Saving Seafood

Rep. Bishop Statement on ESA Regulatory Reforms

August 12, 2019 — The following was released by The Office of Congressman Rob Bishop (R-UT):

Today, Ranking Republican Rob Bishop (R-Utah) issued the following statement on the Trump administration’s regulatory reforms to the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

“Under the previous administration, the Endangered Species Act strayed woefully far from its original intent. The Act was morphed into a political weapon instead of a tool to protect wildlife. Secretary Bernhardt’s dogged dedication to righting this wrong is again made apparent today.

“These final revisions are aimed at enhancing interagency cooperation, clarifying standards, and removing inappropriate one-size-fits-all practices. I look forward to supporting efforts in Congress to enshrine these revisions into law.”

Background:

Signed into law in 1973, the original goal of the ESA was to preserve and recover key domestic species from the brink of extinction. However, today the law is failing to achieve its primary purpose of species recovery and instead has become a tool for litigation that drains resources away from real recovery efforts on the state, tribal and local level and blocks job-creating economic activities. Congress last renewed the ESA in 1988, which means it has been over 30 years since any substantial updates have been made.

In 2017 and 2018, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service sought public input on how the federal government can improve upon ESA’s regulatory framework. The changes finalized today aim to modernize the implementation of the ESA in order to improve collaboration, efficiency, and effectiveness.

To view the final ESA implementation regulation revisions CLICK HERE.

At House hearing, witness described federal ocean management as a “black hole”

May 17, 2016 — WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — Today, Meghan Lapp, the Fisheries Liaison for Seafreeze Ltd, criticized what she described as an opaque and “top down” ocean management process at a hearing of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Power, and Oceans, titled “The Implications of President Obama’s National Ocean Policy”.

In her testimony, Ms. Lapp – whose company, Seafreeze, is the largest producer and trader of sea-frozen fish on the East Coast – described the difficulties she faced dealing with ocean planning agencies, specifically the Northeast Regional Planning Body (RPB). Her testimony detailed how the RPB appeared committed to establishing new environmental protections at all costs, without sufficient regard to their potential impact on fishing communities. 

“It was very apparent from the discussion that the push was to get the RPB Plan done at all costs by 2016,” she said.

Ms. Lapp also highlighted how new regulatory processes have frequently excluded stakeholder engagement – with a prominent example being the potential designation of deep sea canyons as marine national monuments.

“No one at NOAA could tell me how long the comment period would remain open. Neither could anyone at the agency inform me how or why this discussion was initiated, if there was any specific process being followed, who would be reviewing our comments, who would be presenting them, and to whom.”

Ms. Lapp summed up the opaque nature of the process as such: “It was like a black hole; we had no idea what was going on.”

Read Ms. Lapp’s full testimony here