Here's how we got to this point:

In 1992, under pressure from northern Norway's powerful fishing interests, Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Brundtland announced that Norway would claim an "exception" to the International Whaling Commission's moratorium on commercial whaling and return to the hunt.

The United States, a primary architect of the moratorium and absolute in its stance on full protection for all species of great whales, found itself caught between the will of the American people and a burgeoning international diplomatic crisis. In the 1993 season, when Norway made good on its threat and returned to hunt, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, under the Pelly amendment to the Packwood-Magnuson Act, was required to find that Norway was undermining an international fisheries conservation agreement and liable to economic sanctions. Norway was thus certified, and it became the obligation of President Clinton to impose sanctions on Norway -- a major U.S. trading partner, NATO ally, and provider of North Sea oil exploration leases for every major U.S. oil company.

At that time, Japan and Norway had begun to push for the adoption of the "Revised Management Procedure" (RMP), an algorithm that would allow the "sustainable take" of whales based on an estimate of population. The whaling nations' demands for an end to the global whaling ban on the basis of whales' "recovery" from exploitation began within two years of the ban going into effect; likewise, demands for ratification of the RMP commenced far in advance of a theoretical future time when anyone could authoritatively state that a population of whales could be "sustainably hunted."

In 1993, The U.S. Administration assembled a panel of independent scientists to assess the Revised Management Procedure. As reported by the Monitor consortium, "the peer review found that the RMP was overly simplistic, lacked a sound data base, and needs far more testing."

At the 1993 meeting of the IWC, the U.S. led the successful effort to block adoption of the RMP. Then came Norway's return to whaling and its certification under Packwood-Magnuson, and pressure on the Clinton Administration to issue sanctions. Protest and controversy spread. On October 4, 1993, Clinton announced that he would not impose sanctions on Norway, stating that the U.S. would first "exhaust all good faith efforts" to persuade that nation to abide by the moratorium on whaling.

The following day, in a "memorandum of conversation" between Vice President Al Gore and Prime Minister Brundtland, ignoring his Administration's peer review of the RMP, Gore promised Brundtland "to join you in working in good faith in the IWC to complete all aspects of the Revised Management Scheme in 1994...."

White House sources told Monitor that the Administration was "desperately seeking to avoid another Pelly Amendment conflict with Norway." Thus began the unacknowledged shift in the U.S. position on whales, and the reversal of two decades of whale conservation policy.

In April 1994, the U.S. formally proposed that the Revised Management Procedure be "provisionally" approved at that year's meeting of the International Whaling Commission while simultaneously pushing through the proposal to create the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary in the Antarctic. (As the Animal Welfare Institute reported, "To defuse public criticism of the Administration's stance on the RMP, the U.S. delegates were instructed to move heaven and earth to pass the Antarctic Sanctuary.") This is essentially what happened at the 1994 IWC meeting, though whale conservation groups prevailed on U.S. whaling commissioner James Baker to scale back U.S. support for the resolution on the RMP. The resolution as passed stated that its passage would not justify the resumption of whaling before all elements of the inspection and observation program necessary for its implementation -- i.e. the Revised Management Scheme -- are completed.

(On May 12, 1994, the Pentagon informed Congress of the impending sale of 1,104 air-to-air missiles to Norway to upgrade that nation's coastal air defense system. The $625 million sale swelled the coffers of Raytheon and General Motors' Hughes Aircraft division.)

In the years the followed, official U.S. opposition to whaling continued to falter as support for the smooth functioning and expansion of international commerce -- a goal embodied in the founding of the World Trade Organization in 1995 -- took obvious priority. In 1997, Baker told Norwegian whaling commissioner Kare Bryn that the U.S. would simply prefer that Norway carry out its minke whale hunt under principles established by the IWC Scientific Committee. Norway's Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted in a tone of amused surprise that two years previously, the United States "in sharp terms asked Norway to halt the minke whale catch until the size of the population was more fully determined," but the Ministry was pleased to interpret the latest softening of stance to mean the U.S. "now accepts Norwegian hunting of the minke whale."

Equally troubling has been the split in the environmental movement caused by the United States' quest for compromise. In 1994, the world's three largest environmental organizations -- Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, and the International Fund for Animal Welfare -- all backed the U.S. in the move to seek provisional approval of the RMP and its eventual implementation under an RMS.

Greenpeace subsequently reversed itself (as it has also reversed its previous stand supporting the watering down of the "dolphin safe" tuna law and lifting the embargo on the sale in the U.S. of tuna caught by casting nets on dolphins), and now opposes the adoption of the RMS. The WWF and IFAW still support it. Last year, the President's Council on Environmental Quality echoed the contention of the WWF that the Revised Management Scheme, in ending the ban on commercial whale hunting, would act as a "safety net" to protect whales from over-exploitation in subsequent commercial hunting.

This brings us to the present: The return to commercial whaling is on the verge of approval, with the terms of the RMS headed for provisional adoption at the 2001 meeting of the IWC in London, with final ratification scheduled for the 2002 meeting in Tokyo. The United States and allied "like minded" whale conservation nations continue to affirm their opposition to commercial whaling, even though they are backing the Revised Management Scheme -- with the near-total unawareness of their citizens that this is happening.

The "Save the Whales" movement achieved the single greatest victory in the history of international conservation efforts with the passage of the commercial whaling moratorium in 1982. This came about due to the urgent, vocal expression of millions of people who got a message through to their elected leaders: Whales are not a commodity. They are not to be killed and sold. They are not ours, or anyone else's, for the taking. There has never been such a thing as a sustainable commercial whale hunt. There is no such thing as a humane whale hunt. Declare a moratorium. Obey the law. Punish violators. Leave the whales in peace.

ACTION
The U.S. commissioner to the International Whaling Commission is appointed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, under the Dept. of Commerce. To express your views on U.S. support for lifting the global moratorium on commercial whaling via the negotiation and ratification of the Revised Management Scheme, contact your Congressional Representative.

Also:
Secretary Donald L. Evans
U.S. Department of Commerce
Room 5854
14th & Constitution Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20230

Tel: 202-482-2112
Fax: 202-482-2741
EMAIL: devans@doc.gov