Senators yesterday called for loosening catch limits on certain U.S. fisheries, arguing that overly strict limits were hurting fishermen.

The bipartisan calls came as administration officials told lawmakers in a hearing yesterday that they were on track to establish catch limits in all fisheries the agency manages by the end of 2011 that include timelines for rebuilding depleted species in a decade or less, as the 2007 reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act dictated.

"We're making very good progress in meeting that mandate," Eric Schwaab, assistant administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service, told the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee's subpanel on oceans, atmosphere and fisheries.

Senators from several coastal states questioned the quality and quantity of science being used to establish the catch limits and decried the impact that the limits were having on commercial and recreational fishing industries worth $163 billion and responsible for 1.9 million jobs, according to a 2008 report.

"We are still struggling," said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) "Our fishing folks in Massachusetts are really having a very, very difficult time right now."

Kerry said that although overall revenues may be rising for some of the largest fishing concerns, small fishermen were being hurt by limits and policies that lacked transparency and the data to support them. He called for increasing annual catch limits for the remainder of the season.

"I'm convinced we can do that in the short term without hurting any of the goals," Kerry said.

Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe held up a can of sardines and lamented the recent closure of Maine's last sardine cannery, saying it stemmed from a 40 percent tightening of catch limits on herring, which "wasn't even overfished."

"That's devastating and it resulted in the loss of 130 jobs and an industry," Snowe said. "What would you suggest we do better to restore confidence and integrity in the data?"

Douglas DeMaster, acting director of science programs and chief science adviser at the National Marine Fisheries Service, responded that the limits were based on probabilities that overfishing might occur and that setting them any lower would create an undue risk that a population might be depleted.

Florida Sens. Marco Rubio (R) and Bill Nelson (D) took turns grilling administration officials over the science and data behind the catch limits, with Rubio saying the overly strict limits and last summer's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico amounted to a "double whammy" for the state's struggling fishermen.

"Sustainable fisheries is a goal we all share," Rubio said. "In order to have a good management plan, we have to have good data. What we can't afford to do is arbitrarily shut down fishing based on incomplete or insufficient data."

Nelson pointed out that a third or less managed fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic had never had their stocks assessed.

"Let me say to you all that I'm distressed at the fact that we don't have updated data with which to make our assessments," said Nelson. Congress, he said, reauthorized the Magnuson-Stevens Act "on the assumption data would be complete, accurate and up to date."

"I think that your organization is interpreting the act in a way that was not intended," Nelson said.

DeMaster cautioned against basing judgments about whether or not a species was at risk of being overfished based on how many fishermen were catching it but also said the agency recognized that in the South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, "we need to improve our throughput" and that more stock assessment scientists were being sent to the region.

"We are moving to entirely revamp ... the whole data-crunching process," NMFS's Schwaab said.