Cory Booker Archives - Saving Seafood

U.S. House Passes Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act

November 25, 2019 — The U.S. House has passed the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act, H.R. 737, led by U.S. Reps. Gregorio Sablan (D-NM) and Michael McCaul (R-TX).

The act prohibits the import, export, possession, trade and distribution of shark fins or products containing shark fins, and it was passed by a margin of 310 to 107. U.S. Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV) also introduced a companion bill that the Senate Commerce Committee has already approved.

The act of shark finning and possession of shark fins aboard a vessel is currently prohibited in U.S. waters under the 2010 Shark Conservation Act, but the law does not stop the domestic trade in their parts.

Read the full story at the Maritime Executive

Senate committee OKs bills on whales, marine debris

November 14, 2019 — During a busy day on Capitol Hill the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee approved nearly two dozen bills, including legislation that would lead to significant steps to protect North Atlantic right whales and work to combat marine debris pollution.

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. and one of the candidates for president, introduced S. 2453, the SAVE Right Whales Act, in September with U.S. Sens. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., and Tom Carper, D-Del. U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., introduced the substitute bill that passed the committee Wednesday.

“The North Atlantic right whale was named the official Georgia state marine mammal when I served as minority leader in the Georgia State House, and I am proud that my state’s coast is still home to one of the few known calving grounds for this magnificent animal,” Isakson said in a statement in September. “I’m glad to introduce the Scientific Assistance for Very Endangered Right Whales Act to help learn about how we can better protect this important animal whose numbers continue to dwindle.”

The legislation drew widespread support from environmental organizations.

Natural Resources Defense Council deputy director Nora Apter wrote Sunday, “If the SAVE Right Whales Act becomes law, it would establish a new grant program to fund projects between states, members of the fishing and shipping industries, and nongovernmental organizations to reduce the impacts of human activities on right whales.

Read the full story at The Brunswick News

SAVE Right Whales Act Could Provide $50 Million Grant For Ropeless Fishing Technology

June 15, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The SAVE Right Whales Act of 2018, filed in Congress on June 7, could provide a $5 million annual grant program to allow fishermen, shippers and conservationists to collaborate to protect North Atlantic right whales.

Introduced by U.S. Reps Seth Moulton and William Keating, and by U.S. Senator Cory Booker, the SAVE Act stands for Scientific Assistance for Very Endangered North Atlantic Right Whales. If it becomes law, the act would provide a total of $50 million dollars in federal funds, distributed as $5 million over 10 years, to aid conservation programs with rebuilding the North Atlantic right whales. Projects would include developing, testing or using technology or other methods to reduce entanglements and vessel collisions, which is the leading cause of right whale deaths. This could include developing and testing more ropeless fishing gear technology, which would remove thousands of ropes from the water.

“If we don’t take immediate action, the storied North Atlantic right whale could go extinct in our lifetime,” Booker said while introducing the SAVE Right Whales Act. “We have a responsibility to find and implement solutions that will help protect endangered species for generations to come.”

The bill needs to garner more support from members of Congress in order to be signed into law. Currently the population of the North Atlantic right whales is estimated to be at about 450.

This story originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Legislators act to save right whales

June 14, 2018 — A $5 million annual grant program is proposed for fishermen, shippers and conservationists to collaborate to protect North Atlantic right whales but the state’s lobstermen are still considering it.

“We’ve read it,” Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association Executive Director Beth Casoni said of the SAVE Right Whales Act of 2018, filed in Congress June 7. “We have not had a chance to discuss it as an organization.” At a regularly scheduled monthly meeting Wednesday, the association’s elected delegates are expected to discuss and possibly determine whether to support the measure, Casoni said.

The filing of the SAVE Act comes a week after a report of the second right whale carcass this year, both off Virginia, based on preliminary analyses, according to the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium. The decomposed carcass was reported May 31 on Metompkin Island, Virginia. After a review of the photos, the carcass was tentatively identified as a North Atlantic right whale, and bone samples will be submitted for genetic verification.

