Clammer - Are you going to the meetings? If you are not, maybe you should.
I sat in one a while back, specifically talking about the shellfish -v- this -v- that and there were several possible paths, like:
Full license & apprentice / senior (you got a little while before that
)
Existing lic holders having much less impact than new entry, both from other species or from new users...
Bunch of stuff. You should go to the website and read what has been passed so far...
http://www.ci.uri.edu/Projects/rifish/default.html