[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 35 (Thursday, March 24, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 24, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
    FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION AUCTIONS FOR SPECTRUM LICENSES

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, last summer under the Budget 
Reconciliation Act of 1993, Congress revised the assignment process by 
which the Federal Communications Commission awards licenses. In 
particular, section 6002(E)(2) of title VI creates a special rule which 
provides that the Commission may not issue a license by lottery after 
the date of enactment unless one or more applications for such licenses 
were accepted for filing by the FCC before July 26, 1993. Thus, under 
the legislation, the FCC may use a lottery to award any licenses 
license for which an application was filed prior to July 26, 1993.
  While not every authorization for which applications were filed 
before July 26, 1993 must be awarded by lottery, the conferees 
specifically provided the Commission with the opportunity to award 
licenses applied for before that date by lottery for a number of 
reasons. Among them was the concern that a retroactive application of 
auction rules would be inequitable to applicants who filed before the 
date the Budget Act was enacted. Thus, under the legislation, the FCC 
may use a lottery to award any license for which an application was 
filed prior to July 26, 1993.


               jessica mathews' washington post editorial

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, an editorial by Jessica Mathews, 
entitled ``Today's Catch--and Tomorrow's: An Orgy of Over-Fishing is 
Depleting the Oceans and Endangering Future Food Supplies,'' appeared 
in the Washington Post on Sunday, March 13, 1994. This editorial 
discusses the crisis in global fisheries management, emphasizes the 
need for strengthening international fisheries management, and also 
makes several points that apply to the regulation of fisheries within 
the United States Exclusive Economic Zone [EEZ].
  This article is particularly timely because the Senate Committee on 
Commerce, Science and Transportation is considering the reauthorization 
of the Magnuson Fisher Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson Act) 
this session. The Magnuson Act is, of course, the primary Federal 
statute governing the regulation of marine fisheries, and its 
reauthorization is a priority for the committee. While international 
fisheries agreements are a critical component of global fisheries 
management, 95 per cent of the total U.S. commercial landings are fish 
caught in U.S. waters. Hence, we must focus our effort in the coming 
months to promote the sustainability of U.S. fisheries as a vital 
component of U.S. economic strength in the global market, and 
consideration of the reauthorization of the Magnuson Act is important 
in these efforts.
  We are reviewing the reauthorization of the Magnuson Act at a time 
when, as Ms. Mathews points out, many of the stocks in our Nation's 
waters have become severely depleted. The difficulty in addressing 
regional differences within a broader legislative framework is a 
challenge for the Magnuson Act reauthorization and also for 
international agreements. The transboundary nature of many species of 
fish--across national and state borders--demands a management strategy 
that balances international and national standards with strong domestic 
and regional fishery regimes. The Senate Commerce Committee will 
continue its efforts in this regard.
  I ask unanimous consent that the editorial by Jessica Mathews appear 
in the Record immediately following my remarks.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                     Today's Catch--and Tomorrow's

                          (By Jessica Mathews)

       Next week another round of U.N. talks begins that will try 
     to resolve a genuine global environmental crisis. There is no 
     danger of crying wolf on this one. The negotiations are not 
     hobbled by scientific uncertainty nor polarized by a North-
     South divide. The risk is not abstract or diffuse or distant 
     from human need. None of these handicaps, which can make 
     environmental agreements so difficult, obtains. The only bars 
     to action are short-sightedness and greed.
       The crisis is the drastic overuse of ocean fisheries. 
     Thirteen of the 17 major global fisheries are depleted or in 
     serious decline. The other four are overexploited or fully 
     exploited. Every one, in other words, has reached or far 
     exceeded its sustainable yield. The global catch has been 
     declining since 1989. Long before that, rising tonnages 
     masked a shift from valuable species, such as flounder, 
     haddock and swordfish, to much less edible ones, such as 
     spiny dogfish, skate and shark--all that was left.
       This is not just a tragedy of the global commons. 
     Individual countries have managed no better. Since the United 
     States took control of its 200-mile offshore zone, it has 
     presided over a government-subsidized orgy of overfishing 
     that has decimated species after species. Despite ever-
     greater effort--bigger boats, sonar, more days at sea--
     the catch of nine of the 12 Atlantic groundfish stocks has 
     collapsed. The take of such species as cod, haddock and 
     flounder is down by 70 percent to 85 percent. Clam and 
     oyster catches are down by half. Pacific salmon are 
     nearing commercial or biological extinction. In the Gulf 
     of Mexico it is the same story.
       Here is one measure of how fast this devastation has 
     occurred. In 1979, in the frenzy of the second oil crisis, 
     the government wanted to drill for oil on Georges Bank, a 
     biologically rich shoal in the Atlantic. Georges Bank then 
     had more fish per square meter than any place in the world, 
     and was bringing in more than $1 billion per year. It served 
     also as the spawning ground for dozens of species fished 
     there and elsewhere. All of this was to be put at risk for an 
     estimated amount of oil equal to less than five hours per 
     year of U.S. energy needs for 20 years.
       The irony is that though there proved to be no oil, Georges 
     Bank was nearly destroyed anyway--by blind mismanagement. 
     After 350 years of continuous fishing, the area was stripped 
     bare in a decade. Today, much of it is closed to fishing.
       There is still time to save global fish stocks, but little 
     to waste. Though the resource is stretched to or beyond its 
     limits, world population marches steadily upwarded by 1.75 
     percent per year. By 2035 it will have doubled. Already, 800 
     million people are malnourished. Preserving the source of 
     one-sixth of the world's animal-protein supply is a dire 
     necessity.
       The only hope lies in creating a strong international 
     regime to manage the fisheries. This, not another toothless 
     declaration, must be the goal of the U.N. talks. The 
     agreement should set minimum global standards to be met or 
     exceeded by regional pacts.
       Countries must be required to participate--their 
     participation to include the collection of vital data on 
     their ships--or forfeit fishing rights. Catch standards 
     should consider the whole marine ecosystem, because present 
     fishing methods devastate birds, marine mammals and non-
     target fish as well as edible stocks. Recovery plans that 
     create temporary or permanent unemployment in the fishing 
     industry will sometimes be the only alternative to permanent 
     loss of the resource.
       If this seems ambitious, it is no more than what 
     interdependence means in practice.
       Fish move. The 200-mile boundary that separates national 
     zones from the open seas is meaningless underwater. All 
     countries need the fish; those operate a few miles from shore 
     and ``distant water'' nations that send their fleets around 
     the world. Finger-pointing between the two groups over who 
     has done most damage to a particular stock--the principal 
     pastime at the U.N. talks so far--serves only to deepen the 
     crisis and make the choices in an eventual recovery harsher.
       To date, the United States has offered no leadership. 
     Ambivalence about whether to give priority to fishing 
     interests or conservation has shown up in the low level of 
     representation at the talks, the absence of a clear strategy 
     and the opposition to a binding global agreement. The view is 
     that U.S. interests would be best served by preserving the 
     freedom to use America's muscle in regional agreements.
       This is like saying that U.S. interests would be served by 
     a world of regional trade agreements in place of a global 
     regime: NAFTA with no GATT. In those terms the error is 
     obvious. With a global agreement, regional pacts provide 
     added benefits. Without one they can be a menace, encouraging 
     a beggar thy neighbor's region approach.
       Most environmental concerns pose a sterner test than a 
     global fisheries agreement. They require a grasp of the 
     sometimes subtle bearing on human welfare and a concern for 
     the future. In this case, the former is obvious and the 
     latter unnecessary. This is no long-term challenge. It is 
     here and now.

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