[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 123 (Wednesday, September 27, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1842-E1843]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      FISHING REGULATION CALLS FOR BETTER DATA, NOT MORE RIGIDITY

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 26, 2006

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, as we prepare in the post-
election session to deal with legislation involving the management of 
our fisheries, particularly the bill cosponsored by the gentleman from 
California, the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, Mr. Pombo, 
and myself, it is important for Members to get information on these 
issues from people who fully understand them.

[[Page E1843]]

  I know of no one in the country who is better informed or has better 
judgment on how to proceed than Dr. Brian Rothschild. He is the 
Montgomery Charter Professor of Marine Science at the University of 
Massachusetts at Dartmouth, and the former head of the school's School 
of Marine Science and Technology. Indeed, UMass lost a little bit of 
his time and his administrative leadership of that school when the 
newly elected mayor of New Bedford, Scott Lang, understandably 
prevailed upon Dr. Rothschild to come to work for him as a policy 
advisor. Mayor Lang is an energetic and thoughtful mayor dedicated to 
among other things, protecting the important fishing industry in that 
city, and it is for that reason that he wisely chose Dr. Rothschild as 
his advisor.
  In my own work on fishing I have relied heavily on his advice because 
it has proven accurate in a number of cases. He points out here that 
better information is an essential element in sensible regulation. As 
Dr. Rothschild says in the article recently published by him on this 
subject in the New Bedford Standard Times, we need significant 
improvements in the data we gather about fish, in part to ``send a 
signal to Congress that the real conservation and management of fishery 
stocks lies in developing the technical underpinnings to determine 
major uncertainties that we have on how fish interact with fishing and 
the changing ocean environment. This would be so much better than the 
cant characterizations of the fishing industry by some conservation 
groups. And finally, consideration of uncertainty points toward the 
need of investing fishery management regulations with the flexibility 
contemplated in the Pombo-Frank bill.''
  Mr. Speaker, Brian Rothschild's experience, wisdom and judgment are 
greatly needed as we prepare to return in November to debate the 
important issues involved in the fishing legislation, and I ask that 
his thoughtful analysis be printed here. It originally appeared in the 
New Bedford Standard Times, which has done a very good job of covering 
these issues, on September 21.

       The fisheries of Massachusetts are economic engines for the 
     ports of New Bedford, Gloucester and Cape Cod. New Bedford is 
     the number one port in the nation. In this respect, the 
     future is bright.
       Yet clouds loom on the horizon. While many stocks are 
     increasing in abundance or are at historically high levels, 
     other stocks have declined. The management actions undertaken 
     to conserve the stocks seem lax to some, but to others the 
     actions seem overly stringent and difficult to understand. 
     There is no question that regulations are generating economic 
     hardship (losses of tens of millions of dollars) and waste, 
     even in the number one port in the nation. Evidently, no 
     stock is optimally fished. Stocks are either overfished or 
     underfished and a substantial bycatch is thrown overboard 
     because of regulations that mandate waste.
       Improving management decisions, building confidence in 
     regulations, and reducing bycatch in a biological and 
     economically sustainable way require better information on 
     the status of the stocks. At least three areas require 
     significant improvement:
       (1) understanding the interactions among species or stocks, 
     (2) understanding the role of the ocean environment in 
     causing fish stock fluctuations, and (3) systems technology 
     to develop new sensors for counting fish and accelerating the 
     flow of data.
       Regarding the interactions among species, all fisheries are 
     in a sense multi-species fisheries. The groundfish or dragger 
     fishery encounters perhaps fifty species of fish. It is not 
     unusual to have ten species on deck in a single tow. The 
     scallop fishery appears to be a single species fishery, but 
     in reality scallop fishery is regulated to some extent by the 
     amount of yellowtail flounder taken in the scallop dredges. 
     Haddock appear occasionally in herring nets. Some scientists 
     believe that herring eat cod eggs. Rebuilding predatory 
     species like striped bass affects their prey species. 
     Interactions such as these need to be better understood. 
     Until we do, our options for management will be limited as we 
     continue to assume that all species can be rebuilt to their 
     historical maximum abundance at the same time, which flies in 
     the face of standard ecological theory.
       The effects of the environment are ignored in developing 
     management decisions. It is clear from the historical record 
     that the ocean environment plays a powerful role in 
     modulating the abundance of fish populations. Ignoring this 
     leads to the mistaken notion that any time a stock decreases, 
     the cause is overfishing, while any time a stock increases, 
     the cause is successful management. The role of the 
     environment is typically ignored in fishery stock 
     assessments. Without such understanding, it is misleading to 
     set rebuilding schedules and to think about mid- to long-term 
     management strategies that match the scale of capital 
     investment time horizons used in the fishing industry. There 
     is even a greater imperative now that climate variability 
     must be affecting the population of stocks even though we 
     do not understand, even in an approximate way, the nature 
     of this impact.
       Given the substantial shortfalls in scientific 
     understanding, the present system for obtaining data from the 
     fishing fleets and the technology used to measure the 
     abundance of fish is archaic. New systems need to be 
     developed to deliver data to scientists and managers as well 
     as the development of techniques to measure fish abundance 
     that depend on electronics and optics rather than outmoded 
     prone-to-error fishing nets.
       The articulation of these concerns has a function beyond 
     catharsis. It identifies areas that National Oceanic and 
     Atmospheric Administration Fisheries needs to address to 
     improve fisheries management as NOAA and 21 other federal 
     agencies move forward in an attempt to develop a coherent 
     ocean plan for the nation. The articulation also sends a 
     signal to Congress that the real conservation and management 
     of fishery stocks lies in developing the technical 
     underpinnings to determine major uncertainties that we have 
     on how fish interact with fishing and the changing ocean 
     environment. This would be so much better than the cant 
     characterizations of the fishing industry by some 
     conservation groups. And finally, consideration of 
     uncertainty points toward the need of investing fishery 
     management regulations with the flexibility contemplated in 
     the Pombo-Frank bill.
       Having said all of this, it is important to remember that 
     the regulation of fisheries is not analogous to designing a 
     better governor for a gasoline engine or a valve to regulate 
     water flow. A critical element is the livelihood and well 
     being of the men and women that catch and process the fish. 
     It is important to them of course, but it is as important to 
     the welfare of the entire community.
       Significant steps forward are being made in developing the 
     ideas of cooperative research. The UMass Dartmouth School for 
     Marine Science and Technology has pioneered cooperative work 
     with the fishing industry on cod tagging, scallop stock 
     assessments, and study fleets all with incredibly strong 
     support from the fishing industry. These efforts are now 
     bearing fruit at the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Institute 
     that includes the partnership between the University of 
     Massachusetts, principally SMAST, the state Division of 
     Marine Fisheries, and NOAA Fisheries. Fostering the next 
     generation of fishery scientists in an educational 
     environment of cooperative research will promote the 
     advancement of our science through collaboration with 
     fishermen.

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