§1862 North Pacific Fisheries Conservation

Summary

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, working with the Secretary, may create a research plan for fisheries it controls (but not salmon). The plan can require trained observers on fishing vessels and U.S. fish processors to collect data needed for management and science. The plan must gather reliable data by using observers on all or a representative sample of vessels and processors. It must be fair, follow other laws, and consider how the fisheries operate and the safety of observers and fishermen. The plan can include a system of fees to pay for observers, electronic monitoring, data entry, and a possible risk‑sharing pool. Fees must only match those actual costs, must be fair to participants, cannot pay general overhead, may be a fixed amount or up to 2 percent of the unprocessed ex‑vessel value, and must be charged to some or all vessels and processors. All fees go into the North Pacific Fishery Observer Fund in the Treasury and can be used only to carry out the plan. The Secretary must review any plan within 60 days, either send it back with comments or publish proposed rules. There will be a 60‑day public comment period with hearings in each state on the Council, and final rules must be published within 45 days after comments close. If a plan is sent back, the Council may resubmit it. The Secretary must look into creating a risk‑sharing pool for observer liability and compare it to commercial insurance. If feasible, the Secretary must set up the pool unless insurance is available for all required vessels and processors and is cheaper and better. The Council must submit measures to cut economic discards each year for at least four years. The Council may propose fines up to $25,000 per vessel per season to lower bycatch; those fines go into the Observer Fund and can be used to reduce bycatch or to help the State of Alaska with related costs. The Council may also propose annual, nontransferable allocations of regulatory discards to individual vessels as an incentive to reduce bycatch, if those measures actually cut discards. By June 1, 1997 the Council had to submit measures to ensure full catch measurement, and by January 1, 1998 a plan on weighing fish processors if weighing is needed. By October 1, 1998 the Council had to report on requiring full retention and full use of unavoidable economic discards and on reducing processing waste. For Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands crab, the Secretary must approve and implement the Voluntary Three‑Pie Cooperative Program by January 1, 2005 as the Council approved it between June 2002 and April 2003, including trailing amendments and the May 6, 2003 report. The law does not waive antitrust rules. The Secretary, with the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, must collect information to detect antitrust violations and may revoke processing quota shares for violators. An annual $1,000,000 is set aside until the crab program is fully implemented.