Regulations
The NMFS regulatory program is one of the most active in the federal government, with hundreds of regulations published annually in the Federal Register. Most regulations are published to conserve marine fisheries under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act; other regulations are published under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act. The NMFS also regulates fisheries pursuant to decisions of "regional fishery management organizations"(RFMOs) and other RFMOs to which the U.S. is a party, such as the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, the Agreement on the International Dolphin Conservation Program, etc.
Some regulations by NMFS are quite controversial. For example, in 2007, the NMFS issued regulations to protect endangered whales from fatal fishing-gear entanglements after environmental groups sued to force action on the rules, which were proposed in early 2005. The rules were enacted to specifically protect the North Atlantic Right Whale, of which about only 350 remain. Marine gear entanglements and ship strikes are the top human causes of right whale deaths. On July 1, the shipping lanes in and out of Boston Harbor were rotated to avoid an area with a high concentration of the right whales.
Read more about this topic: National Marine Fisheries Service
Famous quotes containing the word regulations:
“If it were possible to make an accurate calculation of the evils which police regulations occasion, and of those which they prevent, the number of the former would, in all cases, exceed that of the latter.”
—Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835)
“The admission of Oriental immigrants who cannot be amalgamated with our people has been made the subject either of prohibitory clauses in our treaties and statutes or of strict administrative regulations secured by diplomatic negotiations. I sincerely hope that we may continue to minimize the evils likely to arise from such immigration without unnecessary friction and by mutual concessions between self-respecting governments.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“If the veil were withdrawn from the sanctuary of domestic life, and man could look upon the fear, the loathing, the detestations which his tyranny and reckless gratification of self has caused to take the place of confiding love, which placed a woman in his power, he would shudder at the hideous wrong of the present regulations of the domestic abode.”
—Lydia Jane Pierson, U.S. women’s rights activist and corresponding editor of The Woman’s Advocate. The Woman’s Advocate, represented in The Lily, pp. 117-8 (1855-1858 or 1860)