[Congressional Bills 112th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1916 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

112th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                S. 1916

To exclude ecosystem component stocks of fish from certain annual catch 
                     limits and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                           November 28, 2011

Mr. Nelson of Florida (for himself, Mr. Rubio, Mr. Vitter, Mr. Wicker, 
Mr. Thune, Mr. Begich, Ms. Landrieu, and Ms. Murkowski) introduced the 
 following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on 
                 Commerce, Science, and Transportation

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To exclude ecosystem component stocks of fish from certain annual catch 
                     limits and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Fishery Science Improvement Act of 
2011''.

SEC. 2. IMPROVEMENT OF SCIENTIFIC DATA FOR ANNUAL CATCH LIMITS.

    (a) Scientific Data Required for Annual Catch Limits.--Section 
104(b) of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management 
Reauthorization Act of 2006 (Public Law 109-479; 16 U.S.C. 1853 note) 
is amended--
            (1) in paragraph (2), by striking ``and'' at the end;
            (2) by redesignating paragraph (3) as paragraph (5); and
            (3) by inserting after paragraph (2) the following:
            ``(3) shall not apply to a stock for which a stock 
        assessment has not been performed during the previous 6-year 
        period, if the Secretary has determined pursuant to section 
        304(e) of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and 
        Management Act (16 U.S.C. 1854(e)) that--
                    ``(A) the fishery is not subject to overfishing of 
                that stock; and
                    ``(B) the stock is not overfished;
            ``(4) shall not apply to an ecosystem component stock; 
        and''.
    (b) Ecosystem Component Stocks.--Section 104 of the Magnuson-
Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act of 2006 
(Public Law 109-479; 120 Stat. 3584) is amended by adding at the end 
the following:
    ``(e) Ecosystem Component Stock.--
            ``(1) Definition.--In this section, the term `ecosystem 
        component stock' means a stock of fish that the Secretary 
        determines--
                    ``(A) is a nontarget stock; and
                    ``(B) is not subject to overfishing or overfished.
            ``(2) Prior determinations.--Ecosystem component species as 
        determined by the Secretary of Commerce prior to the date of 
        the enactment of the Fishery Science Improvement Act of 2011, 
        shall be determined to be ecosystem component stocks as defined 
        by paragraph (1) after such date of enactment.''.
                                 <all>