Political Quotes

“section 06(a) requires the Secretary to allocate ten percent of the total allowable catch (TAC) of pollock in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands area as a target species to the western Alaska community development quota (CDQ) program, beginning on January 1, 1999. And, prior to allocating the remaining ninety percent of the TAC of pollock to catcher vessels and catcher/processors pursuant to paragraphs (1)-(3) of section 06(b), section 06(b) requires the Secretary to allocate to the CDQ program the amount of additional pollock that will be incidentally taken by vessels that harvest the directed fishing allowance of non-pollock groundfish species that has been allocated to the CDQ program. During the 1998 fishing year, the Secretary has regulated the CDQ programs for Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands pollock and for Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands non-pollock groundfish species as two separate regulatory programs. To ensure that vessels that participate in the CDQ pollock fishery are afforded an opportunity to harvest the entire ten percent of the TAC of pollock that subsection (a) allocates to the CDQ program, section 06(a) and (b) collectively direct the Secretary to continue, for the purpose of catch accounting only, to regulate the CDQ fisheries for Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands pollock and for Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands non-pollock groundfish species as separate regulatory programs.”