here is a little bit clearer. Basically, we take the general category quota and divide it up into three time periods, June through August/September, and then October through December. And then we take an extra ten metric tons off the top and reserve it for the New York bite set-aside, which is implemented usually late in the season when the rest of the general category is closed to give some people off of New York and Northern New Jersey a chance at the fish.
The other alternative that was considered in the FMP is not to have any kind of split season, meaning that the season which will open in June will continue on until the fishery is caught. And the process for changing this would be a framework adjustment to the FMP.
Restricted fishing days. The status quo is Sundays, Mondays, and Wednesdays. Plus we have some selected market holidays when the market is closed in Japan. Other alternatives that we considered were similar to what we did in 1997 and 1998, just Sundays and Wednesdays, plus selected market days. Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays, so a consecutive three days. Alternating days, and then just straight fishing without any restricted fishing days. And per the regulations, we publish a schedule of RFDs in the Federal Register every year, so we do not have to go through the framework process.
In 1999, we scheduled 40 restricted fishing days. But due to some slow landings, we waived two separate NCs in action nine of the days. And you will see them in the next slide. The shaded days here were the days that were restricted fishing days. And if you will notice, in August we waived four days. And then in September, we waived four, and the one in October. Just because fishing was slow and we basically did it to meet -- we set up the quotas for June through August. And in order to catch the quota for June through August, we determined that we needed to waive those days. And the same thing for September.
And the process for changing these. We consider the input from the AP and the public, and the effectiveness of the 1999 restricted fishing days. And we will change it based on the 2000 calendar, which will just change dates of the Japanese holidays, et cetera.
We received some suggestions already from the public regarding the 2000 restricted fishing days from the general category Tuna Association. And we have gotten comment that we should have restricted fishing days in October under a similar schedule of those for September. And also, if there is an under-harvest like we had this year in June through August, that we should not just roll it over only into September, but we should divide it up between the September and the October through December sub-periods.
Next, or probably I skipped over it, there is a table with quotas, and I am going to skip that until the end. I am going to talk about the angling category fishery real quick, and what we did for 1999. For 1999, basically starting on June 1, the base retention limits, you could call it, were just one large school or small/medium of bluefin per vessel per day. And that continues on to the present.
And for two time certain periods, June 25th through July 25th, and September 1 through October 6th, we raised the retention limit to include two school bluefin in addition to the one large school or small/medium. So up to three fish could be kept below 73 inches. And this was done on some suggestions from constituents. We had a date in a certain season. It was not that we just opened it, and was going to close it at any particular time.
It gave people an opportunity to plan. We had one opening more in the beginning of the season for folks more in the south. And then we had one open in the fall for people more in the northern area.
And then there is also the trophy fishery angling category, which is the large, mediums, and giants. And that is just one per year per vessel. And from June 1, the northern area has been open and continues to be open. And the southern area closed January 8th of last month. And that is mostly to landings in North Carolina.
Now the angling category quota is divided between the north and south. And the way it has been in recent years, the dividing line has been the Delaware Bay, 38 degrees and 47 minutes. Basically, we did not use it in 1999, meaning that we did not open just the north or just the south in 1999. We just opened or had the retention limits apply for all areas. And the line is a problem. Because if there is a difference in the retention limits in the north and south, if vessels cross the line when they are fishing, if they are docked in one port and where they fish is in another area which is on another side of the line, it can cause some problems. And especially where it is right now in Delaware Bay, because a lot of folks who fish in the Cape May area fish out of Cape May, New Jersey fish further south in the southern area, but Cape May is in the northern area. So it creates a lot of confusion.
So we received some comments to move the line further north, so the Cape May area would be included in the southern area. And we have got comments that it should be moved to Ocean City, New Jersey or Beach Haven, New Jersey somewhere around 39/18.
Another option is just to perhaps remove the line completely. Wherever you are going to put that line, you are going to have people crossing it. And if we can just do our openings and closings coastwide like we did last year, we eliminate some of that confusion. We had some success with opening it earlier in the year for folks in the south, and then later in the year for people in the north. So we were able to geographically distribute the quota without having to use a line.
Just quickly before I get to the other table that is in the handouts. We have some estimates for angling category landings for 1999, and potentially what we could have for quotas for 2000. In the first column, we have the adjusted 1999 fishing year quotas for the various categories, school, and then large school, and small/mediums. And then the large mediums and giants, and we also had a school reserve.
As you can see, for both schools and large school small/mediums, our landings were quite low. We caught about half of the school quota, and less than a quarter of the large school small/medium. And again, we are still fishing in this year, but we are just going to go through May 31st. But there has been some catch of large school small/mediums in North Carolina. The schools have been closed, so that should not change much. So we are going to have some quota to be rolled over into next year. And as you can see, the last column in red is what the potential quotas could be for next year.
Again, these landings are preliminary and subject to change for sure. But this is what it looks like as of right now. So we will have over 125 tons in the school, and then over 300 in large school small/mediums. Large mediums and giants are not going to change much. And the school reserve, we only used a very small portion for some scientific purposes.
And then the last row is the full reserve, the regular reserve for the overall fishery, overall quota. And some of that is going to be used for over-harvest in some of the other categories. So the 90.1 is high. I guess I will take a few questions now. Rich.
MR. RUAIS: Pat, if you could, could you clarify. I understand that the numbers here are preliminary. But where are the estimates coming from, is this just strictly the large pelagic survey, are we talking about the phone survey, or a combination of the two?
MR. CHETA: The estimated landings are from the large pelagic survey.
MR. RUAIS: Only?
MR. CHETA: We have been using the tag numbers from North Carolina, but this is only from June. I do not think that we have anything for the last month or so or the last two months in North Carolina in this estimated fishing. So this is pure LPS.
MR. RUAIS: You are not using at all the regulation that requires anglers to call in their catch.
How does it reconcile, is the total coming from the, "I caught a bluefin, I caught a school of bluefin tuna today, and it weighed 60 pounds," are they lining up or what?
MR. CHETA: We are actually doing some analyses of comparing the LPS, the call-in system, and also the various tagging programs that we have. So I know that a draft report has been put together, and it is being finalized. In some places, they match. In some states, they match. In other places, they do not match up as well. But that report is being put together. Jim.
JIM: Pat, thanks. Let me recall back to last year, Rebecca, with Congressman Saxton,
Congressman LoBiondo, Terry Garcia, Chris Rogers from your agency, myself, and members of the Cape May party and charter boat organization. We had a guarantee at that meeting that the line was going to be moved. It has to be moved. If it is not moved, we are going to run into the same problem again with the people in Cape May being able to fish in two zones. It is going to happen. I mean it is inevitable.
There is kind of a nowhere zone off the coast of New Jersey where boats from around that line where we talked about, they do not fish south of there. They go to the north. They fish the mud hole area, and they fish the ridge in there. So that is the best scenario to have that line change in there, and that line needs to be moved. Otherwise, what is going to happen, your agency is going to be in the congressional offices again arguing about this. And I think that we need to settle this. Thank you.
A PARTICIPANT: Well, addressing what Rich was saying, North Carolina, they can tell you, they have a weekly update, and they can tell you to the day what they are catching. All you have to do is call down there.
A PARTICIPANT: And we get those reports from Doug Mumford on a weekly basis, and we are in close contact with him. And he actually sends in the cards to us through the tagging program. And it has been a relatively good year down there, at least through the first week of January or so, and then the weather kind of turned. But we do have those landings. I just do not believe that they are incorporated into these estimates so far. It would be on the order of another five to ten metric tons of large school large/mediums in the south. So instead of 32, it would go up to say maybe 40. But we would still have significant underages for the 1999 fishing year.
A PARTICIPANT: The fishing has been fabulous. The effort has not been what it has been in years past, but the fishing has been fabulous.
MR. CHETA: Okay, John.
JOHN: Pat, just a small reminder. The chart here does not say what the measurement is in. I guess it is metric tons.
MR. CHETA: Yes.
JOHN: And one of those items that I watch closely, and again these things have to stand alone, and we need to make them easy for everybody to understand.
MR. CHETA: Mark.
MR. SAMPSON: You did not mention Maryland's tag program. And I am curious as to number one, are those numbers reflected in these numbers. Also, do you have information as to how they compare to the large pelagic survey numbers?
MR. CHETA: Okay. They are not reflected in these numbers. But for those of you who do not know it, there is a similar program as to that in North Carolina and in Maryland where each recreational bluefin is tagged. Folks when they come in have to go to a reporting station, fill out a card, and get a tag for their fish before it can come off the boat. And no, they are not in here.
This study that I was talking about, the analysis of the various reporting systems, includes the Maryland numbers. But the preliminary analysis of that, they match up pretty well with the LPS. And we are working with the state to implement the program again. But the preliminary analysis is that they match up pretty well.
A PARTICIPANT: Would it be possible for us to at some point see a comparison between those two numbers, being as the LPS numbers have been a big bone of contention with all of us for so long? We have been saying that they are flawed, and we know what our catch is. One way or the other, we would love to see it in print as to what that showed and what our tag return showed.
MR. CHETA: I think when the little report that is being put together is finalized. I do not see any reason why not.
A PARTICIPANT: Being as I am from the Gulf, I just want to make mention here that the new season seems to have effectively cut the Gulf fishery out of the trophy fishery, and they are not happy with that. The bluefins are not in the Gulf. When the new season opens, they have left mostly. And so by being at the end of the season, there is no quota left, as evidenced by this thing which says that beginning in January that you cannot catch any. But when the season opens again, they will not be there.
The historical data shows that. The long lining landing should show that. And I am concerned that you all did not consider that, or whatever the concern is in that.
MR. CHETA: Rich.
MR. RUAIS: A couple of small points. Ron mentioned that fishing has been fabulous. And I have heard the same thing, particularly off North Carolina. But obviously, that is catch and release, because these statistics do not suggest that fishing has been fantastic. Once again, the numbers are low.
The question I had was why on the school category is the initial 2000 fishing year quota 81? Eight percent of thirteen, whatever it is 44, is clearly over 100 tons. And there is an underage as well. I just do not understand that. I also know, and we supported wholeheartedly that you now have four years to balance even the eight percent in the angling category, which is a good thing. It is going to allow you to have starting off for all of the angling category a much larger quota now that you have the four years to balance it off. But why 81 as opposed to eight percent of what the U.S. quota is?
