Fish catch a break.

Byline: The Register-Guard

If fish could applaud, they might give a fin-slapping ovation to the Bush administration's decision to reconsider proposed guidelines that would have weakened already inadequate protections for depleted marine species.

The proposed changes could have pushed some severely stressed fisheries nearer to extinction. They also failed to make key policy revisions recommended by two major commissions that have detailed the deteriorating condition of America's oceans.

Introduced last summer, the administration's proposal would have allowed continued overfishing of depleted fish populations - in some cases, until three years after a regional fishery council began working on a recovery plan. It would also have downgraded minimum standards for such plans, requiring that they have a 50 percent chance of successfully achieving recovery goals instead of the current 90 percent. In some instances, the plan would have allowed more than the current 10-year timetable for rebuilding depleted fish populations.

The administration's proposal was a recipe for disaster at a time when nearly a fifth of federally managed fisheries are being caught faster than they can reproduce, and more than a fourth of all federally managed stocks have been dangerously depleted. After seven months and 250,000 public comments, most of them negative, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration put the plan on hold earlier this month. The agency will spend the next year assessing the plan's environmental impacts.

NOAA should save itself the trouble, and instead craft a new plan that strengthens, not weakens, protections for the nation's fisheries. Such a plan should incorporate suggestions made last year by the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, appointed by President Bush, and by the Pew Oceans Commission in 2003. Those recommendations include use of better technologies, improved cooperation between federal and state agencies, increased enforcement and the creation of a long-term strategy to bolster fishery protections and protect entire marine ecosystems.

Some of those changes have already been incorporated into a bill reauthorizing the 1976 law that regulates the nation's fisheries. Sponsored by Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, the legislation would substantially improve fisheries management. For example, it would ensure that science plays a greater role by requiring scientific panels to provide regional councils with the data needed to set reasonable catch limits.

As submitted by Stevens, the bill required councils to impose hard limits on catches with the aim of rebuilding depleted stocks. If limits were exceeded, the excess catch would be subtracted from the next year's quota. That sound requirement provided both flexibility and accountability - in contrast to current law, under which overfishing often continues for years.

However, that vital provision has been weakened by New England senators who argued that it would impose hardships on their region's fishing industry. Lawmakers should consider that more than 40 percent of federally managed stocks in New England were overfished in 2004 - almost twice the national average.

While some compromises may be necessary, lawmakers must make certain that the final reauthorization provides enforceable limits and safeguards against the excesses that have devastated this nation's fisheries in recent years.