(December 18, 2006) Port of New Bedford Business Alliance' s Gene Soccolich personally testifies before the New England Fisheries Management Council Committee seeking new approaches to managing groundfisheries.

My personal response, germane to this meeting, is not as a direct stakeholder in commercial fisheries, or as a strategic advisor to the Port of New Bedford Business Alliance. I have spent the past thirty years, however, in high level employ within both government and the high-tech industry, much of which has been in the marine sector. My perspectives rather are based on a broad knowledge of how government and industry effectively operate, why commercial fisheries haven’t seemed to, and what to my mind should be done. Of note, my comments may seem brutally direct, nevertheless, they are honest and directed toward resolutions.

You are here seeking proposals that provide closer links between allowable allocations and annual catch, moreover accountability for all catch. Mr. William Hogarth, head of NOAA, correctly has stated that, commercial marine fisheries must be run more as a business. He stated in his April 6th response before a House Subcommittee on an offshore aquaculture bill that, and I quote, “Business needs regulatory certainty in order to make sound investment decisions and obtain financing”. His statement is true, and true for any industry especially in light of today’s global economy. The overriding dilemma, however, and which brings us
here today, is that our commercial marine fisheries are not being run more like a business because they are not being regulated as a business by the
government.

The barrage of constant regulatory change by the government is the cornerstone of both problems within the resource and the fishermen whose lives depend on it. Most scientists tell us that we need eco-system based management to substantiate and justify regulatory action. We don’t have it. We are left with what is called precautionary management, or in other words, educated guesses. The commercial fishermen are forced to react to emergency reactions from previous governmental guesswork that has proven erroneous. Simply put, the best available science today does not provide the informational tools to regulate commercial fisheries as a
business. Then again, the resource is federally owned, and the federal government can control it as it pleases, possibly only having to choose whether or not to heed to pressure from unorganized small fishermen or powerful well financed conservationist lobbying groups. Some choice.

As far as your goals here today, from a business standpoint, in the absence of necessary baseline data, any method will be a crap shoot, hence I suggest that you at least strive to keep it as simple a crap shoot as possible. Once TACS are inevitably established, and similar to the recent conclusions of the European Union, you should consider setting a fixed annual percentile of perhaps only 10-15% that allows positive or negative deviation from that rate on an annual basis. The relatively small deviation would decrease the extreme amplitude of emergency or other economically devastating actions and would allow individual fishermen to better financially plan for their future, even whether or not to stay in or get out of the industry. The differential could be overridden should an individual species be deemed on the verge of collapse.

Secondly, as of this moment the groundfishing sector is awaiting the results of the first strawman test of the New England fishing vessel buyout program. I believe that vessel owners who decide to stay in the industry would be crazy to accept such financial liability without the inclusion of IFQs. The U.S. Treasury can be expected to demand payment. Candidly, I do not understand why such a buyout is being placed mostly on the backs of our fishermen, when other nations such as Australia, Norway and Canada have seen fit to provide government grants as opposed to loans that must be repaid.

Thirdly, ITQs, if incorporated, only should be allowed to those under the protective umbrella of local fisheries coops, wherein participation should be limited to a very small number of vessels per individual owner so as to preserve the longstanding character of the industry. To my mind, individual boat owners not operating within a coop will become a thing of the past because of the subsidized power of the global fishing economy, which provides some 70% of the seafood in the U.S. today. Fishermen generally do not become wealthy in a coop, but they do become more cost effective, more competitive, and more likely to viably earn a living. Today, the
industry has become far too much of a gamble.

Lastly, I have presented testimony (copy attached) to Congress and which included specific mechanisms for managing by-catch. In summary, whatever by-catch is caught should be allowed to be marketed, but only as a tax credit to fishermen, not profit. The resource would be destined for the needy, where processors/distributors would be eligible for a similar tax credit. Such mechanism not only would generate replete information needed on by-catch being caught, but better destined for humanitarian purposes rather than a complete waste of the resource. The approach already has been tried and proven, and even strict conservationists should agree with the prospect.

In closing, as in most other businesses, many of the answer which you seek today comes down to – money. Our federal government does not want to directly subsidize our fishing industry like other nations. It has not come forth with any real vessel buyout program either. In direct contrast, however, it has seen fit to create the most stringent commercial marine fishing curtailment of any country in the world. Whether or not you believe in a God, in making important decisions I often find it helpful to simply wonder – what would God do? Thank you.