Enviromental Policy and Regulation - Essay Example

As a means of integrating with such a question, this particular essay will analyze the extent to which the Magnuson – Stevens Act of 1976 has helped to protect the environment to which it was intended to preserve. In order to measure the underlying effectiveness of this act, the author will seek to review the determinant components of the Magnuson – Stevens Act, the subsequent amendments and bills that it has given birth to, the level to which the legislation has been able to ameliorate the issues that it set out to address, and the ultimately whether the legislation can be considered a success, failure, or partial success.

Firstly, before delving into measuring whether or the legislation has helped to address the issues that it sought to integrate with, it is necessary for the student o provide a thorough overview of all of the aspects of United States fisheries and protected areas that the legislation sought to address. As such, the Magnuson – Stevens Act of 1976 can ultimately be broken down into the following 5 component parts: Acting to conserve fishery resources Supporting enforcement of international fishing agreements Promoting fishing in line with conservation principles Providing for the implementation of fishery management plans (FMPs), which achieve optimal yield Establishing Regional Fisher Management Councils to steward fishery resources through the preparation, monitoring, and revising of plans which (A) enable stakeholders to participate in the administration of fishers and (B) consider social and economic needs of states As a function of such a broad approach, the bill can be understood to seek to identify with three functional areas of fishery conservation, 1) the international level that seeks to bring the interpretation of international fishery management in line with what the United States projected in domestic law, 2) seeking to engage in an framework for which the federal government could seek to provide a level of overarching conservation within the states and territories it was responsible for and finally, 3) seeking to integrate this framework with respect to the many differentiated rules that had developed within the individual states (Tromble, 2012).

As with many layers of legislation that have introduced over the years, the ultimate success of the act cannot be understood in a two dimensional explanation of whether it has been effective or whether it has not been effective. Instead, the overall success and result of the Magnuson – Stevens Act of 1976 varies dependent upon the different regions and fish stocks within the United States. However, as a means of the evolving level of success, the government has been able to integrate with amendments to the bill both in 1996 and 2006; thereby the disenfranchised regions of the nation and fish stocks that were still suffering and left out of the specific rubric of the bill have been integrated with in a far more successful manner than was exhibited when the bill was first passed into law.

This amendment process signifies a vital component of the legislation that ultimately bequeaths it with a far greater degree of success than it would otherwise realize (Rouch, 2012). Due to the fact that new fisheries are developed and near exhaustion on a regular basis, the bill requires that amendments must be made in order to integrate the current realities of conservation with the law that seeks to protect the component parts of the