MR. CHETA: I was not sure if anyone was going to catch that, but it probably should be 111, eight percent. I noticed it this morning myself. Actually, it is 111, and then we take away the 18. So it actually should be for the school reserve, which should make the initial 2000 quota 93, I believe. So it is a typo. What happened was I think it was just carried over from the adjusted 1999 fishing year for the table.
Are there any other questions for now? Rich.
MR. RUAIS: Yes. With potentially this large of a quota in the large school small/medium, what is the plan for North Carolina, is it your intent to give North Carolina a larger landing quota of small/medium large school for the winter fishery or not from this angling quota?
MR. CHETA: We are going to talk about that actually very shortly, but I do not think that right now there has been much discussion of raising that retention limit right now. That is definitely a possibility, although I do not know how much longer that fishery is really going to continue. For the next couple of months maybe, or another month or so.
What we want to talk about are options for the following year. Because what we have had is the one large school small/medium. That is kind of the base retention limit, and we have not been catching anywhere near the quota. So options for the next year, instead of having it as one large school medium, we could have two or something like that. But that is one of the things that we could discuss here, and we are looking for input from the AP and other members. So if I could just maybe move on to some of the next slides here. Yes, Rich.
MR. RUAIS: If I could just have one more follow-up on that one though. And I apologize, because I am probably not as up to speed on this as I should be.
But there is no set-aside for North Carolina right now, it is strictly here is the bag limit, and whatever you produce under the bag limit, that is your catch quota; that at this point, that is where we are at with North Carolina?
There were a few years I know where there were 40 tons, or 50 tons, or 60 tons that were set aside for the North Carolina winter fishery. Now that is not the case anymore. It is strictly whatever the bag limit is at the time. There is your fishery, and we will know what you caught after it is over. Is that the deal now?
MR. CHETA: If we feel that the catch is too high. In the past, the North Carolina fishery was very much in the beginning of the year, January. So if the catch was very high and we felt that we were not going to have a quota for later on in the season, there would be reason to shut it down. Now they are on the tail end of the season, or at least the second half. And there are not many other fisheries happening between now and the end of the season. So there is not much reason to shut it down.
From the last few years, we have a general idea of what they caught, five to ten metric tons. So that is the general idea that perhaps we have when we are monitoring the catch. So there is not a particular set-aside for that area. There is a retention limit, and what they land over that period is what they get.
A PARTICIPANT: Well, to follow up on what Rich was saying. He is right. Originally, we were given a quota. And according to the LPS or the MRFSS survey, we exceeded our quota, and we were shut down two years in a row. And that is when North Carolina had to institute their own counting program. And ever since we have counted our own fish, we have not exceeded any kind of quota.
But we are very concerned about not being able to catch a fish from January through April. And we need some quota. I was told that we would always be taken care of there. But I assume that if it was caught the first part of the year, that we could go without any fish from January through March. Is that correct?
MR. CHETA: I am not sure.
A PARTICIPANT: I am saying that since the fishing year has changed to starting in June, that if the quota is caught before December, then we would basically be without a season.
MR. CHETA: Right. And that is why we have the ability to close down the fishery at any time in any area to make sure that all of the geographic areas have an opportunity to catch the fish. What is closed down right now in North Carolina is just the trophy fishery, which the quota for the south has been met. But the large school small/mediums are still open.
A PARTICIPANT: Right. Well, I might add that this is the first year that the trophy shut down. So the change in the fishing year certainly has affected us.
MS. LENT: We are going to take a quick break from focusing on bluefin issues, because Dr. Andy Rosenberg is here. Andy is our deputy assistant administrator, and has come to greet you this morning, and take any particular questions you might want to ask. Andy.
DR. ROSENBERG: I apologize for interrupting, but I guarantee that you do not want to see me before 8:30 in the morning. First of all, I guess that I would like to welcome the new and returning members. I guess I know maybe half of you, or have at least met half of you I should say. And I certainly appreciate the time that you put in on the Advisory Panel. These panels are important.
The agency puts in a lot of effort, and I know that you put in a lot of effort and time in this process. We need that desperately. The HMS issues are some of the most complicated issues that the agency deals with, and certainly the most contentious for a wide variety of reasons that you know as well as I do.
There are a lot of challenges facing us for the coming year, as they were last year. And many of you are returning members. We greatly appreciated the help on trying to get the FMPs in place. But as you know, FMPs are not sort of cast in stone. They are meant to be developmental documents that change over time, as people have better ways to do things, and better ways to manage. And, of course, as the resources, and the industry, and other groups change their perspectives and positions.
So this panel is crucial to that process. I would be happy to answer questions in just a minute. I would like to state one thing that may be obvious to all of you, but it is very important to us. And that is when we are receiving advice from the panel, and the panel takes positions, and recommends that we go in particular directions, it is extremely important that not only do you state what your viewpoint is, but also help us with the rationale for making a particular decision.
And I am going to use one of the most contentious issues we have, which is spotter planes, as an example. I know that this panel has voted to ban spotter planes, and I know that there was some discussion earlier today on that point. Of course, we have a court who is saying what is your justification for doing that. The justification is not the vote of the Advisory Panel. The justification is not because most people in the industry want to do it. That is not a justification under the law. I wish it was in many cases, but it is not.
We need specific information that we can apply to addressing our responsibilities under the law, the various laws that apply. And I just using again spotter planes as an example. Because the fact that everybody wants to do it, and everybody wants to do the right thing, or you all know that it has a basis internally does not necessarily help us put together the legal arguments to take a particular action.
The reason I say help us with that is because obviously we have analysts working on it, and we have people collecting data. And we try to apply that data in the best way we can. But you all know that you have a lot of information to contribute to that process, which may not be blindingly obvious in the data.
So in some sense, the advice that you can give us is your opinion on what should be done. But equally important is your perspective on what the rationale with respect to our legal mandates would be for taking that action. That does not mean that I expect everybody to be an expert in each of the laws and responsibilities that we have. But I think that you know the general perspective under the Atlantic Tunas Act, the Magnuson Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act, that we need to put together to justify taking any particular action or not taking any particular action for that matter, because we have to look at alternatives.
So I am sorry if I am telling you something that is blindingly obvious, but I have had a lot of discussions with councils and various panels where people say well, we all know that it is the right thing to do. That is fine, but we have to document it and justify it legally. And as you know, these days argue it in court on every single issue, usually from both sides, people who feel a justification is insufficient and people who feel that another alternative is better.
So with those very general words, again I would welcome you and thank you for serving on the Advisory Panel. I do know that it is heavy lifting. But I also assume that you are here because it is important to you, and it is extremely important to us. So thank you for that. If people want to ask me about specific issues, you are welcome to. Rich.
MR. RUAIS: Thank you, Andy, and thank you for stopping by. I will repeat a question that I was asking Rebecca earlier on the airplane. Just to make it clear, my organization does not have a position on what to do about airplanes. I have got members on both sides. But all of those members are also concerned about the potential implications of what the agency might do to effect a ban, and what those implications are for the traditional way that the harpoon and general category have operated.
And right now in the fishery, there is a big void, a black hole, of what is going on, and what are the alternatives, and what are the implications. Whether it is rumor or people just conjuring up things, there are suggestions out there that some of the things that are being considered could have some fairly dramatic changes to the way that the two categories have historically operated.
The comment is that I would urge the agency as quickly as possible, and obviously here we are in February and this is long overdue anyway, to get that word out to people what the agency thinks or what the lawyers think are necessary in terms of changes to the category in order to meet the sentiment. You have the overwhelming sentiment from the fishery. I do not have to make it for you. You have gotten it from congressional testimony, and public hearings, and written comments, and the whole deal. The AP has taken a position.
But there is still a concern. And you should not overlook that, that there is a concern that if there are some changes that are basically in many people's minds that are unacceptable to how the general and harpoon category are operating, then we need to know that early on, so we can set you on the right course.
DR. ROSENBERG: Early on in this context, it is getting a little strange, but I appreciate the comment. And let me tell you a couple of things about it, because I know there is a lot of interest in planes, and I know that Rebecca talked about it earlier. First of all, fair enough, to go through the rule making process, in most cases, we always would go out for public comment, proposing the final rule in the normal Administrative Procedures Act fashion. And we certainly intend to do that here.
The difficulty is that, of course, if we stuck with what we had, again yes, the Advisory Panel has been very clear, and the judge also has been very clear that he does not really care about that. He is not very interested in your vote. And so I am sorry he is not very interested in your vote. That is not a justification for him under the law, which is why I used that as an example.
For us to simply repropose or to go through with what we had would require and he has made it clear that requires substantial additional justification because he has not accepted the rationale in the past. So we are considering whether there is a way to modify that, I do not think that the rumors are any surprise, whether there is a way to modify categories that actually give you the ability to justify it on other grounds other than we proceeded before given the reaction from the court.
The timing issue is problematic, but I am hoping that we will move forward either with the new proposed rule, which is what I expect will happen but I do not know, or with a final rule. But even if we did that, probably we would have to consider whether additional comments were needed for the final rule for the proposal that we have on the street.
At this point, I can tell you what I would expect fairly shortly. We will get a decision to go out with a new proposed rule, and then take the comments. Because whatever we do, some people are going to be concerned just as you pointed out. You have members on both sides of the issue. As far as I can tell, every group has members on both sides of the issue in some way or another or some aspect of it, even if the general sentiment is very clear from all around the table. I think I had Jim.
A PARTICIPANT: Andy, good morning. Thanks for coming by here. And I have a question regarding the NMFS proposal for the closure in the long line area versus the legislation. One of the conservation organizations at the congressional hearing on Tuesday claims in their testimony that NMFS does not have the authority to initiate a buy-out program.
Now my understanding in Magnuson is that there are provisions for NMFS to do that. Is that true or not true, can you clear this up?
DR. ROSENBERG: Sure. NMFS does not have the budgetary authority for a bio program unless there has been an appropriation to fund an industry funded buy-out program. In other words, we cannot sort of agree on a buy-out program that commits Congress to funding it. So we have no authority to pay for a buy-out program.
Under Magnuson, we have the authority, and Mariam can throw a rock at me if I get this wrong, under Magnuson we have the authority to move forward with an industry based buy-out program, and ultimately a bond issue under Title 11 of the Merchant Marine Act, to fund that bio program to be paid back according to whatever business plan is developed by the industry. Well, that is different from what some of the discussions that have been proposed, the legislative proposals and so on.
