Purpose and Need

In October 1998 the U.S. Congress passed the American Fisheries Act to achieve the following primary objectives: 1) remove excess capacity in the offshore pollock sector through the retirement of 9 factory trawlers (through a combination of appropriated funding and a loan to the onshore sector); 2) establish U.S. ownership requirements for the harvest sector vessels; 3) establish specific allocations of the BSAI pollock quota as follows - 10% to the western Alaska CDQ program, with the remainder allocated 50% to the onshore sector, 40% to the offshore sector, and 10% to the mothership sector; 4) identify the specific vessels and processors eligible to participate in the BSAI pollock fisheries; 5) establish the authority and mechanisms by which the pollock fleet can form fishery cooperatives; and, 6) establish specific measures to protect the non-AFA (non-pollock) fisheries from adverse impacts resulting from the AFA or pollock fishery cooperatives. In addition, the AFA included provisions for the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to enact measures as necessary to further protect non-AFA fisheries from adverse impacts resulting from the AFA and pollock fishery cooperatives. In addition to implementing the prescribed portions of the AFA, Amendment 61 contains various specific protective measures developed by the Council which limit the pollock industry’s participation in other fisheries - these are referred to as ‘sideboards’.

Analysis

The original analysis for Amendment 61, upon which the emergency rules are based, is 320 pages plus several appendices. That analysis focuses on alternatives for establishing sideboard limits for the AFA harvesters and processors, and also examines alternatives for the structure of inshore sector co-ops (the relationship between harvest vessels and the shore plants to which they deliver pollock). Primarily, the alternatives analyzed cover a wide range of options for determining the amount of the sideboard limits for each sector, whether such sideboards are applied at the sector level vs individual vessel/plant level, and whether and to what extent there may be exemptions from the sideboards. The analysis also examines the ownership structure of the pollock industry to determine the entities and companies to which sideboards will be applied. Implementation and monitoring aspects of the various alternatives are also considered. The EIS furthered examined the prescribed measures of the AFA, including the specific sector allocations and limited entry aspects of the Ac

Regulation Summary

Regulations establish the sector allocations of pollock, define the eligible vessels and processors, define the vessel/processor coop linkages (which vessels are eligible for which co-ops), make allocations of the pollock TAC among each of the co-ops, and define the sideboard amounts of crab and non-pollock groundfish (based on historical share) that can be harvested and processed by the AFA operators, in both the BSAI and the GOA.

Results

The AFA was fully implemented in 2000 via emergency rules, with permanent implementing regulations (through at least 2004) in 2002. Several issues continued to consume NMFS and Council resources. Included are further consideration of the issues of inshore co-op structure, processing sideboards for crab and groundfish, recalculation of sideboard amounts, consideration of further exemptions from the sideboards, and vessel replacement. 

Additional Resources