The State Marine Fisheries Omnibus Bill requires that DEC institute a lobster trap tag program so that New York remains in compliance with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) fishery management plan for this species. Since the last Council meeting, ASMFC adopted Addendum One to this fishery management plan, with trap tag requirements for the entire coast. All lobster traps must have tags by June 1, 2000; annual re-tagging is mandatory. The ASMFC Lobster Board will meet soon to sort out the details of these programs and to prepare bid specifications for a bid package that would be released by ASMFC for the job of manufacturing and distributing tags to fishermen. Mr. Colvin stated that one of the options that will be considered is having fishermen apply directly to the contract company for the tags, with the cognizant state natural resource agency verifying that he/she was authorized to receive a certain number of tags. Handling and audit issues remain to be resolved. Annual re-tagging is necessary because the number of tags permitted to a fisherman may vary each year. DEC is authorized to charge up to $.20 per tag to cover administration costs. There are provisions for replacing tags in the event of routine or catastrophic tag loss. New York lobstermen fishing in Management Areas III, IV, and VI will have individual allowances of tags based on the level of their historical participation. Lobstermen who operate in Area II will all receive the same number of tags. If a lobsterman chose to operate in two areas, then he would be subject to the stricter area’s regulations. Qualifying years to determine historical use of pots for Area IV would be 1991-98; for Area VI, 1995-June 8 1998. Some fishermen in the room, who had held lobster licenses but did not renew them or renewed them but did not fish for lobsters during these qualifying periods, complained that any holder of a valid commercial lobster license should now be allowed to participate in the fishery; recent or historic inactivity should not be used to prevent people from using their license.