But we do have the authority to do that. What we cannot do is say yes, we are going to have a buy-out when we have no appropriation to do a buy-out. So in a sense, they are both right. We do not have the authority to agree to a buy-out program, but not really what people are specifically talking about in this instance, because there are some variations on that theme. If we had the appropriation, then I think we would have the authority. She has not thrown anything at me yet.
MS. MCCALL: (Inaudible.)
A PARTICIPANT: Let me follow up. I got the impression from the assistant administrator that she was supporting the legislative approach over the regulatory approach, which was kind of mind-boggling to me.
DR. ROSENBERG: No, that is not correct. We are saying that we support the concept of the legislation in the sense that there needs to be changes in the fishery, and it needs to be done in a way that obviously mitigates some of the economic impacts that will have. We do need to move forward with regulations with regard to reducing discards and protecting small fish and protected species such as turtles and so on.
So in concept although not the specifics, we are in support of the legislative initiatives to then mitigate the impacts of what we effectively are required to do by regulation. But we do have to move forward with the regulatory approach for a number of reasons. One, that is the mandate under the law. And we also, of course, have a settlement agreement that says that we will do that by May 1st.
So part of the difficulty here has been the understanding of why we are doing that without waiting for the legislation. We really do not have the option of waiting for the legislation. So I do not think that Penny in the testimony or in any of the discussions that we had, and I was not at the hearing, I certainly did not mean to imply and I do not think she did, hopefully she did not, that we prefer the legislative approach to the regulatory approach. But they can fit together very well.
A PARTICIPANT: I think you would need to check that record. Because Congressman Pallone came back to Penny and said a comment regarding that, and you will see that was a pretty weak statement.
DR. ROSENBERG: Well, in the testimony, it specifically says that we support the concept of the legislative approach, but we must move forward with regulations. And that is in the written testimony, and I believe that there are copies of that on the side table.
MR. P. WEISS: I just want to make a comment on your opening comments. If I can paraphrase what you were saying, you were saying that you would like the panel once the vote on something to even go beyond that and give you as much backup or information as they possibly can on that particular issue. Is that correct?
DR. ROSENBERG: Yes, but it is not necessarily once you vote on something. I think it is incumbent on panel members to say I think we ought to do this, and I think that we ought to do it under the law for these following reasons, not just because my association would rather have it this way.
A PARTICIPANT: Yes, and getting to that point. Not every panel member here is particularly knowledgeable on every issue. But the issue that you happen to be talking about, which is the airplane issue and the spotter plane issue, which we are quite involved in, I think I have and I think the organizations have done everything that they possibly can to aid NMFS in this particular process. We have hired lawyers. We have sent you legal cases. We have sent you practically briefs. We have thousands of comments that were done on this thing.
You know, that example, we have done what you are asking us to do. And I am only sorry to say that the results have been not there.
DR. ROSENBERG: Well, we have used all of that material. And, of course, the court has not accepted it. Secondly, I use that example because specifically we went to the court and said look, the Advisory Panel thinks we ought to do this. Clearly, there appears to be a majority of people who think we ought do this who are involved in the industry, and the judge said so.
That is why I am using the example. Again, I am not pointing a finger at anyone. I am just saying that the arguments are very difficult to make. I am not saying that you have not tried to help. It is just that these are very difficult issues.
(End side A, tape 1.)
DR. ROSENBERG: (Inaudible) which is an allocative issue, strictly an allocative issue. The problems of making that legal justification are formidable. It is not because we have not tried to do it and not because you have not tried to give us information, but it is a difficult argument.
A PARTICIPANT: I was at that second hearing, I think the one you are talking about. I do not know if you read the transcript of that hearing.
DR. ROSENBERG: Yes, I did.
A PARTICIPANT: But I do not remember the judge saying all of these things that I am hearing about, whether he does not care about the AP. He finally said, you know, this is the proposed rule, come back and see me when the rule is final. He did not even know what we were doing there or what the pilots were doing there. I mean that is what he really said.
DR. ROSENBERG: But in the previous case, in the previous hearing, this is about the fourth time around, and again I am looking at Mariam, specific in the opinion it said that the justification that effectively everybody wants to do it is not a justification for taking this measure.
A PARTICIPANT: Yes. But there was no AP panel vote on the previous. It was done under the Atlantic Tuna. I could get into a whole thing, which I am not going to bother anybody with. But, you know, I think that there is an attitude being taken that this judge is going to rule against you no matter what. That is possible, I do not know. But you are never going to find out unless you try, I will tell you that.
DR. ROSENBERG: Forgive me, but we have been trying for quite awhile. And I did read the transcript of those hearings, of that session and the previous ones. We have been trying for quite awhile, not successfully. The issue is not solely whether this judge will rule against us. But we are not going to go to a judge if he has identified material weaknesses in an argument. And there are questions about whether we can prevail either in his court or on appeal. And so again, it is a difficult situation. I am not criticizing this panel or any member of the panel for that. I am just reminding you that because these issues are so difficult and contentious, give us the help that you can in terms of the rationale. Hammer.
MR. BEIDEMAN: Several things, Andy, on the broadness of that section of the Magnuson, whether it includes HMS fisheries. We did quite a bit of research on that prior to embarking on our legislative effort. In fact, we sat down with the National Marine Fishery Service. And at that time, there was a large question of whether it did or did not cover HMS fisheries. We sent legal advisors from the cooperating parties, and even the cooperating parties sat down with key congressional offices both majority and minority to get a specific read on that section.
Now our guidance was no, it does not cover HMS fisheries. It does not specifically add other fisheries under the authority of the secretary, you know, in the language that is typically used when HMS fisheries are also to be included. Our read from the congressional offices was that that section does not cover HMS fisheries specifically. And as we know, the nature of the proposal in the legislation goes far, far beyond even what is covered under council fisheries.
Now I am sure that the lawyers could argue this half of forever, but they are already getting paid enough. But key congressional authors of the Magnuson-Stevens Sustainable Fisheries Act have clearly told us that it is not covered.
DR. ROSENBERG: And we disagree. And I will say two things about it. Your lawyers may get paid enough. I am not sure about ours. I had to say that, so Mariam would be nice to me. We disagree. We do think it covers HMS fisheries. And going and asking congressional staffers what did you mean when you wrote this does not really help. Because I have done that a number of times. And everybody will tell you that what we really meant to say was all kinds of different things. Well, that does not matter. It is what the language actually says, and our interpretation is that it does cover.
You may disagree. And ultimately, we may have an issue there. But fundamentally, since we support the concept of the legislation, I am not sure that we have to have this debate. Maybe we will at some point. Let's see where the legislation goes. I think that is the critical issue, and when. I think part of the problem is the timing. But I do agree with you that the legislation goes beyond what we believe our authority is within the Magnuson Act. In addition to that, of course, the legislation will ultimately have to address the issue of appropriation, which we cannot do as I pointed out in response to Jim's question before. Joe McBride, I think next.
MR. MCBRIDE: Two things, Andy. The first is philosophically in regard to the panel. You congratulated us and thanked us for our efforts and endeavors of being here, and working on whatever projects were before us. Yet at the end of that, you said that when we did whatever we did, we used the illustration of the spotter planes, and you brought it to the judge, and you said he does not really care in essence what we say. Well, that is one problem.
Second, along the same lines, sometimes within the agency itself and the AP panel, we make recommendations to the agency, and they ignore them also. You know, not quite as bluntly as the judge might have, but we are concerned about that. If we are here and we make suggestions and we give you all of the information, and you do not say gee, give us more, guys, and we give you what we have available, and after a discussion that we ask for something, we would like a response as to why you do not go along with our suggestions. And I think of one illustration on the bag limit on yellowfin tuna, which is very contentious to us. All right. That is one, if I may.
And the second question, Andy, is a little more mundane, and I am not an expert in this. But there are legislative proposals regarding buy-outs, et cetera, et cetera. Part of that proposal is an attempt by the legislature to take over some functions of the agency for approximately four years. And I correct in that, in summarizing it; Rebecca, am I correct in that?
MS. LENT: There would be a moratorium on any further time/area closures for four years.
MR. MCBRIDE: So taking some administrative policies away from the agency. And what is the agency's stand on that particular issue, are you for it or against it?
DR. ROSENBERG: Let me address the first issue first.
MR. MCBRIDE: Okay.
DR. ROSENBERG: And that is that I did not say that either we or the judge does not care what the Advisory Panel says. I said that the vote of the Advisory Panel is not the justification under our statutes to take a particular action. In other words, we cannot write a document that says that we are taking this action because the Advisory Panel voted unanimously that they all thought that it was the best thing to do. We chose the Advisory Panel members for their knowledge of the industry, and they all thought that it was a good thing to do. Therefore, we are going to take the action.
Unfortunately, there is not a provision in any of the statutes that says a justification for taking a particular action is a vote of the panel. That does not mean that we do not care about what the Advisory Panel says or that the judge does not. Because you are chosen for your knowledge of particular fisheries and particular issues related to resource management.
All I am saying is that while you may know as you are formulating your own position and making your comments to the Advisory Panel as to why you should ban planes, have a buy-out, or whatever it might be, that it is vitally important to ban planes for the following reasons related to the national standards in the Magnuson Act and provisions of the Tunas Act or whatever it might be.
Sometimes you may think that we should know what your rationale is with respect to those particular statutes. All I am asking is be a little more explicit, that the economic impacts of doing that or the conservation impacts of doing it are that for the following reasons, and give us some help in crafting those arguments. That is not saying that we do not value what the Advisory Panel is saying. It is quite the opposite. I am saying give us a little bit more background of what the legal rationale is.
The second point is yes, sometimes we do do something that goes the other way from what the Advisory Panel voted for, the same as obviously the judge does. And we do that if we feel that under the prevailing statutes that it is either that what the Advisory Panel has recommended is not justified, or that another measure is in a stronger position. It is similar to the way that it works with councils. It is not the same, because the councils are actually preparing the proposals and crafting the arguments directly. And the authority is different, of course, in approval and disapproval.
With things like the yellowfin tuna bag limit, I believe that we have made an argument as to why we are doing it. That may not be an argument that is acceptable to you. But what I hear you saying is that you need that argument made in clearer terms to you and more explicitly. That is a fair enough comment. Many times, just like what I am asking you to do now in terms of crafting your rationale, you will say well, this is the rationale for doing it. Well, sometimes there is communications problems. We say this is our rationale for doing it, and to you that is really not an explanation. We will continue to try to do that. If that is a particular issue that you want additional discussion on, I am sure that Rebecca would be delighted.