The SAVE Act itself, which stands for Scientific Assistance for Very Endangered North Atlantic Right Whales, was introduced by U.S. Reps. Seth Moulton and William Keating, both Democrats from Massachusetts, and House members from Arizona and California, and by U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, with co-sponsors from New York, New Jersey, Florida and Delaware.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Bipartisan Shark Trade Bill Will Improve Global Shark Conservation and Protect Sustainable U.S. Fisheries

March 15, 2018 – WASHINGTON – The following was released by the Sustainable Shark Alliance:

A new bipartisan bill introduced today in the U.S. House of Representatives supported by conservation groups, zoos, aquariums and industry advances global shark conservation by ensuring that all shark products imported into the United States meet the same high ethical and sustainability standards required of American fishermen.

The Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act of 2018, H.R. 5248, sponsored by Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL), Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL), Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay (D-MO), Rep. Darren Soto (D-FL), and Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), would create a formal and transparent certification program for countries seeking to import shark products into the United States. Foreign nations would be required to receive certification from the U.S. Secretary of Commerce confirming that they have an effective prohibition on the reprehensible and wasteful practice of shark finning, and have shark management policies comparable to those under the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

Unlike legislation (H.R. 1456/S.793) from Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) ostensibly designed to improve global shark conservation by banning all trade of shark fins in the United States, the Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act would not punish American fishermen for bad actors in other parts of the world. Instead, it would leverage access to U.S. markets to incentivize other countries to eliminate shark finning and overfishing in their fisheries.

“Fishing is a long-standing profession and treasured American pastime,” said Rep. Webster. “Our responsibility is to balance the needs of the industry with conservation. This bill recognizes the sacrifices American fishermen have made to rebuild and sustain our shark populations. It encourages other nations wishing to export shark products to the United States to adhere to the same high standards for conservation and management.”

“We’d like to thank the Congressmen for introducing the Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act, which represents a better way forward for shark conservation,” said Bob Jones, executive director of the Southeastern Fisheries Association in Tallahassee, Florida. “This legislation goes a long way toward protecting U.S. fishing jobs and combatting the threats facing global shark stocks by promoting the successful model of American shark management.”

Our U.S. shark fisheries are among the best managed in the world. In a paper published last year, Dr. Robert Shiffman, a Liber Ero Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Simon Fraser University, and Dr. Robert Hueter, Director of the Center for Shark Research at Mote Marine Laboratory, wrote that the U.S. “has some of the most sustainable shark fisheries on Earth” and called the U.S. “a model of successful management.” Shark finning, the cruel practice of removing a shark’s fins at sea and discarding the rest of the shark, has been banned in the United States with industry support since the 1990s.

The Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act is supported by commercial fishing industry groups, including but not limited to the following members of Saving Seafood’s National Coalition for Fishing Communities: the Garden State Seafood Association, Southeastern Fisheries Association, North Carolina Fisheries Association, and Directed Sustainable Fisheries. It is also supported by the Louisiana Shrimp Association; environmental groups, such as the Wildlife Conservation Society; and zoo and aquarium facilities, such as Mote Marine Laboratory, Palm Beach Zoo, SeaWorld, Zoo Miami Foundation and the Florida Aquarium. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission also wrote a letter in support of this legislation.

About the Sustainable Shark Alliance
The Sustainable Shark Alliance (SSA) is a coalition of shark fishermen and seafood dealers that advocates for sustainable U.S. shark fisheries and supports healthy shark populations. The SSA stands behind U.S. shark fisheries as global leaders in successful shark management and conservation. The SSA is a member of Saving Seafood’s National Coalition for Fishing Communities.

South Jersey Times: Christie should fight hard to keep drilling ban

January 11, 2018 — With less than a week to go in office and part of his legacy on the line, Gov. Chris Christie has called out President Donald Trump over his administration’s unilateral call to open the entire East Coast to offshore energy drilling.

The possibility of drilling causing a spill despoiling the Atlantic Coast or otherwise ruining New Jersey’s tourism and fishing industries has long been a third rail of Garden State politics, uniting Democrats and Republicans alike. Past attempts to increase coastal drilling — and even President Barack Obama authorized them — generally had “opt-out” features for states, often won after protests from New Jersey lawmakers and governors.

