My View
At a meeting with local fishermen last week, NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco said: "We have a lot of work to do ... We can make it better."
She has at least one option for making it better right away. She can increase the 2010 annual catch limits by 33 percent, simply by redressing the balance on the National Oceanic and Administration's treatment of uncertainty.
Jane is beginning to realize that bias against the fishermen is endemic throughout her organization. This bias also shows up in the so called "scientific" calculations of annual catch limits.
NOAA recognizes that there is substantial uncertainty in its data and methodologies, and we can all stipulate to that. NOAA adjusts for this uncertainty by multiplying the calculated annual catch limits by 0.75 — for example, if the calculation yields an annual catch limit of 100 tons, they adjust it down to 75 tons, to account for uncertainty.
The Magnuson-Stevens Act requires the NOAA to balance the interests of the fish and the fisherman (and fishing communities). It hase not been attempting such a balance. Its adjustment (multiplying by 0.75) protects the fish to the detriment of the fisherman.
If NOAA was more concerned about the fisherman, it could take the same adjustment for uncertainty (0.25) and multiply the calculated limit by 1.25. This would favor the fisherman to the detriment of the fish.
Obviously, a fair balance would favor neither fish nor fisherman. The NOAA would multiply the calculated limits by 1.0, which would be no adjustment at all.
The effect of this fair balance would be to increase the annual catch limits by 33 percent — or, from 75 to 100 in the example above. Such increases would take a great deal of pressure off of our struggling fishermen.
There is nothing in the Magnuson-Stevens Act that prevents Jane from doing this. Indeed, I think the act requires her to do this.
She could do this tomorrow. It would make an enormous difference.
Hoff Stauffer is the managing director of the Gloucester-based Wingaersheek Research Group, where he has been working primarily on global warming policy issues. He was also the first director of economic analysis at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the early 1970s, then served as a senior member of various consulting and research firms where he focused on public policy and corporate strategy related to energy and environmental issues.
