THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 13, 1995 TAG: 9507130375
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
The state's ban on commercial fishing license sales has been extended one year in the Senate's $384.3 million budget for new programs and construction projects introduced Wednesday.
The prohibition against new license sales now will remain in force until June 30, 1997.
Last summer, the General Assembly approved a two-year moratorium on the sale of most commercial fishing licenses as a way to halt the influx of new fishermen plying the state's waters for dwindling fish stocks.
The moratorium was to end next year, but state fisheries officials and fishermen in March began calling for an extension to give the state time to implement any regulatory changes that result from a study of fisheries management.
``We're going to change things dramatically,'' Robert V. Lucas of Selma said last week in New Bern. ``And you've got to leave some time for the public to debate it.''
Lucas is chairman of the Moratorium Steering Committee, which is studying new fisheries management options, and the state Marine Fisheries Commission, which will implement many of those options.
``This will allow for the legislature and the Marine Fisheries Commission to act while the moratorium is still in place,'' he said. ``It will help us in the transitional period.''
The moratorium study committee will report its findings to the General Assembly in May 1996.
This will give the state legislature time during its ``short session'' to review the committee's findings and take another year, if needed, to approve and implement them.
Meanwhile, the Marine Fisheries Commission can consider the committee's recommendations under its purview during its fall 1996 regulatory cycle and act on them in January 1997, before the license ban is lifted.
The moratorium was extended at the request of Sen. Beverly Perdue, a Craven County Democrat, who said fishermen on the coast ``generally agree the moratorium hasn't accomplished all we want it to. We need an added year to make sure the right decisions are made.''
The extension was attached to the Senate expansion and capital budgets among the special provisions, which usually tell agencies how to spend the money appropriated to them. But over time, budgetary special provisions have become a catch-all for new regulations, new programs and legislators' pet projects.
Special provisions in the Senate budget also give the Marine Fisheries Commission the authority to enact limits on the commercial ocean flounder catch when the state's ports reopen to the fish later this fall.
The provisions also:
Extend the authority of the 17-member Marine Fisheries Commission to regulate fishing in offshore waters of the Atlantic Ocean when a catch is controlled by a quota imposed by a federal fisheries management plan;
Limit commercial license sales during the moratorium to those who participated in the fishery for two of the previous three years and who landed a minimum amount of the fish each year at North Carolina ports.
Give the fisheries commission the authority to set the minimum number of pounds needed to establish participation thresholds.
State fisheries Director Bruce L. Freeman said the legislation is needed because state statutes do not allow the Marine Fisheries Commission to limit the number of boats participating in the commercial flounder industry in the Atlantic Ocean.
``This will enable the commission to limit entry into that fishery to vessels that have participated in the fishery based on past performance and a minimum weight to be determined by the commission,'' Freeman said. ``This is key.'' by CNB