[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 17 (Wednesday, February 11, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1018-S1019]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Ms. SNOWE:
  S. 2066. A bill to authorize appropriations to the Secretary of 
Commerce for the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management 
Act for fiscal years 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008, and for other 
purposes; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Fishery 
Conservation and Management Act Amendments of 2004. This bill would 
reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management 
Act, as amended by the 1996 Sustainable Fisheries Act, and update 
fisheries policy to better satisfy the ever-changing needs of our 
Nation's fish stocks and fishing communities.
  In 1976, the year in which the Magnuson-Stevens Act was written, our 
commercial fisheries were in grave danger of being exploited beyond 
their ability to recover. Passage of the Act has provided a more 
balanced approach in fulfilling our economic needs by also promoting 
responsible conservation and stewardship of our resources. Even as it 
sought to provide better management for the Nation's resources as a 
whole, this law recognized that our fisheries have vastly different 
regional problems. The result was the creation of a regional management 
council in each of the country's eight major marine fisheries. These 
councils, with substantial input from the local community, are 
responsible for creating the management plans by which their fish 
stocks are regulated by the National Marine Fisheries Services. This 
structure has been vital in allowing the active stakeholders in each 
region to provide meaningful input to the management process.
  Since the enactment of this legislation, domestic offshore catches 
have increased so dramatically that our fisheries now add billions of 
dollars to the Nation's economy every year, according to the National 
Marine Fisheries Service. Because of this increase in fishing harvests 
and the pressure to fish more than could be sustained, in 1996 Congress 
passed the Sustainable Fisheries Act to amend and enhance the Magnuson-
Stevens Act. The new amendments included new guidelines for 
conservation of both targeted fisheries and bycatch, or incidentally-
caught fish and other marine life. The Act required that overfished 
stocks be rebuilt within a 10 year timeframe. In addition, the 
provisions added a requirement for the protection of all essential fish 
habitat for each fishery.
  The overarching goal of the Sustainable Fisheries Act was to ensure 
prosperity for all United States fisheries by ending overfishing and 
rebuilding depleted stocks. This goal, and the means for achieving it, 
are as important today as they were in 1996. I supported the Act, 
because I saw in it great potential for sustaining fishing communities 
and the stocks upon which they depend.
  In the nearly 8 years since we last renewed and reauthorized the 
Magnuson-Stevens Act, however, we have witnessed both prosperity and 
degradation in different fisheries affected by this law. According to 
the National Marine Fisheries Service's Annual Report in 2003, certain 
fisheries have thrived; for example, sea scallops on Georges Bank have 
increased 20-fold from 1994 to 2002, silver hake in the Northeast was 
declared fully rebuilt in 2002, and recovery of dozens of other stocks 
is well underway. The National Marine Fisheries Services' most recent 
survey of young Georges Bank haddock indicates a population boom with 
the potential to be the largest ever recorded, putting that fishery 
well on the road to its recovery goal. Conversely, other fisheries have 
not fared as well, as demonstrated by the fact that overfishing 
commenced in 13 U.S. fisheries between 1997 and 2002.

