Extend law of fisheries, without fishy changes

The Magnuson-Stevens Act, which extended U.S. sovereignty to fisheries 200 miles off the coast, is up for 10-year renewal. It should be renewed with careful changes.

The 1996 law limited individual fishing quotas, which a decade ago were new and unfamiliar. The idea was that catch limits per boat would end the "race for fish" and allow fishermen to work more safely. Boat owners could buy and sell quotas, allowing them to retire excess boats. Individual quotas were tried in halibut and a few other fisheries and generally worked, and fisheries managers need to be able to use them where it makes sense.

The bill offered by Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, would do this and a number of other good things, and is worth supporting. However, there is another bill, offered by Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., that would unnecessarily extend quota rights to processors.

The boat-owner's quota is a right over the fish. It is the privilege to take an amount of fish that was unowned. The quota is of value to the boat owner when he uses it and when he sells it, but his profit is not the only benefit. His crew, his customers and the ecosystem all benefit if he has a long-term ownership stake in the resource.

The Smith bill offers the processor what looks like a similar right, but isn't. A processor quota is a right to buy a certain amount of fish. It is a right over the boat owner, which is a very different thing from a right over the fish. Particularly if the fishery has one dominant packer, which the rockfish fishery in Oregon does, the law would tend to create permanent monopoly power.

Sen. Smith's bill would also supplant the work by the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which knows more about fish and fishing than the U.S. Senate. Smith's bill should be defeated.

In the House, a bill by Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., would allow fishing councils to set rules inside marine sanctuaries, including the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary offshore of the Olympic Peninsula.

That negates the whole idea of a wildlife sanctuary, and should be rejected.

Pombo's bill would also exempt the fishing councils from the National Environmental Policy Act. That would allow them to act more quickly, and save them legal expenses, but it would also allow them to get away with bad decisions.

It is safer to keep that law as it is — and see Pombo's bill defeated.