Last week, I critiqued Ron Arnold’s story about the “catch share” program being instituted in New England, saying that free-market environmentalists should support Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) programs. I stand by that point.
What is interesting, however, is that the more I look into it, the more I realize that what is being imposed (literally – see below) in New England is not the sort of catch share program I support. As happened with what became cap-and-trade in energy policy, the left has taken a good idea and perverted it so that it is a ghastly parody of the free market institution.
First, it seems that the scientific claim on which the call for action is based is exaggerated. Students of the environmental movement should not be surprised at this, as it is a pattern that repeats itself from DDT to global warming. The claim is that the fisheries as currently managed are in crisis and severely overfished. This does not appear to be the case.
For many years, these fisheries have been subject to regulation that sets a Total Allowable Catch (TAC), which represents the amount of fish scientists believe can be sustainably removed from the fishery. The TAC has not been exceeded for many fish species for years, and in most cases the catch landed isn’t even close to the TAC. For instance, in the last year for which full figures are available, 2008, only 6% of the TAC for Haddock in the George’s Bank area was landed. Fishing sources tell me that this significant undercatch is because of the excessive amount of regulation that dictate when and where fishermen can fish (a “complex web” that is likely to get more complicated if the environmentalists’ latest attempt to designate “critical habitat” for the North Atlantic Right Whale succeeds.) Regulations also lead to significant amounts of caught fish being returned dead to the sea. These regulations will be unaffected, for the most part, by a transition to catch share.
Read the complete story from the Washington Examiner.