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Senate Bulks Up Law on Fishery Oversight: RENEWAL: Bill Would Give Science a Greater Role in Management Decisions.

Posted on: Tuesday, 20 June 2006, 12:00 CDT

By Liz Ruskin, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska

Jun. 20--WASHINGTON -- The Senate passed a bill Monday that would renew the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the primary law managing U.S. fisheries.

Sen. Ted Stevens, the bill's sponsor and namesake, called the legislation "the most successful federal-state management program ever devised." The Senate bill would preserve and strengthen the eight regional fisheries management councils, said Stevens, R-Alaska. The council system was an innovation of the original Magnuson Act in 1976 and includes one council that oversees waters off Alaska's coast.

Environmental groups immediately praised the bill's passage.

The bill "will help stop overfishing and end the shortsighted practices that have brought our fisheries to the brink of disaster," said Gerald Leape, vice president for marine conservation at the National Environmental Trust.

Leape said the bill would provide a greater role for using science in management decisions, but it should have gone further and required the councils to follow the advice of their scientific advisers.

Whatever reservations environmentalists have with Stevens' bill, they take more issue with the House version, sponsored by Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., and Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska.

The Pombo bill says fisheries' plans that comply with the Magnuson-Stevens Act don't have to undergo the studies, reviews and comment periods of the National Environmental Policy Act. NEPA is the nation's foremost environmental law, requiring study of environmental impact before any development of public resources.

Conservationists say the Pombo bill would cut corners on the protection of ocean ecosystems, but advocates of the House approach say it would eliminate redundancy. Pombo says it would keep management decisions in professional hands and not in the courts.

The Senate bill would not eliminate the requirements of NEPA. Rather, it calls for developing a uniform environmental review process for fisheries management plans that meets the requirements of NEPA and the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

The Senate bill passed by unanimous consent.

Senate Bill 2012 would:

-- Establish a training program for members of the regional fisheries management boards to educate them on the law, science and economics of fisheries.

-- Require that every fishery management plan contain an annual catch limit to maintain sustainability. Harvests that go over the catch limit must be deducted from the limit for the following year, if possible, or within three years.

-- Direct the councils to consult with appropriate scientists in setting catch limits.

-- Provide national guidelines for any future fishing quota programs.

-- Include measures aimed at strengthening monitoring and enforcement of illegal fishing on the high seas.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Anchorage Daily News

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