Opinion ID: 3037886
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Pacific Coast Salmon Plan

Text: In 1977, the NMFS approved the Pacific Coast Salmon Plan (“Pacific Plan”), an FMP for the Pacific salmon fisheries. See Pacific Plan 1 (revised Sept. 2003), available at http://www.pcouncil.org/salmon/salfmp.html.1 From 1978 through 1983, the Council recommended annual amendments to the Pacific Plan based on yearly “salmon abundance estimates and social and economic factors affecting the fish- 1 All PFMC documents we refer to are available at the Council’s website, http://www.pcouncil.org. OREGON TROLLERS v. GUTIERREZ 7391 eries.” 49 Fed. Reg. 43679, 43679 (Oct. 31, 1984). This process, which required notice-and-comment and other procedures, proved “too cumbersome to allow for timely implementation of the annual regulations and efficient fishery management.” Pacific Plan at 1. In 1984, the Council therefore proposed a “comprehensive framework amendment” to the NMFS. Pacific Plan at 1. The 1984 amendment established consistent terms for salmon regulation that would apply every year, and it provided a “mechanism for making preseason and inseason adjustments in the regulations without annual amendments to the FMP.” 49 Fed. Reg. at 43679. Shortly thereafter, the NMFS approved the amended Pacific Plan and promulgated implementing regulations, now codified at 50 C.F.R. §§ 660.401-411. The amended Pacific Plan includes fixed measures, which can only be changed through formal rulemaking, and allows for flexible measures, which change from year-to-year based on fishery conservation and management needs. See Nw. Envtl. Def. Ctr. v. Gordon, 849 F.2d 1241, 1243 (9th Cir. 1988). “Fixed measures” include “the procedures and schedules for making preseason and inseason adjustments to the regulations.” “Flexible measures” include “determinations of the annual allowable levels of ocean harvests . . . .” 49 Fed. Reg. 32414, 32414-15 (Aug. 14, 1984) (proposed rule). One of the most important features of the Pacific Plan’s management of Klamath chinook is its “spawning escapement goal.” “For natural stocks, the escapement goal is defined as the number of spawning adults needed to produce the maximum number of juvenile salmon that, after incubation and freshwater rearing, will out-migrate to the sea . . . . For hatchery stocks, the escapement goal is that number of spawners needed to meet a hatchery’s agreed-upon artificial production plan.” United States v. Washington, 774 F.2d 1470, 1473 n.2 (9th Cir. 1985). The NMFS first adopted a spawning escapement goal for the Klamath chinook in 1985. It required the agency to design annual management measures such that, by 7392 OREGON TROLLERS v. GUTIERREZ 1998, 115,000 Klamath chinook, including 97,000 natural spawners, would escape to spawn. See 50 Fed. Reg. 812, 813 (Jan. 7, 1985). In December 1988, the Council, “[f]aced with declining run sizes,” proposed an amendment to the Pacific Plan that would set the escapement goal at “35 percent of the potential adults from each brood of natural spawners, but no fewer than 35,000 naturally spawning adults in any given year.” Hatchery spawners would not count toward this goal. The NMFS adopted this amendment to the Pacific Plan and implemented it in a regulation promulgated on May 4, 1989. The regulation has remained in effect, with minor adjustments, since then. See 54 Fed. Reg. 19185, 19194 (May 4, 1989); 54 Fed. Reg. 19798, 19800 (May 8, 1989) (lowering the percentage to 3334%).