Coast Guard

Anti-Reflagging Act Has Mixed Impact on U.S. Fishing and Ship Rebuilding Gao ID: RCED-91-27 October 25, 1990

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO evaluated provisions of the Commercial Fishing Industry Vessel Anti-Reflagging Act, focusing on the: (1) act's impact on the groundfish industry; and (2) Coast Guard's procedures for enforcing certain act prohibitions.

GAO found that: (1) the act's American control provisions had little impact on ensuring increased American control of the U.S. fishing industry, resulting primarily from the Coast Guard's interpretation of the act's grandfather clauses exempting vessels that were previously licensed and operating in U.S. coastal waters before the act's enactment; (2) the Coast Guard believed that the grandfather exemptions remained with the vessels even if they were subsequently sold to foreign-owned companies, giving foreign-owned companies continued access to U.S. fisheries; (3) the act's prohibitions against foreign rebuilding of vessels used in U.S. fisheries were likely to have a significant impact, since the grandfather exemptions that allowed foreign rebuilding were tied to specific deadlines, all of which have passed; and (4) vessels rebuilt in a foreign country had to be delivered to the owners before July 28, 1990 to be eligible for U.S. fishery privileges, but after that deadline, owners who desired to rebuild their vessels and who wished to participate in U.S. fisheries would likely rebuild in U.S. shipyards.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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