Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 107 Part 3.djvu/510

 107 STAT. 2448 PUBLIC LAW 103-206—DEC. 20, 1993 (2) Increased fishing pressure, environmental pollution, and the loss and alteration of habitat have reduced severely certain Atlantic coastal fishery resources. (3) Because no single governmental entity has exclusive management authority for Atlantic coastal fishery resources, harvesting of such resources in frequently subject to disparate, inconsistent, and intermittent State and Federal regulation that has been detrimental to the conservation and sustainable use of such resources and to the interests of fishermen and the Nation as a whole. (4) The responsibility for managing Atlantic coastal fisheries rests with the States, which carry out a cooperative program of fishery oversight and management through the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. It is the responsibility of the Federal Government to support such cooperative interstate management of coastal fishery resources. (5) The failure by one or more Atlantic States to fully implement a coastal nsheiy management plan can affect the status of Atlantic coastal nsheries, and can discourage other States from fully implementing coastal fishery management plans. (6) It is in the national interest to provide for more effective Atlantic State fishery resource conservation and management, (b) PURPOSE.— The purpose of this title is to support and encourage the development, implementation, and enforcement of effective interstate conservation and management of Atlantic coastal fishery resources. 16 USC 5102. SEC. 803. DEFINITIONS. In this title, the following definitions apply: (1) The term ''coastal fishery management plan" means a plan for managing a coastal fishery resource, or an amendment to such plan, prepared and adopted by the Commission, that^ (A) contains information regarding the status of the resource and related fisheries; (B) specifies conservation and management actions to be taken by the States; and (C) recommends actions to be taken by the Secretary in the exclusive economic zone to conserve and manage the fishery. (2) The term "coastal fishery resource" means any fishery, any species of fish, or €my stcick of fish that moves among, or is broadly distributed across, waters under the jurisdiction of two or more States or waters under the jimsdiction of one or more States and the exclusive economic zone. (3) The term "Commission" means the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission established under the interstate compact consented to and approved by the Congress in Public Laws 77-539 and 81-721. (4) The term "conservation" means the restoring, rebuilding, and maintaining of any coastal fishery resource and the marine environment, in order to assure the availability of coastal fishery resources on a long-term basis. (5) The term "Councils" means Regional Fishery Management Councils established under section 302 of the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act (16 U.S.C. 1852).

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