July 26, 2021 — A long-awaited overhaul of the nation’s primary fishing law would require NOAA to devise plans for “climate ready fisheries” to deal with shifting stocks, under a bill expected to be introduced later today.
If approved, it would mark the first time that climate change received a mention in the landmark Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which Congress first passed in 1976.
The law, which has not been reauthorized since 2006, governs fishing in all federal waters. It would be revamped under legislation sponsored by Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), the chair of a House subcommittee that oversees fisheries.
Huffman, who conducted a two-year national “listening tour” to collect ideas on how to change the law, plans to introduce his bill this afternoon.
“When Magnuson was written and reauthorized, most, if not all, of the climate impacts that fishery managers are dealing with were not contemplated,” Huffman said in an interview on Friday. “It’s one of the biggest changes.”
Huffman said his bill, called the “Sustaining America’s Fisheries for the Future Act,” will otherwise include no “radical or dramatic changes.”
“We set out to modernize and fine-tune and improve a statute that is universally revered by most stakeholders and experts — it’s not like this is something that was terribly broken,” said Huffman, the chairman of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife.