"It is correct that we have a 2009 deadline that we did not entirely meet," Rauch said when questioned, explaining that his staff has looked at the mandatory requirement for data collection replacement as "more of a transition than flipping a switch."
The Magnuson Act required specific improvements that NMFS was to have implemented by 2009, including use of a national angler registry for conducting phone surveys, an adequate number of intercepts to accurately estimate recreational catch and effort, analysis of vessel trip report data from charter boats, and the development of a weather corrective factor. "Congress heard first-hand that not one of these initiatives appears to have actually been accomplished by NMFS," Donofrio said. "Mr. Rauch said that they are devising new estimates using old data, but they have not implemented any new measure which would actually provide better data as the law required."
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