  As Chair of the Oceans, Fisheries, and Coast Guard Subcommittee of 
the Commerce Committee, I have sought answers as to why the Magnuson-
Stevens Act has apparently worked well for some fisheries, but not 
others. Representing a state with scores of fishing communities and 
thousands of fisheries workers, I understand the great importance of 
making sure that our federal fisheries laws are working for all of our 
Nation's fisheries.
  In seeking these answers, during the 106th Congress I traveled across 
the country and held a series of hearings on the Magnuson-Stevens Act. 
In Washington, D.C. Maine, Louisiana, Alaska, Washington, and 
Massachusetts, I heard official testimony from over 70 witnesses. Our 
subcommittee received hundreds of comments, views, and recommendations 
from federal and state officials, regional council chairmen and 
members, other fisheries managers, commercial and recreational 
fishermen, members of the conservation community, and many others 
interested in fisheries management.
  What the subcommittee learned during these hearing--and which 
continues to be reinforced by more recent fisheries events, comments, 
and recommendations--is that most of the shortcomings in our federal 
fisheries policy are products of how the Magnuson-Stevens Act has been 
interpreted and applied to real-life fisheries problems. While the 
underpinnings of the Act are sound, it has become clear that 
implementation of the Act has often been inconsistent with 
Congressional intent. That is the primary challenge before us today: to 
clarify how the goals of conservation and management can be achieved 
for our Nation's fisheries, and ensure effective implementation of the 
Act.
  What we need is a federal fisheries policy that can be interpreted 
and applied in ways that recognize and respond to the unique conditions 
facing each individual fishery. Of the hundreds of fisheries occurring 
around our Nation's coastline, no two are exactly alike. The 
conservation measures that work in one fishery cannot always be 
transferred to another. The Magnuson-Stevens act must express enough 
flexibility to accommodate these variations, so that managers can craft 
unique, innovative solutions based on the conditions and needs of the 
fish stocks and fishing communities in question.
  I first attempted to address these issues when I introduced S. 2832, 
the Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization Act of 2000, as well as bills 
authorizing national standards for fishing quota systems. During the 
last several years, the need for these amendments--as well as new 
amendments to meet evolving fisheries needs--has only intensified. It 
is this fact that underlies the bill I introduce today, the Fishery 
Conservation and Management Act Amendments of 2004.
  This bill contains several specific measures for enhancing management 
flexibility. First and foremost, this bill would repeal the 10-year 
timeline for rebuilding fish stocks and the unnecessarily-rigid 
measures that stem from it. This provision of the Sustainable Fisheries 
Act is not based on fish population dynamics, but instead imposes a 
stringent and arbitrary time-frame inappropriate for the diverse needs 
of each individual fishery. This bill would replace it with a system 
that allows a more adaptive approach for determining harvest rates. I 
am proposing that fishing mortality rates simply be limited to the 
maximum sustainable yield that a stock can produce in any given year. 
This fishing rate would not permit overfishing; it would allow stocks 
to rebuild over time to a level that achieves ecosystem balance.
  Another new proposal in this bill would improve managers' ability to 
fairly distribute access to distant-water fish stocks. As is now 
occurring in the New England groundfishery, fishermen from different 
states are unevenly impacted by management measures that treat them as 
if they are all from the same state. Currently, fishermen who live 
farther away from healthy fish stocks need to expend their extremely 
limited number of permitted days-at-sea simply steaming to and from 
these stocks, while those who live closer to the stocks can spend more 
of their days-at-sea actually fishing. I am proposing that regional 
fishery management councils analyze these impacts and, if necessary, 
take action to eliminate such inequities.
  Other key features of this Magnuson-Stevens Act reauthorization would 
address essential fish habitat and areas of particular concern; 
authorizations for cooperative research, capacity reduction, and 
fishing quota systems; and

[[Page S1019]]

language to improve social and ecological impact assessments, data and 
information management, public meeting notices, and scientific peer 
reviews. Individually and collectively, the provisions in this bill 
present a way forward in improving federal fisheries management. This 
bill preserves the goal and intent of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, yet it 
enhances the abilities of managers and fishermen to apply it in a way 
that can better achieve the Act's objectives and actually achieve 
sustainability in our fisheries.
  Finally, I would like to thank all those fishermen, managers, 
scientists, and special interest groups that contributed ideas and 
information to the long process of developing this reauthorization 
bill. Their countless contributions serve as invaluable pieces to a 
very complex puzzle, and I am confident that our efforts will improve 
the state of federal fisheries management.
  I look forward to receiving additional fisheries policy comments and 
recommendations in the weeks and months ahead, including those from the 
U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, and I encourage my colleagues 
throughout Congress to take action in support of this Magnuson-Stevens 
reauthorization effort. Through our collective efforts, sustainable 
fisheries in the United States can and will become a reality.
                                 ______