MR. MCBRIDE: The second one.
DR. ROSENBERG: Well, the second one was the bag limit in terms of trying to communicate.
MR. MCBRIDE: The second one really, Andy, is in this particular legislation as proposed on the buy-out, what is the position regarding the restrictions on the agency for four or five years.
DR. ROSENBERG: And our position in general is that is not appropriate, because we need to have the authority to adjust measures as needed. And that is a general situation. If there is a proposal to say okay, we are going to abrogate your authority for a period of time, we are not in favor of that, because it makes it more difficult in our view to meet our mandates. If something changes, we want to be able to adjust to that in either direction.
MR. MCBRIDE: If I may make a suggestion to the agency. I belong to the New York State MRAC, a similar agency made up of commercial and recreational fishermen. And now I am not a lawyer, so I do not want to give you the specific laws. But the DEC, the New York State DEC, analogy to the National Marine Fishery Service, is mandated to accept -- we do not make the laws like the council, but they bring the laws to us to be reviewed, and we make requests that they then might devise through their legal agencies into laws and so forth, and through regulations also the same way.
But if we make them and vote on them, they pretty well have to say why they are not going to do it, and they are limited not to do it in a legal sense for the most part, or some sort of legal sense, whether it is economic legal or whether it is actually in violation of the section of the law.
So the point I am making, the panel, the New York State panel, analogous to this particular panel, has some effect. It is not just a rubber stamp agency. If we like what they say, we will accept it. If we do not like what they say, we will ignore it for whatever reason. I am not arguing that aspect of it. And that is why I made the comment about the judge's comments, even though you might be summarizing them or what have you.
I think it is important. In the highly migratory species, I think this panel probably has as much knowledge as to the councils in that particular area. Because the councils at one time, the Mid-Atlantic councils, had the highly migratory species in it, and they took it out. God only knows why they took it out of the Mid-Atlantic Council, and put it back in the agency, but they did, and so be it. And we would like to have a greater mandated role I think in making deliberations, summarizing it that way.
DR. ROSENBERG: And obviously, mandates are the responsibility of Congress. But I think what you are asking for is a better explanation of particular decisions we make. It is not the case that the comments and positions of the Advisory Panel take are not utilized or ignored by the agency. You can see that if you look at changes from proposed to final rule. That does not mean that everybody gets everything that they want, but that means that the comments are accommodated.
Look at the HMS plan. There were huge changes between proposed and final rule, and a lot of those based on input from the Advisory Panel as I recall. That is just not the case that we do not pay attention to it. But your point is well taken that if we are making a decision that at least some people do not feel does not go along with what the panel recommended, we should need to spend more time explaining why very specifically. Because in most cases, it is not that we would rather do something else, but it is because we feel that our legal mandate requires that we do something else.
MS. LENT: Mau.
MR. CLAVERIE: I was one of the abstainers on that airplane boat, because the Gulf Council does not have a dog in that fight. And I would not want to go home and say I suppressed something, you know. I know what you are talking about, avoid the arbitrary and capricious situation. And during the discussions on the airplane, I call them the dog fights, the airplane battle up here, there was a great deal of justification in terms of national standards spoken in the room.
Now whether or not it got on the record, I do not know. And maybe that is a problem that needs to be addressed. I just do not know. Because I have not read the briefs and the record and all of that to see what the facts are that are alleged, but there was a lot of that kind of stuff that you are asking for stated during the discussions on this matter.
DR. ROSENBERG: And again, I am not criticizing you for not doing something. I am asking you to continue to keep it in mind as you go through your discussions, because it is very important to us. Again, spotter planes because it is an allocative issue, and many issues in fisheries of course are allocative, is a very difficult argument. We used whatever we could get. Of course, it was on the transcripts from your meetings, and used in crafting the documents as best we can. And we still had a problem with arbitrary and capricious opinion from the judge.
A PARTICIPANT: To that point, we had a transcript of a scientist's explanation of MSY, which was given down in Florida at one of our meetings. And almost every other word in the typed out transmit was unintelligible. And so if that is the way that the record of these meetings are where we were discussing the pluses and minuses of spotter planes, I can understand how it is a serious problem. It was Pamela Mace in Tampa, I think.
A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.)
A PARTICIPANT: And another point I had, if I may, was could you please a little further on the front burner a decision on the use of e-mail for comments in this agency.
DR. ROSENBERG: Yes. And for that one, it actually is on the front burner. The problem is that we need to make sure that we have a consistent policy for all of rule making. In fact, also on the front burner is trying to go to an electronic rule making as opposed to getting the Federal Register with your morning Wheaties. But it is on the front burner to end up with a consistent policy.
Our problem is that we did not want to come out with a policy that varies between different offices around the country and so on. And we are looking at what other agencies have done for e-mail comments. We also want to make sure that we have the ability to know who the commenter is, because that is required. And we cannot go any other way in the way that the commenting procedures go. It is a little more complicated than simply reading your e-mails unfortunately. But we had been talking about it actually in January trying to get something done fairly soon to do that.
A PARTICIPANT: We wish you would include the councils in the discussions. Because some councils allow it and some councils do not, and I know that our council allows it. And we have some good practical experience on pitfalls and whatnot. And I assume that whatever you all adopt, that the councils will adopt.
DR. ROSENBERG: It is probably a good topic for the council chairs' meeting in May, so we will take that up. Jack Devneu.
MR. DEVNEU: Good morning. Thanks for coming down, Andy, and spending some time with us this morning. I had a couple of comments I guess relative to your comments earlier with respect to the agency position, and with respect to the proposed legislation and the proposed rule.
Let me take a look at my notes here. I wanted to, I guess, explore a comment on the statement that the agency's hands are tied with respect to having to go through with the proposed rule and final rule time table. If you are committed to this action and it is final, and you have to hold to this time table.
My understanding is that the time table that has been set is a result of negotiations between the agency as defendant and a plaintiff in a court case and the judge. And as such, it was negotiated. And I live my life in business a lot on negotiations. And negotiations can be reopened, and negotiations can go a lot of places.
And I have no doubt in my mind that if the will was there with the parties that the time table could be renegotiated, which would in fact if that happened go ahead and support your further comment that when you said that the agency wants to wait to see where the legislation goes and is supportive of the legislation, if that is true then I urge you to go back to the people you negotiated with and the judge and put off the final rule for nine to twelve months. And then thereby, let the legislation take its course to see where it is going to go. If it goes nowhere, come back in with your proposed rule.
Meanwhile, you have time to comment on your proposed legislation and help to shape it as the agency would like to see it shaped. I find the time table that has been established most objectionable, and I am certain that steps could be made if there was a will to go ahead and not subvert the legislative process by adhering to the time table but rather change the time table and let it go forward.
DR. ROSENBERG: A couple of things. First of all, what I said is we have to meet that specific time table. We have made an agreement on that time table, and we made it sometime ago, that we would produce a final rule by May. I am in no way implying that it is impossible to reopen negotiations, but any negotiations obviously have to be time certain. And that is a possibility that we have already discussed and explored a little bit. But there is no predictable outcome for that, so people should not expect that the time table should be extended.
Yes, we made that agreement. And it seemed like it was a reasonable agreement for a number of reasons. Even though it is difficult on Rebecca and her staff to meet the time table, and all time tables are in some sense unreasonable given the resource constraints of the agency, our mandate is to deal with the specific conservation issues that were raised when we withdrew the previous closed area proposal for protecting small fish.
The legislative process obviously is extremely unpredictable in terms of its timing. There is not the need that our rule making process subvert the legislative process as you put it. That is not necessary, and it is not necessarily the result. There is no reason why the legislative process for a buy-out proposal cannot move forward on whatever time table they can accomplish, and our rule making move forward on whatever time table we are required to meet. So they are not mutually exclusive. That if we meet our current time table, the legislation no longer has any impact or effect. Of course, it does.
But our mandate is to try to achieve the goals that we are trying to achieve with the closed areas in terms of protection of protected resources, a reduction of discards, and protection for small under-sized animals. So I do not disagree with you that it is possible to renegotiate time tables. I am not sure whether that will be successful. It may be helpful. That is not entirely clear to me.
I suspect that what will happen is any renegotiation will also be a difficult time table for the legislative process to meet, but that is not something that we have any influence over or input on frankly, the legislative calendar.
So I think it is unfortunate if people view this as either/or. That is not the case. If we move forward with our rule making, that does not in any way preclude legislation, and should not preclude legislation. And it should not slow it down in any way. And I think that is an unfortunate sort of perception that some people have had.
I have Jim Donofrio again, and then Nelson again.
MR. DONOFRIO: Thanks, Andy. I want to get back to the plane issue, which I was on record myself personally opposed to the use of the planes. Based on my experience as a fisherman up in the northeast area there south of the vineyard and all in that area where I did work my boat, my main contention is that it was a safety at sea issue over anything. Forget about anything else, it is a safety at sea issue.
And the scenario I gave is that we have a lot of fog up there on days, and a plane may be spotted circling. And the whole fleet, whether you are paying that plane or not, the whole fleet knows that there is a school of bluefin tuna. And what happens is that they all throttle up and head for that area.
Now what I am saying is that rules of the road do not exist. Now under federal law, I know that we have a Magnuson Act and you are talking about allocation and national standards. And I know that we have a Coast Guard officer here.
Doesn't safety at sea go before any kind of allocation and any of Magnuson considerations? This should be a no brainer for this judge.
DR. ROSENBERG: No, it does not go before. There is a national standard that deals with safety at sea specifically. But if you say does it go before and override any allocative decisions, the answer is no. Because, of course, if that were the case, and safety at sea was the primary concern and protection of that overrode everything, then you probably would not allow the fishery. So it cannot work in that way.
It is a concern, and it is an argument that we have heard before, and have utilized I believe in the spotter plane discussion in terms of safety with boats converging. I think it is in there, as I recall. It is an important argument, and it does not override any other concern. Obviously, for an individual operation, the Coast Guard will take safety first in an individual situation. But in terms of writing rules, does it override Magnuson concerns, no. It is part of the Magnuson national standards.
MR. DONOFRIO: Wait, let me finish this now. Because now what you are saying to me, because I still have my 100 ton operator's license, you are saying to me that if I am fishing and I have an opportunity to cut a boat off and violate the international rules of the road, I can do that.
