The Expansion of Fishery Jurisdiction: Fishery Interests and Congressional Voting

Abstract

The Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 greatly broadened the scope of U.S. fishery regulation. While the act contained a variety of features, its primary and certainly most controversial provision expanded the regulated fishing zone from 12 to 200 miles. This paper identifies the primary gainers and losers from the act and assesses their roles in influencing the legislative outcome. The voting behavior of congressional representatives is analyzed by multivariate probit analysis in order to quantify the influences of the major lobbying groups.Environmental Economics and Policy, International Relations/Trade, Political Economy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,