Saving Seafood

Law

Concerns raised with Rafael boat deal

January 13, 2020 — By the start of the new fishing year on May 1, Carlos Rafael, once owner of one of the largest fishing fleets in the country and known as the “Codfather,” will officially be little more than a memory on the New Bedford waterfront.

According to his attorney, John Markey, Rafael will have sold off all of his fishing empire as part of a settlement agreement with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and will be out of the fishing industry forever.

“The Rafaels committed to NOAA to sell their fishing assets and they did that,” Markey said Friday.

Rafael has less than two years left to serve of a 46-month prison sentence. He pleaded guilty to falsely labeling fish, smuggling cash, tax evasion and falsifying federal records as part of a scheme to catch and sell fish for which he didn’t possess the necessary quota.

In August, he reached a settlement agreement with NOAA to pay more than $3 million in fines, sell off his fleet by December 31, 2020, and leave the fishing industry forever.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Bumble Bee hoping to pay executive bonuses, over objections of creditors

January 10, 2020 — The creditors of Bumble Bee Foods, which filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November 2019, have asked the judge overseeing the case to prevent the company from paying year-end bonuses to some of its employees.

Bumble Bee is hoping to pay 37 of its employees enrolled in its Key Employee Incentive Program (KEIP) – created after the company filed for bankruptcy – between USD 1.3 million and USD 3.2 million (EUR 1.16 million and EUR 2.88 million) as a performance bonus for helping the company maintain cash flow during its difficult past few months.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Appeals court hears arguments on NOAA’s authority to regulate aquaculture

January 9, 2020 — The fight over whether offshore aquaculture should be allowed in US federal waters and which agency should regulate it is back in court with lawyers for a group of fishing and food safety interests arguing that new legislation is needed for the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to regulate it.

In September 2018, US district court judge Jane Triche Milazzo, in the Eastern District of Louisiana, granted a motion by the Center for Food Safety (CFS) and a coalition of fishing and public interest groups it represented to grant a summary judgment in its lawsuit against NOAA’s National Marine Fishery Service (NMFS) to block its efforts to establish aquaculture in the Gulf of Mexico.

CFS had successfully argued that the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA), which gives NOAA and NMFS much of their legal authority, gave the agencies authority over only wild-capture fisheries, not aquaculture.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Federal court stops longline fishing to protect turtles

January 8, 2020 — Longline fishing won’t be allowed off the California coast, after a federal district court suspended permits for the fishing method.

In December, the court struck down longline fishing permits that the National Marine Fisheries Service issued last spring, ruling that the service didn’t properly analyze threats to critically endangered leatherback sea turtles.

“The permits were vacated by the court, so the permits are no longer in effect,” said Catherine Kilduff, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, which filed a lawsuit with Turtle Island Restoration Network, challenging the permits.

The National Marine Fisheries Service declined to comment on the case while it analyzes the decision, spokesman Jim Milbury said.

Read the full story at The San Diego Union-Tribune

Environmental groups file federal suit seeking green sea turtle habitat protections

January 8, 2020 — Three conservation groups filed a lawsuit in federal court on Wednesday, 8 January, against the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, claiming it has not done enough to protect green sea turtle habitats across the country from a variety of threats.

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), the Turtle Island Restoration Network, and Sea Turtle Oversight Protection claim NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined nearly four years ago that the turtles still required protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) because of threats from climate change and rising sea levels.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Future of Fish Farming in Federal Waters at Issue in Court

January 6, 2020 — The potential environmental and economic consequences posed by proposals for fish farming in federal waters dictate that Congress — not a federal agency — must decide how to regulate the industry, an attorney told a federal appeals court Monday.

At issue before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was a September 2018 ruling by a federal judge who threw out National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s rules for fish farms in the Gulf of Mexico, saying Congress never gave the agency authority to make them.

An attorney for groups representing commercial and recreational fishing interests, food safety advocates and conservationists urged the three-judge appellate panel to uphold the 2018 ruling. Those groups cite numerous worries about the effect of fish farming on market prices for wild-caught fish and the effects on fishing communities, the environmental consequences of the use of antibiotics to control disease, the unpredictable genetic effects on wild, native fish stocks if farmed fish escape from farm pens and other concerns.

NOAA maintains that fish farming, including that on the open sea, is vital to future seafood production and can help provide year-round jobs while rebuilding protected species and habitats.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the U.S. News

Seamounts monument lawsuit appeal rejected by federal court

January 3, 2020 — A lawsuit against a national monument created by U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has been defeated once again after an appeal to an earlier ruling was denied.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has rejected the appeal of an earlier ruling that dismissed a lawsuit brought by fishermen against the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. The monument, created in 2016, will be 4,913 square miles of ocean roughly 130 miles off of the coast of New England that will be closed to commercial activity, including fishing.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Fishermen’s group declares “partial victory” after court ruling on GM salmon

January 3, 2020 — Even though a federal judge ruled in December that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has the authority to regulate genetically modified salmon, a commercial fishing group that sued the agency is declaring “partial victory.”

That’s because, in May, the judge will hear arguments on the second part of the case, which questions whether the FDA’s approval of GM salmon was deficient.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Judge sides with Olema environmental group on sea turtle protections

January 3, 2020 — A federal judge has sided with an Olema-based conservation group in finding the federal government violated environmental laws including the Endangered Species Act by allowing longline fishing in West Coast waters without assessing threats to endangered sea turtles.

Judge Kandis A. Westmore of the U.S. District Court of Northern California wrote in her ruling late last month that the National Marine Fisheries Service’s issuance of two longline fishing permits earlier this year would “reverse protections in place for leatherback sea turtles despite continuing population declines and the agency’s admission that the extinction of Pacific leatherbacks ‘is almost certain in the immediate future.’”

As part of her Dec. 20 order, Westmore set aside the two fishing permits that were issued in May as well as the agency’s finding that the fishing would have no significant environmental impacts.

Todd Steiner, executive director of the Olema-based Turtle Island Restoration Network, which co-led the lawsuit with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the fishing permits were essentially a back-door attempt by the Trump administration to reopen longline fishing despite a 2004 federal ban. The lawsuit was filed in June.

“We have closed the back door and leatherback sea turtles are safe from drowning on the ends of longline fishing hooks,” Steiner said.

Read the full story at The Marin Independent Journal

Court Upholds Creation of National Monument in Atlantic

December 27, 2019 — A federal appeals court on Friday upheld former President Barack Obama’s designation of a federally protected conservation area in the Atlantic Ocean, a move that commercial fishermen oppose.

Fishing groups sued over the creation of Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, a 5,000-square-mile (8,000-square-kilometer) area that contains fragile deep sea corals and vulnerable species of marine life. The monument was established in 2016.

A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit last year, and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the decision Friday.

The appeals panel brushed aside arguments that federal law governing monuments applies only to land, not oceans; that the area of the ocean is not “controlled” by the federal government; that it is not compatible with National Marine Sanctuaries Act; and that it is not the “smallest area compatible” with management goals.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The New York Times