Opinion ID: 2204600
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Permitting system

Text: This appeal arises under the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission (CFEC) point system for allocating permits to fish in two sablefish fisheries, the Southern Southeast Inside (Southern) and the Northern Southeast Inside (Northern) sablefish longline fisheries. The CFEC decided in 1985 that, although these fisheries were not distressed, participation in them should be limited to achieve the purposes of the Limited Entry Act. [1] The CFEC set the maximum number of permits for both sablefish fisheries by determining the number of units of gear during the year of highest participation in the four years prior to limiting entry to the fishery, to comply with our case law requiring that the permit level could not be lower for nondistressed fisheries than it would be under the statutory method of calculating the number of permits for distressed fisheries. [2] That method requires that the maximum number of entry permits for a distressed fishery ... shall be the highest number of units of gear fished in that fishery during any one of the four years immediately preceding [limitation]. [3] The CFEC set the maximum number of permits for the Northern fishery at 73 and the maximum number for the Southern fishery at 18. [4] These numbers reflect the highest number of vessels to fish in these fisheries in the years 1981-1984. [5] These entry permits are distributed according to a point system in which applicants are ranked according to the degree of their past participation in, and economic dependence on, the fishery. [6] In order to be eligible to apply, an applicant must have legally participated in the fishery in at least one qualifying year between 1975 and 1984. [7]