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Commercial fishermen disappointed by court’s order
By SUSAN WEST  National
Marine Fisheries Service has until March, 2008 to bring the
snapper-grouper management plan into compliance with federal law.In an order issued Oct. 2, U.S. District Court Judge John D. Bates directed National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to develop a plan to rebuild snowy grouper and black seas bass stocks so that a review by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce takes place no later than March 14, 2008. The order came in response to a lawsuit filed last year by the North Carolina Fisheries Association, a commercial fishing trade group, Hatteras fisherman Jeff Oden, Wilmington fisherman Andy High, and Avon Seafood, a seafood wholesaler on Hatteras Island. In August, Bates described Amendment 13C to the South Atlantic Snapper-Grouper Fishery Management Plan as “legally infirm.” The amendment imposed harvest restrictions but lacked a plan to rebuild fish stocks, as required by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA) that governs federal fisheries management. Bates gave the plaintiffs and NMFS 30 days to submit proposals to remedy the deficiency. “Once the parties have weighed in, the Court will better be able to order a remedy that is true to the important conservation goals of the MSA, that is responsive to the realities of the administrative process, and that affords the plaintiffs meaningful relief,” Bates wrote in August. The order issued this week accepted the remedy proposed by NMFS. “The order is disappointing,” said Sean McKeon, NCFA president. “It doesn’t mention meaningful relief, and it trusts the agency to fix the problem without holding the agency’s feet to the fire,” he said. NCFA and the fishermen had asked the court to reinstate the harvest quotas that were in place the first year of the plan until the rebuilding plan was adopted. Amendment 13C phases in increasingly lower quotas for commercial harvests over a three-year period. The plaintiffs also asked the court to require NMFS to consider measures to control recreational fishing effort, to adjust the trip limits for commercial boats, and to allocate coastwide quotas on a regional basis. “It’s very troubling that the federal judge was reluctant to legislate at all from the bench. He wasn’t willing to go outside of what he perceives as the court’s limited duty,” McKeon said. Bates wrote that the role of the court isn’t to determine whether a fishery management plan complies with standards, such as the requirements to use the best available science or to prohibit discrimination in the allocation of fishing privileges, laid out in the MSA. Rather, Bates saw the role of the court limited to deciding whether the decision by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce that a management plan upholds those standards was a rational decision supported by the record. “It’s clear that the system is seriously flawed, and that Congress has given NMFS virtually a blank check under the Magnuson Act,” said McKeon. “If our elected officials don’t take up the mantel for this industry, then the commercial fishing industry is doomed.” “The buck stops on the desks of Dole and Burr and Jones,” he said, referring to members of North Carolina’s congressional delegation. 
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