[Pennsy Guy]

looked this up on Wikipedia a few years ago...NMFS was formed back in 1871 but under a different name while U. S. Grant was president It had 3 sections: study of fish and U. S. waters: the study of fishing methods and collection of fish catch and trade stats and the introduction and propagation of food fishes in the nation.
Somewhere I read on Wikipedia it was really formed to protect the commercial sector, later primarily from the Brits coming over and depleting the cod population. It was made to sound like the recreational sector was equally important.
U.S. Fish Commision was formed with several reorganizations and name changes until Pres. Nixon, in 1970 transferred the then named Bureau of Commercial Fisheries and other formed bureaus to the Dept. of Commerce and it was then renamed the NMFS and on Oct. 3, 1970, through a reorganization of the Environmental Science Services Administration, NOAA replaced it with NMFS under its control.

Let's face it, without a total reappointment/election of members throughout all the Agencies, things will never get better for the Recs. here stateside and forget about any control in the Med or eastern Atlantic--the same with the Indonesian waters and their surrounds.
It doesn't matter how rebuilt any of the stocks are, the commercials will get them all while the recs deal with the reductions and closures.
There, my 2 cents...