House hearing to assess status of depleted stocks
Posted on December 3rd, 2007By Allison Winter
E&E News: A House panel this week looks at whether federal fisheries managers are doing enough to enforce more stringent laws meant to end overfishing and restore dwindling fish stocks.
The oversight hearing in the House Natural Resources Committee is expected to serve as a status report on fishery rebuilding under the new Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation Act. Congress approved an update to the major U.S. fishing law last year that set stricter deadlines to rebuild ailing fish stocks, and Bush administration officials and fisheries science experts are scheduled to testify.
The update to the law requires a 10-year rebuilding deadline for most stocks and an end to overfishing. But some environmentalists and fisheries scientists are concerned that fishing councils are still setting catch limits that are too high for some stocks to rebound.
The rebuilding requirements in the Magnuson law are among “the strongest policy provisions in the world,” according to Andrew Rosenberg, a fisheries scientist at the University of New Hampshire who is scheduled to testify at the hearing. But Rosenberg said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration needs to do more to make the councils accountable and should issue guidelines that would require annual catch limits to end overfishing.
Almost half of the 67 stocks in rebuilding plans are being overfished, according to study authored by Rosenberg.
“We have made less progress than we should have,” he said.
Fishing councils set rebuilding targets and catch limits for each fishery each year, but Rosenberg said problems arise when the councils try to help fishermen in the short term by phasing in fishing reductions for ailing stocks, rather than opting for the lowest catch that scientific panels recommend.
“They always try to find compromises that slowly phase in reductions, but if you do that, you end up worse off than taking reductions immediately,” Rosenberg said in an interview last week. “You have slow or no rebuilding and have to take more and more cuts.”
One concern for Rosenberg and environmental groups is the summer flounder fishery, a valuable stock for recreational anglers in the mid-Atlantic and New England. The stock has been overfished for at least two decades, and NOAA consequently proposed catch limits for summer flounder last month that exceed some scientific recommendations for protecting the stock.
The proposed 15.77 million pound catch limit for summer flounder is 8 percent lower than last year’s total but still exceeds the recommendations from the council’s scientific advisers to set limits between 11.64 million and 12.90 million pounds. The public comment deadline on the proposal ends today.
NOAA officials said that as long as they are strictly enforced, the higher numbers could work to restore the fishery, but some environmentalists do not agree. Lee Crockett, who heads the Pew Charitable Trusts’ campaign to reform federal fisheries management and is also scheduled to testify at the hearing, said the higher limit could strain the ailing stock and set a precedent for the rest of Magnuson implementation.
Congressional proposals
Some members of Congress have made attempts to make it easier for fisheries managers to avoid the strict rebuilding deadlines.
Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), for one, introduced H.R. 4087 last month in an attempt to add more flexibility to the law. And Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) has said further legislation to give more flexibility or longer deadlines for summer flounder in particular may be in order.
At the request of New Jersey anglers, Congress has already extended by three years the timeframe for rebuilding summer flounder stocks from schedules outlined in Magnuson-Stevens. Federal fisheries managers now face a deadline of 2013.
Schedule: The hearing is set for Wednesday, Dec. 5, at 11 a.m. in 1334 Longworth.
Witnesses: NOAA Director of Scientific Programs and chief science adviser Steve Murawski; Lee Crockett, director of federal fisheries reform project with Pew Charitable Trusts’ Environment Group; Andrew Rosenberg, professor at the University of New Hampshire; and other witnesses to be announced.