Eric Schwaab, the newly appointed head of the National Marine Fisheries Service, was peppered with questions during a lengthy hearing of U.S. House Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans and Wildlife.
Reading from a prepared text and later improvising, Schwaab's answers did not always satisfy the subcommittee.
In an exchange with Congressman Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., Schwaab dodged a series of questions aimed at inducing him to concede that catch share programs, which permanently allocate the resource as shares to members of the fishery with limited access privileges, are difficult to alter after the creation of property rights.
And in an exchange with Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter, D-N.H., Schwaab admitted that he didn't have the facts to confirm or dispute her assertion that the catch share budget was "approaching the gross value of the fishery."
There were also congressional voices in support of catch shares, but the tilt of the hearing was to the other side.