The Bush Administration has finally unveiled its legislation to reform the Magnuson-Stevens Act governing fisheries in U.S. territorial waters. As expected, the bill endorses the use of tradeable quotas for fisheries -- labeled "dedicated access privileges" in the bill -- a property-based approach to fishery management that is supported by nearly all serious fishery analysts.

Environmental organizations that do serious fisheries work, like Environmental Defense, support the use of tradeable quotas. The opposition, insofar as there is any, comes from local economic interests that are afraid of competition and liberal groups that are afraid of "concentration" within the fishing industry. Whatever the merits of such critiques, it is worth noting that they are not particularly environmental. That is, there is no serious environmental -- as opposed to social -- argument against the use of tradeable fishing quotas. There's a reason for this: Both extensive theoretical work and extensive practical experience have demonstrated that property-based management schemes are the key to fishery sustainability.

I've written on the value of tradeable quotas in fisheries here. for news coverage of the proposal, see here and here. I hope to post more on the specifics of the proposal once I've had more time to go over it.