DR. ROSENBERG: I never said anything approximately like that, Jim.
MR. DONOFRIO: Well, you just implied that.
DR. ROSENBERG: That is ridiculous.
MR. DONOFRIO: That is what I just heard.
DR. ROSENBERG: No, I did not say anything like that. So let's try again. That is ridiculous. I did not say that in an individual case that you just waive the rules of the road, because it matters more that you get to the fish than whoever you run over. What I said is that it does not override in developing a fishery management plan the requirements for conservation, the requirements for allocation be made fairly, the requirements to minimize bycatch or anything else. You cannot write a rule that just says well, the heck with that, we can just fish ab libium because we have decided that is the safest thing to do. It does not work that way.
Now obviously, in an individual situation, if you are going to put other people at danger, then first of all, you should not do it, because you have your license and the Coast Guard should pull it if you did. And secondly, of course, they can order you out of an unsafe situation, I believe. This is your law, it is not mine, Mark.
But you are talking about a management planning process and justification for a particular set of rules. Yes, safety at sea is a concern and can be brought into the argument on banning spotter planes. If we believe that allowing planes to continue as they are currently ruled undermines safety at sea as a general provision, again we have brought that into the argument. But it does not override all of the other national standards.
In fact, the only one that overrides the national standards in any sense is the national standard that says you must conserve and manage, and it takes precedent. But that does not mean that it overrides everything else in that same way as you described in your example.
A PARTICIPANT: But that is exactly what happens. This having the plane rule creates a situation where there is no burdened or privileged vessel anymore. That part of the international rules is gone. It is he who gets to the fish first wins. So tell me.
If the rule is going to create breaking international rules of navigation, would that not be the precedent for just eliminating it?
DR. ROSENBERG: No.
A PARTICIPANT: No?
DR. ROSENBERG: No. Because the rules do not require you to break international rules of navigation. If somebody does that foolishly and put themselves at danger and puts other people at danger, it is not because they have to according to our rules. That is ridiculous. There is nothing in the management plan that says, "And by the way, when you are out there, make sure you hit everybody you can." It tells you to obey all of the rules. If people do not follow them, are you saying is that a problem? Yes. People should follow the rules of the road, and be as safe as they possibly can. Let me get back to Hammer.
MR. BEIDEMAN: Thank you, Andy. First off, I would like to say that I do and Blue Water does share Jack's perspective and concerns. But not to belabor that, more importantly, I want to get some minimizing socioeconomic disruption onto the record, especially while yourself and Gary are present. I will try to do it as general as possible. And, of course, we will be more detailed in our comment, and perhaps the discussions this afternoon.
But we have got a situation, and this applies both to the BMS requirement that is required by June, and the proposed rule. And the situation is that we have three different processes that are taking place. We have got the regulatory, and we have got the congressional, and we have got core data aspects. And there is a lot of good hard working American fishing families that are getting squeezed in the middle of these processes.
And if I could, I would like to give you a couple of examples, such as on the VMS. Boats are not going out buying VMS right now. They are waiting to see what happens with the three processes involved in that situation. On the proposed rule, God forbid, if the rule is finalized, it will socioeconomically impact all affected vessels. There are about 102 vessels that have recent years participated in those closed areas.
A large number of those vessels will have to figure out how to uproot their home bases and procure housing, you know, rent, buy, what have you in other regions of the country. And set up their children in schools, you know, new schools and different schools. And set up medical facilities, and religious facilities, et cetera. The related businesses, the same thing. Some of the related businesses are going to have to pick up their homes and move to other regions of the country, et cetera, et cetera.
The processes themselves are creating some problems. Even American fishing families that will comply strictly with the rules whatever does come out, they are getting caught in the middle here. It is not right, and it is not fair. And I hope that the agency takes a full account of those types of things. And I know you have asked for comments on how to minimize socioeconomic impacts. One way is considering that these families would need, families and businesses, would need at least a year lapse between finalization and implementation of the rule. I think that would be a minimum.
And there also needs to be consideration, especially because it comes into additional economic impacts of extending the VMS until we know what is going on and things get settled out. I would love to discuss those aspects in more detail whenever, but I think that it is very, very important.
A second thing is we have been very, very concerned about all of the differences in the scientific percentages and whatnot that have been coming out. In Penny's testimony and in our stuff, we all have got different numbers. And supposedly, we are all working with the same pelagic long line database that comes out of the Southeast Fisheries Science Center.
From what we understand, there has been an internal scientific review. Please place on the record that we would like to see that internal scientific review, and let us know if we need to do FOIA, or congressional requests, or what have you to receive that. Thank you, Andy.
DR. ROSENBERG: Sure. To the first of it, I understand the concerns, and your points are well taken between the three processes that are going on, which believe it or not were not set up by the National Marine Fisheries Service, but actually are set up in the Constitution, the courts, the Congress, and the administration. And that is a difficult circumstance, but that is the constitutional government that we live under.
There is little we can do about pulling those processes together. But I think your comments about at least the agency trying to bring them closer together and things that I hear, I will see if there is a way to do that.
With regard to the last point -- well, on VMS, I think that VMS has been proposed for a year and a half. It has been on the table for a year.
A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.)
DR. ROSENBERG: It has been about a year. But again, your comments, I appreciate the comments. It is not a brand new proposal. Obviously, there was some discussion before it was formally put in place with a one year delay. But this is a discussion that has been had in a number of other fora, for example, in the New England Council and so on.
With regard to the numbers, I think that the question in terms of percentages, first of all, we are working out of a technical report that I think you all have available with regard to the closed areas. The real issue with regard to percentages is how you account for the displacement of effort. And that is where you get differences in the numbers.
If you assume that you close the areas and all of the boats evaporate and are not going to fish anywhere else, then you obviously get one picture. If you assume that the boats are able to go and fish somewhere else, then you get a different picture. And it depends on how you allocate that effort to other areas. And that is standard in every closed area analysis, that you have to essentially try to bound the range of possibilities by looking at a so-called no displacement model assuming the boats do not fish anywhere else, and in a displacement model assuming that the boats do fish somewhere else.
And obviously, some boats will and some boats will not. And you cannot predict that perfectly. That is the discrepancy in the numbers that I know you have been using, and both sets of numbers are contained in our documents.
With regard to the internal review, I am not sure. Yes, we did ask people to review methodology, but I am not sure that we did a review report. If we did, I do not see it, but presumably it is available. I think that we basically just consulted people with comments about methodology particularly with regard to that displacement issue. And I will find out what there is for written material. I just do not know. We will have to look at what the situation is there, and I will get back to you. Steve Loga.
MR. LOGA: Hi, Andy. Steve Loga with Tuna Fresh. I seem to have lost my voice overnight. My question is concerning the western Gulf of Mexico proposal and the proposed rule. The Magnuson Act specifically states that we need to minimize bycatch to the extent practicable. In that western Gulf area, it accounts for less than one percent of the total U.S. bycatch on billfish as reported to ICCAT each year. But it also accounts for 72 percent of the Gulf landing of yellowfin tuna, which is the targeted fishery in that area.
And it also means a lot to our state. Preliminary estimates say that it is as much as a $100 million a year fishery to the economic of Louisiana. And I just do not know if NMFS has looked at this, and felt that this is minimizing bycatch to the extent practicable. And we are sacrificing 72 percent of the Gulf's landing of the yellowfin tuna, which is a very clean fishery to save less than one percent of the billfish in that area.
DR. ROSENBERG: I think you need to remember and the difficulty in doing the analysis is that this is not just minimizing billfish bycatch, but it is minimizing bycatches of small tunas, and turtles, and all kinds of other things. So it is necessarily the case that you cannot optimize or minimize on multiple objectives at the same time.
The answer is yes, absolutely. We have looked at bycatch overall and minimizing bycatch. Each of the different proposals, as you have seen in the technical documents, have different results in terms of what we would expect the reduction in bycatch for different species would be.
Your comments are important and well taken, particularly if you would suggest an alternative that would work better in terms of minimizing bycatch for all of the various species that are considered in the HMS plan, as well as all of the protected species. So if you look at the tables and you say well, but it does not minimize bycatch of that species as well as this other proposal, that does not actually help very much because you are trying to do this balancing act for all of the species.
So I am not disagreeing with you in terms of your comments other than to say please remember to look at all of the species. And again, when you comment, an alternative proposal would be helpful. And why that does a better job of balancing up the bycatch reductions for all of those species.
MR. LOGA: In saying that, the legislation which we have proposed right now is a lot more than just a buy-out. In fact, the buy-out probably only exists for maybe six or eight boats in the Gulf of Mexico. But what that legislation does do is close an area off of the Minnesota canyons that is a hot spot for a bycatch of juvenile swordfish. And it also allows for an experimental fishery not that I am conducting, but that scientific study on how to minimize bycatch in the long line fishery.
So I think that the legislation has a lot of merits, and it is a lot more than just a buy-out that everyone seems to think that it is.
DR. ROSENBERG: Right. And I am not under the misapprehension that it is just a buy-out either. Again, I would go back to Hammer's comments. There are three things happening here, again as set up by the Constitution. While we support in concept the things that the legislation is trying to do, that does not abrogate our responsibility to move forward with the rule making that we need to do.
The legislation can do stuff that we cannot do. In fact, it can do lots of things that we actually cannot do under the law. Because remember, we have to justify all of our actions under the NEPA and Magnuson Act. And the legislation, of course, does not have to justify. They are not creating an administrative record in that sense.
So I do not disagree that there are lots of things in the legislation, and that would be important. On the other hand, it is also not predictable what the legislative course might be. And we have to still move forward with our mandates.
I have got a few more people on this, and I also have a few people who are repeats. But what is the timing like?
MS. LENT: It is getting a little tight. Mau, can you hold off for awhile. You are next on the list.
MR. CLAVERIE: Rebecca, I pass or I yield my time to the gentleman on my right.
DR. ROSENBERG: Actually, Gail was next, so let me go to Gail. How are you doing, Gail? I have not seen you in awhile.
MS. JOHNSON: Fine. Thanks, Andy. It is good to see you here. Two things. First of all, on the three pronged approach as it were coming towards us, there is another avenue. There is ample precedent for completing a final rule. But often, well not that often, but often sometimes NMFS has needed to delay implementation of the final rules. And there is precedent and there may be very good reason for it this time.
