Saving Seafood

Biden-Harris Administration Announces $38 Million from Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to Protect Aquatic Species and Habitats

April 15, 2022 — The following was released by the U.S. Department of the Interior:

Today, the Department of the Interior announced that 40 fish passage projects in 23 states and Puerto Rico will receive a total of nearly $38 million in fiscal year 2022 funding from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. With a total of $200 million in investments in the National Fish Passage Program over the next five years, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will bolster efforts to address outdated, unsafe or obsolete dams, culverts, levees and other barriers fragmenting our nation’s rivers and streams, which will help restore fish passages and aquatic connectivity.

The National Fish Passage Program, facilitated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, supports aquatic ecosystem restoration projects and restores free-flowing waters, allowing for enhanced fish migration and protecting communities from flooding.

“Across the country, millions of barriers block fish migration and put communities at higher risk of flooding,” said Secretary Deb Haaland. “President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in our nation’s rivers, streams and communities and help restore habitat connectivity for aquatic species around the country.”

Several of the projects receiving funding will directly address issues related to climate change and serve disadvantaged communities, while also spanning the nation geographically and addressing a wide array of diverse aquatic resource issues.

Read the full release from the U.S. Department of the Interior

Fishermen from Mass., N.J., sue federal government to block ban on fishing near Gulf of Maine

April 13, 2022 — Two fishermen, one from Massachusetts and one from New Jersey, filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging a Biden administration ban on commercial fishing in the Georges Bank area of the North Atlantic Ocean.

David T. Malley of Massachusetts and Patrick Fehily of New Jersey are commercial fisherman who work near the Gulf of Maine, within the roughly 5,000 square miles that President Biden designated in October as the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, according to court documents.

Malley, a fisherman for more than 50 years, and Fehily, a fisherman for more than a decade, name Biden, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, and Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland as defendants in the suit, filed in US District Court in New Jersey, according to court documents.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

BOEM to offer six New York Bight wind leases in Feb. 23 auction

January 13, 2022 — The Biden administration announced plans Wednesday to auction more than 480,000 acres in the New York Bight for six new offshore wind energy leases, the administration’s first wind sale and the largest lease area ever offered, with a potential build-out capacity up to 7 gigawatts.

In a joint announcement with governors of New York and New Jersey, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said the “administration has made tackling the climate crisis a centerpiece of our agenda, and offshore wind opportunities like the New York Bight present a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fight climate change and create good-paying, union jobs in the United States. We are at an inflection point for domestic offshore wind energy development. We must seize this moment – and we must do it together.”

Commercial fishing advocates stressed that BOEM needs to make a priority of avoiding and mitigating negative impacts their industry and the nation’s seafood supply.

The waters between New York and New Jersey are some of the most productive on the East Coast and account for much of the sea scallop harvest, valued at $746 million in 2019, according to the Fisheries Survival Fund.

In comments submitted to the agency, the group called on BOEM “to create an ‘adaptive and proactive mitigation plan’ that will allow both fisheries and offshore wind to prosper.”

“It is unquestionable that the proliferation of new turbine arrays will have detrimental impacts on the scallop fishery and other fisheries,” according to a statement from the Fisheries Survival Fund. “Windfarms will and demonstrably do change ocean ecosystems. The goal of mitigation should be to strike a balance that ensures mutual prosperity, not merely an uneasy, zero-sum co-existence.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Retraction of Flawed Study Implies Larger Problems with Science Used to Support Creation of MPAs

December 14, 2021 — A scientific paper (Cabral et al. 2020, A global network of marine protected areas for food) that claimed that closing an additional 5% of the ocean to fishing would increase fish catches by 20% has been retracted by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), the journal in which it was published.

At the time of publication, the paper’s findings were immediately covered by The Economist (Stopping some fishing would increase overall catches) and Forbes (Protecting 5% More Of The Ocean Can Increase Fisheries Yield By 20% According To New Research) and other mainstream outlets, including the New York Times, Axios, National Geographic, and The Hill.

Representative Deb Haaland, now the Secretary of the Interior, who recently restored Obama-era prohibitions on fishing in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument without scientific or economic review — and without meeting with affected fishermen —  submitted the now-retracted paper as supporting evidence for the “30×30” provisions of the Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act. The provision calls on the federal government to conserve at least 30% of Federal waters by the year 2030. (For a longer critique of the 30×30 initiative see this piece by Dr. Roger Mann of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at the College of William and Mary).

