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My recollection is that those changes were judicially mandated as part of a settlement the government agreed to when sued by conservation groups. Certainly the vast majority of fishery restriction over the last 20 years has been judicially driven.
Note also how it prioritizes the fishing industry rather than all user groups.
As for the reliance on best available "science", that has been corrupted into the best available "data", which gives fishery managers (and politicians beholden to the industry) full leeway to decide what data is "best" and what data is best, or most conveniently, ignored.
The scientists do not determine fishery policy, not by a long shot. They provide information that is manipulated if at all possible by the managers to fit an agenda influenced heavily by commercial interests (although greed driven recreational interests are complicit).
It is a system that does not work and screws most of us, including the fish buying public.
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