The second thing is that on the VMS, for our boat, we have a problem that probably will affect other boats in this northern area. And that is that when VMS for pelagics goes into effect, there are two service providers authorized, and I believe three actual black boxes authorized.
Well, we also have a ground fish permit, and VMS is required for that. And guess what? None of the VMS that worked for pelagics worked for ground fish or apparently for scallops which we would not use. And I need to put it on the record that you have to address that, because it is unreasonable to expect two things in terms of cost. And also, practically speaking, the wheel houses on the older boats like ours, thirty years old almost, there is no room. We are maxed out for antennas as well as boxes. Thank you.
DR. ROSENBERG: Thanks, Gail. To save time, I will not respond. We have thought about, of course, delayed implementation, and other people have raised that. And your comment is a good one, as well as the issue of conflicting VMS requirements, even though the ground fish requirement is not currently implemented. Let me go to Bob Zales, because I think I skipped you before, Bob. Sorry.
MR. ZALES: Mine is not so much as has been discussed, but it is more about procedure. We hear consistently about the Fishery Service is supposed to be more user friendly so to speak to the public, and do everything they can do to let everybody know what is going on.
The public hearing process for this time/area closure process in Panama City, Florida was the most poor performance of public notification that I have ever seen.
(End side B, tape 1.)
MR. ZALES: I brought that to the attention at the public hearing in Panama City, and I brought it to the council's attention. And I guess that being you are the second man in charge, I am going to bring it to you. As an agency, you do what is legal. You put it in the Federal Register, but not all of us look at a Federal Register every day. You need to do more. You need to send things out to the public, and do everything you can do to get to the public to let them know.
As an example in Panama City, Florida, the way most people found out in Panama City about the public hearing day was through me. And the only reason that they found out through me is because I happened to be on the fax network, and happened to be a member of this panel to get there. The newspaper found out from me.
And the reason why I bring this up is because the Gulf Council does an excellent job of notifying people about issues that come before that council. The southeast region, Dr. Horgarth is doing a real good job about notifying people that come up for fisheries issues for NMFS in that region. You have a network out there that all you have to do is go to the council, go to Dr. Horgarth, and find out their sources of notification, and send it through them so they can get the stuff out there.
The newspaper in Panama City is not obligated to print what you all send them. But if you do not send them anything, they do not have any options to do. And I would suggest that you do a little bit more to get this information out.
DR. ROSENBERG: Thank you for the comment. We did mail notices to permit holders. And, of course, it is the same list that Bill Horgarth has, the fax network, which goes to all of you. It is a huge network, and it goes to the council. We did send faxes to the newspapers. I have no idea why they did not print it, or why they tell you they did not get it unless their fax machine did not work.
Obviously, apologies if for some reason that notice did not get out, or the mail did not arrive, or the faxes did not work. But as I recall, there is some huge number of people on the fax network. It is hundreds. It is not just the advisory panel. So I am a little puzzled as to what has happened. We will look into it, and find out why the people did not see the notice or did not pay attention to the notice. I will also double check and make sure that we sent one to the newspaper in Panama City, because they are on our media list. In fact, I think we did two media notices in this case, which is a fax out to all of the various media outlets.
MR. ZALES: Just to respond. The girl who does the stuff for the New Herald in Panama City, I specifically talked to her and questioned her. She did not have any idea that the fax network even existed. If she is on there now, I do not know. When you send them out, I get three copies. For some reason or another, I am on that thing three times. They burn my fax machine up with notices. So if you are on that list, you get it. But you have to ask to be on it. And if you do not know to ask to be on it, you do not know about it.
DR. ROSENBERG: Again, there are hundreds of people on the list. And all of the permit holders get it by mail whether they ask to get it or not. So I do not know what happened in that case. It is obviously a problem or of concern. We will call the Panama City paper and find out why they did not get it. Or if they did get it, why they did not know what they got, and figure out what happened there. Let me go to Dave Wilmot.
MR. WILMOT: Good morning, Andy. Just a quick comment and one question, so you do not feel unwanted when you leave, and you were not at the hearing the other day. There are folks around the table who are very pleased to see NMFS moving forward with their obligations and responsibility. And while the proposed rule is not perfect, we are extremely happy and will be making many more comments about that this morning.
My question is does NMFS have a plan to secure part of this wonderful surplus that everyone talks about in this election year for research, and monitoring, and enforcement? I mean there are so many very important issues with rebuilding plans and bycatch reduction that we all care about and debate about for hours. But I think that if we did talk about some of the research and enforcement issues more, that we would have a real consensus around this table.
Is there a plan to get more money? We know that it is under funded, and I would like to hear a response.
DR. ROSENBERG: Thanks, David. Obviously, the president's budget came out on Monday, and we are doing budget briefings on the Hill, and did the constituents briefing this week. Within the president's budget, there is increased enforcement money. There is also increased stock assessment and research money. You should ask me -- but if you do not want to, I will just do it for you -- is that sufficient to meet the needs for the various plans.
And obviously, with competing budget priorities, we did not get money that is nearly going to cover all of the needs. But there is an increase of $4.5 million for enforcement. Some of it is for things like VMS implementation. There is increased observer coverage. I think that is $3.6 million nationwide, but most of that goes to West Coast ground fish, $2.3 million of that goes to West Coast ground fish.
There is increased stock assessment money, and money for social and economic data collection overall for the social and economic data collection. My memory is about $3.5 million. For the stock assessment information, there is about $2.7 million for just increasing annual assessments. There is also some additional sea time. These are all pieces that help.
Overall, probably one of the most important things that we are hoping for in this budget that has not appeared in a lot of other budgets that most people do not pay attention to is for the first time in five years that we hope that we will receive adjustments to base. We have received no inflationary increases for five years.
What happens is everybody says we have a new initiative, and we are going to give you a million dollars to do new stock assessment or enforcement work. Well, given that we have a congressionally mandated pay increase of 4.8 percent and we have increases in rent and all of the other increases that you all experience in your businesses, as well as people moving up, and promotions and all of that sort of stuff that happens in a large organization, most of that goes just to try to stay even.
This year, we are asking specifically for adjustments to base, which would allow us not to use all of the new initiative money just to pay must pay bills, our required costs.
So the answer is yes, but we are not going to have the ability to do all of the things that people want even in HMS fisheries let alone all of the fisheries around the country.
I am going to hit the people who have not had a chance to say anything. Are you taking a break after this?
MS. LENT: Yes.
DR. ROSENBERG: And then maybe other people can ask me something on break while everybody else gets coffee. Bob Spaeth, I guess was next.
MR. SPAETH: I was asked to bring this up as maybe a potential solution or compromise here in the interim. I do like Gail maybe not going forward with the rule but not enacting it for a year or so.
But if that cannot be done, what about the possibility of going back all the way to the original small area prior to the three plans here that I thought was agreed upon which start reducing the bycatch problem. And as I understood it, what happened with this program was that the public hearing and special interest groups kept expanding the area in the South Atlantic over a period of time, and this area grew and grew.
What can we not go back to the original area, put that into effect; and then if you let the legislation run its progress, and then by framework procedures or something, expand the area?
DR. ROSENBERG: I think the short answer to the question is because we concluded in the rule making process before that the small area was insufficient, and really did not meet any of the needs. It was too small to actually have any impact. We have no basis now for saying well, we have changed our minds, because that is what the analysis showed, both based on the scientific analysis as well as on the comments.
In terms of the expansion of the area, I think that everybody here around the table has a special interest. So there has been extensive discussion of what the areas would be. There was extensive discussion of those small areas before. And I think that it was pretty widely recognized that they really did not do the job or any particular job. And while they had an impact in a very small location on a number of fishermen, they did not really do anything in terms of conservation.
So I do not think that we are going to go back to those. I heard your comment that you thought that Gail's idea was useful, and obviously we will be considering that over time. Russ Nelson was next.
MR. NELSON: I do not know how many more people you have on your list, Andy. And I do not want to downplay the therapeutic value of this wide ranging constituent chat, but we seem to be moving more and more towards a focus on the proposed area closures. Are we on that part of the agenda now, or are we going to get back to the agenda before lunch?
MS. LENT: (Inaudible.)
MR. NELSON: Okay.
DR. ROSENBERG: John Jolly.
MR. JOLLY: Yes. We have not met. I am John Jolly, and I represent the recreational sector of the West Palm Beach Fish Club. I am afraid that my question relates back to this closure thing in the legislation. I wonder if you could clarify something for me. I was led to believe that this legislation that is being proposed would not preclude NMFS from further regulations.
And specifically, if you felt that it was necessary to take some further steps, that really what you were being precluded from doing was adjusting the area, but not working with bycatch quotas, gear modifications, changing, and fishing techniques, and that sort of thing. I would like to get that clarified for the panel.
DR. ROSENBERG: That is correct. And frankly, I do not know if all of the least four legislative proposals are the same in that regard. But they are talking about simply not adjusting the areas. But again, we have consistently opposed abrogating our authority to modify management measures given new information, but you are correct in your interpretation. Irby Basco.
MR. BASCO: I am not going to talk about time/ area closure right now. But the comment that I wanted to make was about what Bob was talking about, getting the word out to the general public. Whenever I chair a meeting from the Coast Gulf Council, what I do is I call the local newspaper and tell them. And they will be gracious enough, and they always have run another notice in the paper that the meeting is taking place. And after that, I even contact some of the people in the area who I think would be interested like some charter boat fleet or whatever it may be, commercial fishermen, and tell them about this. And this is how I enhance.
And I think that it should be incumbent on all of the council chairs of these meetings that do this and help NMFS get the word out that we need to have people there, and we need their comments on these different issues. So I just wanted to put that in. Thank you.
DR. ROSENBERG: Thanks. Again, we will keep looking at things. We do send the notices to the council, and we do the media faxes. I am not sure whether public affairs does media calls in addition to the fax notification, but anyway.
MR. WHITAKER: My question is just pertaining to the tagging program. And my reason for the question is that I am required by federal law if I am releasing bluefin tunas to have a National Marine Fisheries Service tagging kit aboard my vessel. And I called Eric Prince down in the Florida office to order tags about two or three weeks ago. And he said that there were none available, and he had not had any for three months.
And I am just wondering whether this program, is this a temporary thing, or are they going to do away with the program?
DR. ROSENBERG: Rebecca says that tags have been ordered. So apparently, we were waiting on funding for that. But they have ordered tags, so they should be getting in new tags shortly.