The latest move by U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, with Trump’s apparent blessing, to open both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to more drilling has no specific carve-outs. A current drilling moratorium for the Atlantic coast was supposed to last until at least 2022.

With all due respect to most of the New Jersey elected officeholders who circled the wagons against the Zinke proposal, just as they had in the past: They have no juice with this president.

Read the full story at the South Jersey Times

N.J. leaders seek to block Trump plan for oil drilling off Jersey shore

January 10, 2018 — WASHINGTON — Three dozen Senate Democrats, including Robert Menendez and Cory Booker, asked Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to exclude the Atlantic coast from plans to expand offshore oil drilling.

New Jersey lawmakers also questioned why drilling would still be allowed off the Garden State coast while Zinke has dropped plans to allow it off the Florida coast.

Acting at the behest of President Donald Trump, Zinke proposed opening most of the area off the U.S. coasts to oil drilling, including the Atlantic coast that currently is off limits through at least 2022.

“This draft proposal is an ill-advised effort to circumvent public and scientific input, and we object to sacrificing public trust, community safety, and economic security for the interests of the oil industry,” the 36 senators wrote to Zinke. “We urge you to abandon this effort.”

Reps. Chris Smith, R-4th Dist. and Frank LoBiondo, R-2nd Dist., signed a separate letter to Zinke in opposition to Atlantic offshore drilling.

Read the full story at NJ.com

Misplaced NOAA footnote blamed for shark fin miscue

October 27, 2017 — US senator Cory Booker and others have been exaggerating the number of shark fin incidents in efforts to get legislation passed that would ban the practice, but it’s really a misplaced footnote that’s to blame, a fishing industry trade group says.

Booker, who has been suggested as a future possible presidential candidate, reported at a hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, & Coast Guard, in early August, that he was “shocked to find out that, since 2010, [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)] has investigated over 500 incidences of alleged shark fining.”

But the New Jersey Democrat is wrong, according to a press release issued by Saving Seafood on Thursday, bringing the matter to light.

“While the information NOAA provided in response to senator Booker’s staff was not entirely inaccurate, a footnote was attached to the wrong sentence, making it possible for a reader to misinterpret the over-inclusive information provided,” the group said.“So, in the past 7.5 years, with an annual average of 2.6 million pounds landed sustainably from federally managed shark fisheries, there has been on average just 3.5 incidents per year resulting in charges,” Saving Seafood said.

“Shark finning is a reprehensible activity that has been outlawed in the U.S. and is opposed by participants in the sustainable U.S. shark fishery,” said Robert Vanasse, executive director of the group. “Members of our coalition do not believe there is any need for Booker’s bill.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Agency gave bad data to senator trying to stop shark finning

October 27, 2017 — A federal agency said on Thursday that it made a mistake with a key piece of data it gave to U.S. Sen. Cory Booker as he was building a case to shut down America’s shark fin trade.

Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, has cited more than 500 incidents involving complaints of shark finning in the U.S., dating back to January 2010, as cause to support shutting down the trade. But the number is actually 85.

Booker reached out to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration months ago to find out how often it investigates allegations of shark finning, an illegal practice in which a shark’s fins are removed and the shark is dumped back into the water, sometimes while it’s still alive.

An NOAA worker’s error involving a new case management system caused the mistake in the number of finning incident reports, said Casey Brennan, chief of staff for the NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement. He said the number of reports that led to charges was 26.

Saving Seafood, a fishing industry trade group, asked the NOAA to clarify the figures about shark finning incidents after seeing conflicting data on the agency’s website.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Washington Post

Footnote Error Leads to Dramatically Inflated Claims of Illegal Shark Finning from Sen. Booker, Oceana

October 26, 2017 (Saving Seafood) — The horrific practice of shark finning has been illegal in U.S. waters since 2000, and is vehemently opposed by all U.S. shark fisheries and participants in those fisheries. The Office of Law Enforcement at NOAA Fisheries is enforcing the current finning prohibition; US fishermen are in full compliance with the law. There are very few incidents of this terrible practice on record in the United States.

