Saving Seafood

University of Maryland receives $300,000 for blue crab research

July 31, 2020 — U.S. Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen and Congressman Steny H. Hoyer, all D-Md., July 27 announced $299,963 in federal funding for the University of Maryland, College Park for research into a new processing technology that could enhance the competitiveness of the domestic blue crab industry. The funding comes from the 2020 Saltonstall-Kennedy Competitive Grants Program through the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.

“Few things are as iconic as the Chesapeake Bay blue crab, and its harvest is a cornerstone of Maryland’s local economies. This grant will expand the competitiveness of domestically produced crab meat in the face of intense foreign competition, and will help unlock new markets for an important Maryland industry,” said the lawmakers.

The U.S. blue crab industry has faced increasing competition from imported products, especially Venezuelan fresh pre-cooked crab, which has a longer shelf life. This has resulted in a major loss of market share for the Maryland seafood industry. This new high-pressure processing technology will extend shelf life of domestic crab products, while improving food safety and expanding market strategies among the seafood industry.

Read the full story at the Dorchester Star

Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts senators push Trump for aid for their states’ seafood industries

July 6, 2020 — Four U.S. senators representing the Chesapeake Bay region wrote a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on Wednesday, 1 July, urging him to invest COVID-19 funding to the area’s shellfish farmers whose businesses have been greatly affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

The letter, written by Virginia’s U.S. Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine and Maryland’s U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin, all Democrats, asks Perdue to use some of the USD 16 billion (EUR 14.2 billion) appropriated through the CARES Act to purchase oysters and clams from Chesapeake-based aquaculture businesses.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US harvesters seek to fix ‘oversight’ blocking crew payroll from COVID loans

May 11, 2020 — The Seafood Harvesters of America (SHA) has written US senators Marco Rubio (a Florida Republican) and Ben Cardin (a Maryland Democrat) — the chairman and ranking member of the Small Business Committee respectively — to fix what the group believes was “an oversight” that’s now blocking fishermen from taking full advantage of the small business loans made available in the recently passed Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

In a letter sent Thursday, SHA, a group that represents 18 US fishing-related trade associations, seeks to allow “fishing businesses to include payments to fishing vessel crew members reported as fishing boat proceeds on Form 1099- MISC as eligible payroll costs under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)”.

The PPP refers to the new program that authorized up to $349 billion in forgivable loans to small businesses to pay their employees during the COVID-19 crisis.

“We believe it was an oversight that fishing vessel crewmember wages cannot be considered in the fishing business’s PPP loan application as submitted by the vessel owner or captain, and hope it can be easily fixed as [the Department of] Treasury completes their final rule for the PPP,” wrote Robert Dooley and Leigh Habegger, SHA’s president and executive director, respectively.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

US Homeland Security to add 45,000 H-2B visas this year

February 25, 2020 — The U.S. seafood industry is on the verge of getting some good news as the Wall Street Journal has reported that the Department of Homeland Security plans to authorize an additional 45,000 H-2B visas.

H-2B visa allow non-agricultural businesses to fill seasonal jobs with immigrant labor. The program is vital for seafood processors, who claim they cannot find enough domestic workers to handle their needs.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US Senate votes to free Fishermen’s Finest from Jones Act purgatory

November 15, 2018 — It’s been years since Kirkland, Washington-based commercial harvester Fishermen’s Finest commissioned Dakota Creek Industries, in nearby Anacortes, at a cost of $74 million, to build it a new, 264-foot catcher processor to work the seas of Alaska. To both companies’ misfortunes, the vessel was constructed with more than 7% of its steel coming from the Netherlands, a violation of the 1920 Jones Act, which allows vessels to contain no more than 1.5% foreign steel.

After Wednesday’s vote by the US Senate, however, that vessel – America’s Finest – is just one step away from being freed from its moors and able to do its job.

The upper chamber voted 94-6 to pass S. 140, a bill used as a vehicle to reauthorize the US Coast Guard. Most importantly, tucked deep inside the bill, in section 835, is a provision fought for by senator Maria Cantwell, a state of Washington Democrat, that would provide an exemption to the Jones Act for Fishermen’s Finest.

“I’m a very strong supporter of the Jones Act and believe it is important that we continue to have the Jones Act in the future,” Cantwell said after the vote. “I also believe that we were able to work with a solution to save good family-wage jobs at the Dakota Creek Shipyard and appreciate my colleagues working on the incorporation of that language.”

Five of the six senators to vote against the bill were Democrats: Ben Cardin (Maryland), Kirstin Gillibrand (New York), Kamala Harris (California), Chuck Schumer (New York) and Chris Van Hollen (Maryland), Independent Bernie Sanders was also a “nay” vote.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Bill package in Congress funds Chesapeake Bay cleanup

July 11, 2017 — A legislative package in Congress proposes funding several environmental initiatives that would help pay for Chesapeake Bay cleanup efforts.

Six out of nine of the bills included in the package were originally introduced by U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., according to the senator’s spokesman.

According to a statement from the senator’s office, the package would “reauthorize marquis programs at the heart of restoring and maintaining the health of the Chesapeake Bay watershed.” Both Democrats and Republicans have signed on as sponsors.

“A healthy Bay means a healthy economy for Maryland and the entire Chesapeake Bay Watershed region, which cannot be accomplished without a reliable federal partner,” Cardin said. “I urge appropriators to take note of the bipartisan support for authorizing these programs, despite the president’s lack of understanding of their worthiness.”

Chesapeake Bay cleanup funding is feared to be in jeopardy following the release of President Donald Trump’s proposed budget, which altogether eliminates funding for the Chesapeake Bay Program, an arm of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s that helps facilitate Bay cleanup between states across the watershed and tracks progress of pollution reduction.

One part of the legislation would reauthorize and fund the Chesapeake Bay Program until 2023 at $90 million each year, which Cardin’s office said is more than the program has ever been funding in its history.

Read the full story at The Star Democrat

Maryland aquaculture leasing streamlined

August 19, 2016 — Federal regulators unveiled this week a new, “more streamlined” process by which Maryland oyster farmers can lease places in the Chesapeake Bay for raising their shellfish.

The revised permitting procedures announced by the Baltimore District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers come in response to long-voiced complaints from oyster farmers – backed up by Maryland’s U.S. senators – about delays and red tape in obtaining aquaculture leases.

The Corps said it is replacing a regional general permit, which it issued in 2011, with what it calls a Nationwide permit, which the agency says provides a “more streamlined” way to authorize new aquaculture activities.

The new process, which took effect Aug. 15, includes allowing unlimited acreage to be leased, and speeding up handling of proposed aquaculture projects by having federal and state officials review plans at the same time rather than sequentially.

Until now, oyster farmers were limited to leasing 50 acres if raising shellfish loose on the bottom, five acres if rearing them in cages and three acres if keeping them in floats near the water surface. If a grower wanted more, he or she had to apply for an individual permit, which required more review, more public notice and a hearing.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal