August 9, 2012 — Hook-and-line fishermen urged the 9th Circuit to overturn new federal regulations that gives 90 percent of the Pacific groundfish catch to large-scale companies. U.S. fishing quotas are governed by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which uses a system of eight councils to develop region-specific fishery management plans. The nation's second largest region, the Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery, extends over a quarter-million square miles off the coasts of California, Oregon and Washington.
Largely responding to overfishing and economic turmoil in the 1980s, the National Marine Fisheries Service last year amended the Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan to create an individual quota system. Amendments 20 and 21 allow for the allocation of fixed shares of the total allowable catch for long-term exclusive use by trawl permit holders.
The statute aims to increase economic efficiency by recalculating quotas every five years – as opposed to every two years. Vessels that do not reach their assigned quotas can sell or trade their shares of a particular fish species with other vessels. Regulators maintained that individual quotas would favor efficient fishermen and decrease environmental harm from by catch, a term that describes fish caught unintentionally.
But the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, Port Orford Ocean Resource Team and San Francisco Crab Boat Owners Association filed suit after larger fishing enterprises received most quota shares in the initial allotment.
The groups represent fishermen who gather bottom-dwelling fish such as flounder and cod, as well as crabs using traps or hook-and-line systems. They claim that federal agency had violated the Magnuson-Stevens Act by failing to properly consider their community interest in initial allocations, allowing fleet consolidation to drive small fishermen out of the industry. They also argued that NMFS had assessed the environmental impacts of the two amendments separately, in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.
Concluding that these claims could not hold water, however, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer granted awarded summary judgment to the federal defendant. On appeal Tuesday before the 9th Circuit, arguments largely focused on the extent to which NMFS was required to "consider" the fishing communities when establishing the quota program.
Mary Hudson, a Sausalito attorney for the plaintiffs, argued that Magnuson-Stevens Act requires NMFS to let local fishing communities demonstrate their historical participation and environmental sustainability in the industry.
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