In 1994, federal regulations in the Northeast implemented new effort control measures for fisheries management, which sought to eliminate overfishing by limiting access to certain regulated fisheries in decline and by limiting vessel effort within those particular fisheries. Under these new effort control measures, vessels are allocated an annual number of working days at sea (DAS) within a specific fishery. These effort control measures have since become, and remain today, the cornerstone for the Northeast multispecies, the Atlantic sea scallop, Monkfish and Red crab fisheries.

The Northeast Office for Law Enforcement (OLE) has the overall responsibility to monitor and track these days at sea usage for over 2,000 vessels permitted in these four fisheries. DAS useage is tracked by use of a vessel call-in system in which vessels are required to call when they sail and call when they land. Fishing vessels are also tracked at sea by the OLE's satellite-based Vessel Monitoring System (VMS).