I skipped a couple of people. Joe, you had another comment again. And Jack, you had another comment. And Sonya, I guess, did not get a chance to speak. I do not know if you have a burning issue for the whole group, or if we can talk for a minute after we take a break. And Jack, is that okay with you, or do you have something that you need to say for the group?
A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.)
MS. LENT: The mike.
DR. ROSENBERG: Just go ahead.
MR. DEVNEU: Just real quickly, and it does not require a response. My name is Jack Devneu. And this comment also is a personal comment as part of the process, and not representative of the Blue Water Fishery Association.
My comment is that I keep hearing, and it gets repeated over and over, not just today by you, Andy, but by others, that the agency has mandates, and is required by law to do this, that, and the other thing. The first comment is that there is more than Magnuson at stake here. We have the Atlantic Tunas Convention Act, and what that brings to the table.
But more importantly is very often the agency creates its own mandate in law. And a case in point is the decision to negotiate a stay with the plaintiff on the proposed rule. That decision was not imposed. You could have defended that case, and you could have defended it successfully. I have no doubt in my mind. The decision to negotiate a stay was a political act, and not a legal act. And I just want to make that clear.
There are a variety of times when the agency makes a decision that then creates a mandate. That decision at that moment, the way it goes, is political pure and simple.
DR. ROSENBERG: Thank you. We fundamentally disagree on that point, just so everybody is clear about that. I think it is ridiculous. It is not correct about how we made that decision, and why we made that decision, or that we created a mandate. But we decide how to address our mandates, as you all do address your business mandates. And somebody else might come to a different decision, but you are not in the position to make that decision at a particular time. So we do fundamentally disagree there. Thanks for the comment. Sonya, you get the last word.
MS. FORDHAM: I want to again thank you and NMFS for your leadership in obtaining the FAO plan of action for sharks. And I know that the United States is working on a national plan, and that the outline has come out. And I wonder if you have any information for the group on the time line for comment and development of this plan.
MS. LENT: Right now, Sonya, the plan is under internal review. We do plan to put it out for public review, we hope within a month or less. And we will do a wide announcement on that, put it on the fax network, and we will call Panama City.
DR. ROSENBERG: Thank you all very much. I appreciated the comments, even if sometimes we disagree. They are always interesting and helpful to me in trying to understand the issues, and I wish you all a good meeting. Thanks.
MS. LENT: Thank you very much, Andy. What I would like to do so we can get back to the agenda is just have Pat present a few more notes regarding bluefin tuna. I would like to close the bluefin tuna subject at that time, and move into time/area after a short break. And then I would suggest that at lunch time that those who want to continue discussing the bluefin issue bring a sandwich back here. There is a cafeteria right next door, and we can continue discussing that.
Are there any comments on that suggestion for the agenda? Nelson, quickly.
MR. BEIDEMAN: I would support that, but I would also support making sure that the bay's enforcement issues get some time on the agenda this afternoon or tomorrow.
MS. LENT: Thanks for that reminder, Nelson. We will get back to that issue. Quickly, so we can move on, Rich.
MR. RUAIS: I am not real happy with the idea of a partial AP talking about the bluefin issues. There are a fair number of issues that we want to talk about under the general category of effort controls. And I would like to be able to spend the time on it with the whole AP, if that is possible.
MS. LENT: We will encourage people to come, if they can, to lunch. There should be no reason why you cannot come back. We just have a really tight schedule. I did not want to cut you off when you had the opportunity to talk to WAA. But at the same time, we have to rebudget some of the time that is left. Okay. So Pat, you can spend a few minutes. And then we will go to a quick break, ten minutes, and come back and to the time/area.
MR. CHETA: Thanks, Rebecca. Not even a couple of minutes. I just wanted to kind of talk about what maybe the next steps are that we are looking to do within the next month or so, or the next couple of months.
The annual specs for the 2000 fishing year, including quotas for all of the various categories and the general category effort controls, the quota subdivisions, and the restricted fishing days, we are probably going to be coming out with proposals for those within the next month or so. That is one of the things that we could discuss at lunch. And also, looking for input on the angling category issues that we talked about, about moving the line. We heard some comments earlier. And also, about what the season could look like.
We have an additional quota this year, it looks like, which is going to be left over from 1999 into 2000. If we want to have an extended season with similar bag limits or if we want to perhaps have higher bag limits under a similar time period, those are things that we can discuss, and those are options that are available to us. So we could discuss those issues at lunch. I will be available then. I know we have to move on. Thank you.
MS. LENT: Rich, do you need to ask a quick question quickly?
MR. RUAIS: I do. It is the issue of when are we going to get some sort of a little bit of a report on what happened with that bridge quota period, and where all of that quota went. I thought that was going to happen under this agenda item.
MR. CHETA: We could talk about it at lunch a little bit more. But briefly, the bridge quota really had to do with the fisheries that were taking place during January through May.
A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.)
MR. CHETA: Right. To my best recollection, and we could talk about it more at lunch, there were underages in each of those. We had some quota that was available for both of those categories from the previous year, which we used for the bridge period quota, the transition quota period. And there continue to be underages in those, which would be moved into the 2000 fishing year.
MR. RUAIS: So there was the 1998 quota that was used in 1999 to finish up the now extended 1998 fishing year.
MR. CHETA: Right.
MR. RUAIS: And there were underages in those two sub-quotas that were provided for the long line incidental and for the angling.
MR. CHETA: Right.
MR. RUAIS: And what I am interested in seeing is what are the numbers, and what was rolled over into the 1999 fishing year, and what is likely to now be available in 2000.
MR. CHETA: Okay. We did publish a Federal Register notice on that for the bridge period, exactly what the quotas were, and for establishing the quotas for 1999. In the handout are the adjusted quotas for 1999. There is a handout which has no letterhead on it, and a memo to Rebecca from Mark Murray-Brown. And that has the adjusted 1999 quotas on it. The middle column is the adjusted quota three, and it has the various quotas for the different categories. Except for the angling, which is in the separate table in the handouts. So what is not in here is what the bridge period quota was.
And we could talk about that at lunch, Rich. I will make sure I get those for you. But there was a separate Federal Register notices that had all of those numbers on it, which went into establishing these adjusted quotas for 1999. And we could bring a copy of that Federal Register notice along with the tables and bring them over.
MS. LENT: All right. I suggest that we take a break now, and come back at 10:15. And we will start talking about the time/area closures. Thank you.
(A brief recess was taken.)
A PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible) and Ocean Subcommittee in the House. I just wanted to bring people up to speed on some of the legislative initiatives that have been working their way through the process. I am just going to really concentrate really briefly on what occurred the other day in our hearing. The House Subcommittee had a hearing on three legislative proposals in the House. Mr. Saxon's bill, H.R. 3331. And Mr. Goss' and Mr. Tauzin's bill, H.R. 3390, which is the companion bill to the one in the Senate, which is S.1991 sponsored by Mr. Breaux and Ms. Snow. And the final bill is H.R. 3516 sponsored by Mr. Sanford of South Carolina.
Mr. Sanford's bill is a bit different than the other legislative proposals in that there is no associated buy-out. It would simply prohibit pelagic long line gear to be used in the EEZ in the Atlantic.
The majority of the hearing concentrated on 3331 and 3390, in addition to the National Marine Fisheries Service's proposal that was published in the Register on December 15th, which I am sure you are all well aware of.
At the hearing, we had the administration, Congressman Goss, and a third panel of witnesses, both representing the long line industry, the recreational industry, and the environmental community. In short, the hearing did not go in the direction that Mr. Saxon had hoped it would have. To him, it was evident that the parties that were asked to testify had their positions laid out. And while there were one or two opportunities for coming to the middle, the majority of the issues that are outstanding, there seemed to be a reluctance on all parties to come to the middle.
And for those here in the room that were at the hearing or at the panel, you know that with Mr. Saxon's comment after the break, where there was thirty seconds of silence by the panelists obviously, he showed his frustration. And that is unlike him.
We had originally had a field hearing scheduled for Fort Lauderdale for February 23rd. Due to some scheduling conflicts with Mr. Saxon and Mr. Goss, it is being postponed. We hope to reschedule it as soon as possible. Mr. Saxon would like to have the field hearing.
I guess that I have not talked to him extensively since the hearing, but he is frustrated. He knows not only do the legislative initiatives have a lot of support in one sense or the other, but there is also a proposal out there by the National Marine Fisheries Service that people have concerns with as well.
So all I can tell you is that we are hoping to still move forward. I probably will be having meetings with various stakeholders in the coming weeks to move forward on this. So I guess that is basically it.
In terms of if there is anybody possibly here who does not know what the basis of these legislative initiatives are, I will do it really briefly. Both 331, Mr. Saxon; 3390, Mr. Goss and Mr. Tauzin; and S.1911, Mr. Brow's and Ms. Snow's bill, they are very similar. The difference of the three bills frankly is Mr. Saxon's bill, 3331. He has added three provisions to the original text that was presented by the Coalition of the industry and recreational organizations.
Most of his additions have to do with the region known as the Mid-Atlantic bite. Essentially, all of the bills do incorporate time/area closures in the Gulf, permanent closures in the South Atlantic, complemented with a buy-out of eligible vessels. It is a voluntary buy-out of those eligible vessels affected directly by the permanent closure in the South Atlantic. It also has an extensive research program as part of the ongoing effort to reduce by catch, and various ways to improve the use of long line gear to reduce by catch.
And there are also some other provisions having to do with appropriations, and a time-out provision in terms of not permitting or allowing further time/area closures without evidence, science, and discussion, if you will. There are a broad base of stakeholders out there that support both, either/or, or none, as well as the proposal that you are all probably talking about today.
Needless to say, it did not go as well as we expected. We did not expect a total solution, but Mr. Saxon was hopeful for a little more movement forward. So be prepared to hear from me. You know who you are. And we will let you know where we go. So with that, thank you very much for the opportunity. And I will be hanging around probably for about another hour, and then I will have to take off, if anybody has any questions. Thank you.
MS. LENT: Thank you.
MR. MATLOCK: I am Gary Matlock, and I am the director of the office of sustainable fisheries within NMFS. And thank you, Rob, very much for your comments. Again, he is available if you have any comments or questions to offer him.
For those of you who might not know me, and those of you who are new to our panel, let me first welcome you. It is a bit late, and I am sorry that I could not be here yesterday. But it is a pleasure to have you here, and to be soliciting your input and your comments on the topics on our agenda.
