HJR 55: Relating to the allocation of pollock and Pacific cod.
00HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 55 01 Relating to the allocation of pollock and Pacific cod. 02 BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF ALASKA: 03 WHEREAS recent amendments to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and 04 Management Act require that fishery management measures "take into account the importance 05 of the fishery resources to fishing communities in order to provide for the sustained 06 participation of such communities"; and 07 WHEREAS many Alaska communities are dependent on the pollock fishery for social 08 and economic needs, including employment, for providing harvesting opportunities for fishing 09 vessels delivering to mother ships and onshore processors, for providing fishery resources for 10 seafood processors, and for local as well as state tax revenues; and 11 WHEREAS the pollock fishery off the coast of Alaska is greatly overcapitalized; and 12 WHEREAS the overcapitalization of the pollock fishery off the coast of Alaska is 13 caused by foreign-built factory trawler vessels designed to fish anywhere in the world; and 14 WHEREAS the first allocation of pollock between inshore and offshore fisheries was
01 made by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council in 1989 because the entire pollock 02 quota for the Gulf of Alaska was taken in a six-week period due to the overcapitalization of 03 factory trawler vessels; and 04 WHEREAS factory trawler vessels have the opportunity to harvest fishery resources 05 from other areas of the world, but Alaska fishing communities are dependent on the fishery 06 resources adjacent to their shores; and 07 WHEREAS mother ships and onshore processors provide markets to local vessels; and 08 WHEREAS the current federally established allocation of pollock in the Bering Sea 09 provides that 65 percent of the pollock quota goes to the offshore factory trawler vessels and 10 the remaining 35 percent goes to United States catcher vessels that deliver their catch onshore; 11 and 12 WHEREAS the current allocation of pollock will have the effect of reducing the actual 13 harvest share of the inshore sector of the industry and thus negatively affect the fishery- 14 dependent communities of Alaska because of reduced harvest quotas and the lack of mobility 15 of the inshore fishing vessels; and 16 WHEREAS the allocation of pollock between the inshore and offshore sectors of the 17 industry for the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea will expire after 1998; 18 BE IT RESOLVED that the Alaska State Legislature respectfully requests that the 19 North Pacific Fishery Management Council adopt a policy that maintains the current 20 allocations of pollock and Pacific cod in the Gulf of Alaska to vessels that deliver to the 21 inshore sector of the industry; and be it 22 FURTHER RESOLVED that the Alaska State Legislature respectfully requests that 23 the North Pacific Fishery Management Council adopt a policy that allocates a majority of the 24 pollock resource in the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands area to vessels that deliver to the onshore 25 and mother ship processing sectors of the industry. 26 COPIES of this resolution shall be sent to the Honorable William M. Daley, Secretary 27 of Commerce; Rick Lauber, Chair, North Pacific Fishery Management Council; and to the 28 Honorable Ted Stevens and the Honorable Frank Murkowski, U.S. Senators, and the 29 Honorable Don Young, U.S. Representative, members of the Alaska delegation in Congress.