BAYSHORE REGIONAL WATERSHED COUNCIL

  N.J. fishermen catch a break with new law 
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 01/13/07 
 
BY KIRK MOORE 
STAFF WRITER 
 
When President Bush on Friday signed the first reauthorization of federal  
fisheries law in 10 years, he enacted a few ocean policy reforms urged by public  
and private study commissions — and allowed one big exception to benefit New  
Jersey's fishing industry. 
 
New England fishermen were frustrated in their bid to win similar "flexibility"  
in the law as it applies to cod and other northern species. Still, Rep. Barney  
Frank, D-Mass., said he will use the break that Congress granted to New Jersey's  
summer flounder anglers to seek the same for his commercial fishermen. 
 
The White House signing ceremony was attended by Rep. H. James Saxton, R-N.J.,  
and Rep. Frank J. Pallone Jr., D-N.J., who worked together on winning a  
three-year extension — to 2013 — in the timetable for rebuilding the summer  
flounder population. 
 
Saxton wrote language for the amendment and got approval from House Republican leaders

while Pallone ensured that Democrats would support the change. In a joint statement with Sens. Frank R. Lautenberg and Robert Menendez Jr., both D-N.J., the lawmakers said the extension averts drastic cuts that would have hurt New Jersey's fishing and tourism businesses.

Recreational and commercial fishing groups had mounted a joint lobbying and letter-writing campaign to stave off a flounder quota reduction of nearly 50 percent, down to 12 million pounds next year.

The flounder amendment ensures that the 2007 quota will be at least 17.1 million pounds, and there are indications it could be closer to 18 million pounds, said Jim Donofrio, executive director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance.

The rewritten Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation Act will do more to control overfishing while providing "some help for our Jersey Shore fishing communities, which depend on a reasonable fluke quota," Saxton said.

Pallone said the bill-signing ended a "long saga of trying to bring some sanity to the management of summer flounder."

Frank tried last year to get then-House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., to amend the Magnuson-Stevens bill to allow for longer rebuilding schedules in the New England fisheries.

"I think flexibility for flounder is good . . . I think it's a basis for reopening the whole thing," Frank said. "As I said, what's good for the flounder is good for the cod."

While Mid-Atlantic fishermen get a break on flounder, the new law will likely make it more difficult to grant those kinds of exceptions in the future.

The act's most significant improvement is a requirement that the nation's eight regional fishery management councils set catch limits at or below levels recommended by scientists, said David Benton of the Marine Conservation Alliance.

The Alaska-based alliance had argued for the reform, contending that the North Pacific Fishery Management Council's consistent application of scientific advice is the main reason it's been more successful than other councils over the last 30 years.

Sticking to biological reports was a reform called for by the U.S. Oceans Policy Commission, Benton said.

"One of the principles was strengthening science and giving it a bigger role in management," he said.

Environmental groups that opposed Frank's earlier flexibility amendment muted their criticism of the flounder amendment, anxious to see the act's reauthorization finally passed after eight years of reform effort.

Now, Bush and Congress "should also allocate increased funding for cooperative scientific research, better fisheries data, habitat protection and programs to monitor wasteful fishing practices, which have been seriously underfunded in past years," said Lee Crockett of the Marine Fish Conservation Network.

Kirk Moore: (732) 557-5728