This is not a meeting from our standpoint where we are trying from the NMFS perspective to tell you what it is that you should or should not be doing. Instead it is a meeting for you to give us your thoughts and your comments on these various topics. And we do pay attention to them. It is important therefore in making sure that we know who has said what that you tell us who you are before you speak, so we can be sure that our records of the meeting are accurate. So if you can remember as you talk, it is a bit difficult, and I may interrupt you to try to make sure we know who you are as you talk, to please say your name. It would be very much appreciated.
Rebecca is going to try to take as much detailed information down as she can while not running the meeting the such or not facilitating it, and she has asked me to try to make sure that we get everybody recognized for whatever you might want to say, and she can pay that more attention to what you have to say.
With that, the topic now before us is the time/area closures. And we do not really have any presentation at this point or comments to offer you. I think that everyone pretty well knows the state of play and what activities are occurring. So what we would like to do is turn it over to you, and get your comments, thoughts, questions, criticisms, suggestions, and whatever else you might have to offer. So with that, we will start with Russ and Jim.
MR. NELSON: Thank you, Gary. I guess I have a question basically as to process. In the development of the last sent of amendments to the HMS and the billfish plan, these two Advisory Panels sort of had a clear process set before them. In one case, the HMS panel had a facilitator who tried to lead it towards a consensus or an expression of its divergent views on each particular issue. And the Billfish Advisory Panel worked under a chair and came to votes on particular issues where there was not consensus.
I am having a bit of a difficulty figuring out how Rebecca is going to extract the guidance being offered by this Advisory Panel. Thus far, we have been engaging solely in wide ranging and free form discussions, wherein each and every individual has offered their separate opinion on things. I do not see how the panels themselves are being asked to come up with either consensus or majority views here. It seems to be very loose and very unstructured. And in fact, a process which I suggest would almost allow the extraction of any particular piece of advice offered by any individual. So I am just wondering what is the process here.
MR. MATLOCK: Well, let me give a stab at it. From our perspective, it is as important to get the basis for whatever kind of position that the panel or panels may want to take on a particular issue as it is to get what that position is. As Andy indicated while he was speaking, to simply have the Advisory Panel say that we would like to see so and so happen is not very helpful. But to have the collective basis upon which that so and so should happen is extremely helpful.
To the extent that I can, at least in the time that we have allocated between now and about 12:30 when I have to leave, dealing with time/area closures, we will attempt to get a consensus of the two panels. We are not going to take votes, so there is no majority position that we are going to try to obtain.
But to the extent that we can get a consensus from the Billfish Panel and the HMS Panel on a particular aspect of the discussion, I will try to do that. And I will try to do it in a way that I have been trained and have done in several other meetings. And that is pretty much to summarize at some appropriate point in the discussion what the positions are, and see if there is a collective position that can be developed that people will agree to.
To the extent that that cannot be done, I do not intend to belabor the discussion simply to get to a consensus, but do intend to try to get as much information out of the discussion as we possibly can. I do not know if that is very helpful or not, Russ, but that was my intention as I sat down here.
MR. NELSON: Well, not being at all inclined to pre-judge your efforts, we will proceed forward. But I do suggest that at least the possibility exists here that how this process has been set up, that it may to some extent be minimizing the effectiveness of these two different groups that were put together under a congressional mandate. But again, I am going to put my seat belt on, Gary, and let you rock.
MR. MATLOCK: Well, I appreciate that. One of the things that I would hope that we would not do is spend the time available to us talking about a process to get to some end, or to get the information. So my intention would not be to belabor that particular aspect, but to get on to the issue at hand. With that, Jim Donofrio, you were next.
MR. DONOFRIO: Thank you, Gary. Gary, I am hopeful that NMFS will move forward with their proposal here. But at the same time, I realize that we are going to need some legislation to address and mitigate the buy-out part of that. And we are supporting that, of course, with Mr. Saxon. And we had some ideas that I would like to throw up also to the Advisory Panel.
As you know, we have the $25 highly migratory permit which was raised from $18. Most of our people always saw this as a valueless tax, valueless, because it went into the general fund. There was not benefit to paying $25 to go fish for HMS species. I would like to see that this license be turned into a directed fund through legislation, of course, and maybe help work through your congressional liaison office, and use that for the buy-out. Because then there is benefit to us. There is benefit to the recreational sector. We have to pay it anyway. We feel that compliance is way low. I think that we probably have a lot more vessels in this fishery than are complying with the law. They just see it as valueless, so they are not complying. And as you know, there is not much enforcement. So it is very difficult to count the boats. I think that it would give us a more accurate count also of what vessels are fishing. It would help you in your data. And also, set up a fund for perpetuity here, which would help with the economics for the long line industry as it gets displaced. Thank you.
MR. MATLOCK: Thank you, Jim. I do not see anybody else rushing to the floor. So this might be an appropriate time for Sebastian. I think you wanted to offer a few comments. Since we do not have folks clamoring to get the floor, perhaps this would be a good time for you to offer your comments.
MR. O'KELLY: Hello. I know many of you. For those I do not, my name is Sebastian O'Kelly. I am the department's ombudsman on fisheries issues in the new position created by Secretary Daly to give him advice and input on various fishery matters that get to his level. And I just want to give a quick hello. If people want to come around and talk to me during the break, I will be in and out.
I do not have any comments to say on any specific provisions dealing with these various issues relating to the agency rule making and the legislation considered on the time/area closure. I do think that this is probably the most significant fisheries management issue, or certainly one of the top two or three that NMFS, the department, and Congress will be wrestling with over this next year. So it is really a significant issue.
I am hopeful that in the final analysis that we can have something put in place that addresses the conservation, handles the economic impact, and results in a win-win all round. I know that is very difficult to accomplish in the world of fisheries management given the diverse interests and the sometimes contentious debates. It is something that I push for as much as I can.
Where we can get agreement among sectors, and where people can come together and compromise,I think that is really important. I do not see it happen as often as it should, or that I would like to see it happen. But I really want to encourage it. I think that within the department that people want to encourage it as well.
I know that there are various and diverse viewpoints, and sometimes it is hard to reach across the divide with people that you are continually in disputes over allocation and management measures, and a whole bunch of other things. But I think it is very important. I really want to place that as an emphasis. I do not have any real comments to add on either the legislation, or the rule making, or the various particular pieces to it. I just want to commend folks for making that effort on this whole subject. So thank you.
MR. MATLOCK: Thank you, Sebastian. Again, he will be available as he said. So if you want to corner him, you are certainly welcome and are encouraged to do so. Joe.
MR. MCBRIDE: Earlier Nelson spoke about the hardships involved in the potential closures, et cetera. I think that many of us, myself included, are on record as stating at the last I believe it was June meeting that when a fishery is to be put out of business by legislation or by regulation, there should be some assistance to the displaced fisherman in one form or another, you know, exactly the specifics of which we did not discuss, I do not think, other than the term buy-out.
Now buy-out, I think, literally means you buy and the boat is out. And I think we said on record last time, if I may again reiterate the position, that if you buy a boat out as they did in New England with many of the ground fishery boats, the boat is out of business, and it is destroyed, et cetera. It cannot be sold in Japan, and it cannot be used in another fishery. And that is fair in my opinion and in the opinion of my associates. That is number one.
Secondly, going back to the economic hardships in regard to some of this regulation. Whereas it is legalism to be concerned with that under the present regulations or present legislation, or whatever term you might want to use, morally to not take a regulation can cause as great a hardship economically as to take a regulation.
For example, many of the northeast head boats because of lack of regulation, let's take the highly migratory species of tuna, are forced to leave their geographic area, and go up to New England and begin to fish for ground fish, and put an extra effort on a threatened species or an over-fished species even up in New England. Because they have taken off the quotas and limitations and the individual bag limits that restrict a head boat fishery. And this is just one simple illustration.
So my point is really being that no legislation or no regulation can cause as great an economic disadvantage to a given geographic area as legislation. I want you to keep that in mind. It is a double edged sword, if I may. Thank you.
MR. MATLOCK: Okay, thank you. I have got Jack, Bob Zales, and Hammer.
MR. DEVNEU: First, I would like to welcome Mr. O'Kelly. I think that it is great that he showed up here for today. And I would also like to express my appreciation to the staff members from congressional offices. I am glad to see their attendance here today at this meeting on this agenda item.
I just had a couple of comments that I wanted to put out there to keep in mind as the discussion on this topic goes forward. First and foremost is that I think it is important to realize that the legislative proposal by blue water and the cooperating parties itself represents a nine month long negotiated procedure. In fact, it represents a compromise that had been reached through an exhaustive and labor intensive process.
We think the bill is outstanding in its present form. It has more resource conservation bang than anything else out there, principally because it actually retires effort rather than redistributes effort. And it had equity provisions in there for that displacement. It also has got several other things in the proposal which I believe are outstanding, which I do not really need to go into at the moment.
But I think that it is important to keep that in mind. And to view that proposal, the legislative proposal, right now as a starting point in negotiations, I think would be a mistake. It in itself represents a compromise that has been attained at some great consternation by a lot of people.
The other thing that I wanted to make a comment on to keep in mind as we go forward on the discussion is that once again I want to applaud all of the people who have participated in this process to date, because we have in fact a stock that is going in the right direction. And I think that may have been lost here.
The swordfish stock by the last stock assessment is increasing. There has been adopted at ICCAT a ten year rebuilding schedule with a greater than 50 percent likelihood. These are no small matters. There has been a lot of sacrifice to get to this point, and we should all congratulate ourselves on getting here. I think that it is very important that we keep that in mind. We have already achieved very measurable successes in this fishery, and they will go forward in the complete absence of any proposed rule, or legislation, or anything else. We are already going in that direction.
(End side A, tape 2.)
MR. DEVNEU: And to go ahead and put something together like this legislative proposal shows an enormous commitment on behalf of the stakeholders both in the recreational and commercial fisheries to further address and enhance that recovery that is already taking place. So I think that if we bear that in mind that it may be easier to reach a consensus. Thank you.
MR. MATLOCK: Jack, thank you very much. Bob, if I may, before you get the floor. What I would like to do is remind you that the topic that we are trying to focus on with your comments here are the time/area closure prepared rule. The comments that you have to offer on other topics are certainly very helpful and very useful, constructive and worthwhile.
But if you do not give us much comment specifically on our proposed rule, then we are not going to have much from you with which to work to help decide what we do with that proposed rule between now and May