It would be one thing to establish rules and regulations for commercial fishing based on credible statistics or other data.
It is something else entirely to establish them based on demonstrably, admittedly flawed data.
Yet that is what the National Marine Fisheries Service intends to do — again.
The agency concedes that its information on catch histories of various fishermen is wrong. The minutes of a March 1, 2006 NMFS committee meeting readily admit the agency had "no expertise or time for correcting these errors."