The chairman of the council that advises federal managers on New England fishing regulations has called for a review of the rulemaking bureaucracy, calling it "antiquated and ineffective."
John Pappalardo of the New England Fishery Management Council made the request in a letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. The council works with the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Northeast Science Center to devise fishing rules.
But Pappalardo wrote the three entities can’t efficiently meet the expanded requirements of the nation’s recently reauthorized fisheries law, the Magnuson Stevens Act. He also said the bureaucracy is driven by "process and protocol," not outcomes.