THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 15, 1995 TAG: 9509150516
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
Political reality is clashing head-on this week with plans to revamp management of the state's coastal fishing industry.
Several key coastal legislators said most of the recommendations from the fisheries Moratorium Steering Committee may be so contentious that it may be two years before the General Assembly turns them into law.
And they are already predicting that a year-old ban on the sale of new commercial fishing licenses, scheduled to expire July 1, 1997, will be extended an additional year.
"I do not believe there's any way that we're going to be able to get all the recommendations out and ready and on the table for the short session," said Rep. Jean R. Preston, a Carteret County Republican and co-chairman of the Joint Legislative Commission on Seafood and Aquaculture.
"I would rather take the time to do it right than make decisions on things that could be devastating to the industry."
Preston and other members of the legislative commission got their first overview of the Moratorium Steering Committee's deliberations on Tuesday when steering committee Chairman Robert V. Lucas gave the commission a 45-minute preview of the decisions facing the two panels in the coming months.
The moratorium panel is reviewing potential changes in commercial and sports fishing licenses, fisheries law enforcement, restrictions on fishing gear, jurisdiction of the state Marine Fisheries Commission and other fisheries management measures.
After Tuesday's meeting, Lucas said the two-year timetable was not a surprise.
"There will probably not be anything in the recommendations that can be approved easily in the short session," he said. "As a practical matter I think all of it will be controversial."
And in interviews over the past two days, legislators who heard Lucas' briefing agreed that they are facing a daunting task.
"I don't think Bob Lucas told us anything today that would lend itself to easy resolution," said Rep. E. David Redwine, a Brunswick County Democrat, from his Raleigh office after Tuesday's legislative commission meeting.
"And although anything's possible in the short session, that's going to be awfully quick to develop a consensus in the General Assembly."
The Joint Legislative Commission on Seafood and Aquaculture, comprising senators, members of the state House of Representatives and commercial fishing and aquaculture interests, is the source of most fisheries-related legislation considered by state lawmakers each year.
Any changes in state statutes recommended by the Moratorium Steering Committee as part of its two-year review of state fisheries management practices will have to win approval of the seafood and aquaculture commission before they become law.
Fishermen and coastal policy makers have been contacting local legislators to caution them against moving too quickly on some of the ideas being considered by the moratorium panelists, Preston said.
"We're talking about people's livelihoods," she said. "We're talking about economic survival."
The proposal that is meeting with the greatest objection from fishermen and state lawmakers is a plan to restrict commercial license sales to fishermen who earn at least 50 percent of their income from commercial fishing.
Even a fairly straightforward proposal such as a change in the make up of and qualifications for the state Marine Fisheries Commission, the panel that oversees coastal fishing regulations, is meeting with some early opposition, Preston said.
In May, as in other even-numbered years, state lawmakers will return to Raleigh for about three months to fine-tune the state budget, approve local bills and other non-controversial matters and act on recommendations from study committees.
If lawmakers receive the steering committee's recommendations in mid-April, the cumbersome process of transforming them into bills and gathering support from legislators may stretch into the summer of 1997, given their controversial nature, seafood and aquaculture members speculated. by CNB