Marc Hoffman presented a report advocating redesigning the way the Environmental Conservation Law deals with gear restrictions on each species. The subcommittee’s recommendation is that these restrictions in law be rewritten so as to state specifically what gear type(s) is/are permissible to harvest a particular species. The burden of proof to demonstrate that another type of gear could be used without damaging the target resource would fall to those proposing to use the additional gear type. This simplification would aid enforcement and avoid the sort of problems which developed with the fish pot definition, which took two years. Mr. Hoffman distributed a sample proposal for how tautog restrictions might be handled. Chairman Wise thanked him and Councilor Mike McCarron for their work and asked DEC to examine this proposal and present an assessment at a future meeting.