On August 1, 2017, U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) chaired a hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, & Coast Guard regarding the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA). During the hearing, Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) asked Chris Oliver, NOAA Assistant Administrator for Fisheries and head of the National Marine Fisheries Service, to keep him informed on NOAA investigations of shark finning allegations. Sen. Booker introduced a bill earlier this year designed to prevent people from possessing or selling shark fins in America.

Leading up to his question, Senator Booker stated the following. “You know that shark finning was first outlawed in U.S. waters in 2000. And a loophole in that original law was closed by the Shark Conservation Act of 2009. I recently asked your office how many shark-finning investigations NOAA has opened since January 1, 2010. I was shocked to find out that since 2010, NOAA has investigated over 500 incidences of alleged shark finning. As of April, there were seven shark finning cases that were open but not yet charged.”

Sen. Booker’s statement, that NOAA advised him of over 500 instances of alleged shark finning immediately sparked incredulity in the commercial fishing industry, because in June 2016, in an article by Ally Rogers, a communications specialist for NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement (OLE), entitled OLE Working Hard To Identify, Prevent Incidents of Shark Finning, Illegal Shark Fishing, NOAA stated that during the ten year period from 2006-2016, 40% of the “nearly 80 shark-related incidents” referred to “fins that were not naturally attached to the shark carcasses.” That works out to fewer than 32 incidents involving shark fins in a decade, or on average no more than 3.16 per year.

Saving Seafood asked NOAA how it could be that the agency told Senator Booker that they had “investigated over 500 incidences of alleged shark finning” in the past 7.5 years.

While the information NOAA provided in response to Senator Booker’s staff was not entirely inaccurate, a footnote was attached to the wrong sentence, making it possible for a reader to misinterpret the over-inclusive information provided.

In the NOAA case management system, there were 526 reports that contained the word “shark” in some form or another. This could include a number of legal and illegal activities including inspections, boardings, a legal or illegal take of a shark, by-catch, harvesting sharks during a closed season, and unpermitted shark fishing activities, to name a few. Any report that came into NOAA with the word “shark” in it, would have appeared as an incident in the numbers provided to Senator Booker.

In fact, of those 526 reports, only 85 were incidents that referred to “shark fins” or “shark finning”. Of those 85 incidents, only 26 resulted in charges that could be a criminal complaint, a summary settlement, a written warning, or a Notice of Violation and Assessment (NOVA). So, in the past 7.5 years, with an annual average of 2.6 million pounds landed sustainably from Federally managed shark fisheries, there has been on average just 3.5 incidents per year resulting in charges. And that is consistent with the earlier data.

In 2016, just ahead of the Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week,” Senator Booker, and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-California) joined with actor Morgan Freeman and the environmental group Oceana to introduce the Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act (S. 793/H.R. 1456, in the current Congress). The ban is opposed by leading shark scientists David Shiffman of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia and Robert Hueter, Director of the Center for Shark Research at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida. Delegate Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (I- Northern Mariana Islands), and Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia) are also original co-sponsors.

Oceana, the Humane Society International, Wild Aid, and COARE have used the inaccurate information in support of the shark fin ban, erroneously arguing that even “in U.S. waters, our anti-finning law does not effectively stop shark finning.” In a recent blog post, Lora Snyder, Campaign Director at Oceana, Iris Ho, Wildlife Program Manager at Humane Society International, Peter Knights, Executive Director at WildAid and Christopher Chin, Executive Director at COARE, reference “government records cited during recent Congressional testimony” to make the claim that “more than 500 alleged shark finning incidents… have taken place in U.S. waters since January 2010.” They go on to extrapolate from that number, stating “That is approximately five cases every month.”

In fact, over the past decade, there have been fewer than four incidents per year.

Oceana hired The McGrath Group, headed by six-term former Congressman and President of the National Republican Club Ray McGrath to lobby for the bills, spending $20,000 with the GOP firm between July 1 and Sept 31 this year.