It has since been determined that the paper had both conflict of interest as well as data and model assumption problems.

PNAS determined that the person responsible for assigning Cabral et al.’s peer reviewers, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, currently White House Deputy Director for Climate and Environment, had a conflict of interest. According to the editor-in-chief of PNAS, the frequent collaboration relationship Lubchenco had with the paper’s authors constituted a conflict of interest, as did her personal relationship with one of the authors, Dr. Steve Gaines—her brother-in-law.

Several close collaborators of the Cabral et al. group wrote scientific critiques that pointed out errors and impossible assumptions that suggested the paper was inadequately peer reviewed.

According to an analysis of the paper from Sustainable Fisheries at the University of Washington:

Cabral et al. 2020 assembled a computer model out of several kinds of fishery data to predict where marine protected areas (MPAs) should be placed to maximize global sustainable seafood production. MPAs meant to increase food production do so by reducing fishing pressure in places where it is too high (overfishing). Asia and Southeast Asia have some of the highest overfishingrates in the world—reducing fishing pressure there is a no-brainer, but the model determined many of those areas to be low priority for protection.  The results should have been red flag for the peer reviewers of Cabral et al. 2020. Why were MPAs prioritized all around the U.S., where overfishing has been practically eliminated, but not prioritized around India, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and China?

Clearly, something was wrong with the model.

For more about the problems with this paper, as well as a look at concerns with another headline-grabbing study that suggested carbon emissions from bottom trawl fishing are similar to emissions from global aviation, see the Sustainable Fisheries analysis here.

 

Work starting on 1st commercial-scale US offshore wind farm

November 19, 2021 — U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland joined with Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker on Thursday to mark the groundbreaking of the Vineyard Wind 1 project, the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the United States.

The project is the first of many that will contribute to President Joe Biden’s goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030 and to Massachusetts’ goal of 5.6 gigawatts by 2030, Haaland said at the event in the town of Barnstable on Cape Cod.

The first steps of construction will include laying down two transmission cables that will connect Vineyard Wind 1 to the mainland.

The commercial fishing industry has pushed back against the wind farm.

In September, the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance — a coalition of commercial fishing groups — filed a legal challenge to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s approval of the Vineyard Wind 1 project with the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.

The approval of the wind farm “adds unacceptable risk to this sustainable industry without any effort to minimize unreasonable interference with traditional and well-managed seafood production and navigation,” the group said at the time.

Read the full story at the AP

Biden administration looks to California, Oregon offshore wind power

November 18, 2021 — Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced plans for up to seven new offshore wind lease sales, from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico and in the Pacific off California and Oregon, at the American Clean Power Association’s offshore wind conference Oct. 12 in Boston, Mass.

“This timetable provides two crucial ingredients for success: increased certainty and transparency,” Haaland said in an address to the industry advocacy group.

With the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management accelerating its timetable to review wind developers’ plans and prepare future lease offerings, agency officials are insisting they learned from mistakes dealing with the Northeast commercial fishing industry, and will work with them and other stakeholders “to minimize conflict with existing uses and marine life.”

“We are working to facilitate a pipeline of projects that will establish confidence for the offshore wind industry,” BOEM Director Amanda Lefton said. “At the same time, we want to reduce potential conflicts as much as we can while meeting the Administration’s goal to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030. This means we will engage early and often with all stakeholders prior to identifying any new Wind Energy Areas.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

MAINE: Gov. Mills urges federal government to include fishermen in offshore wind decisions

November 8, 2021 — Gov. Janet Mills on Friday urged the federal government to include fishermen in plans for commercial offshore wind projects in the Gulf of Maine.

In a letter to U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Mills said she supports the Biden Administration’s commitment to offshore wind but encouraged them to take a research-driven approach.

“My administration has committed to pursuing offshore wind energy in a way that works best – a thoughtful, deliberate and responsible approach that leads with listening to those for whom offshore wind may not be viewed as opportunity but as a threat to their way of life,” she wrote.

Read the full story at Spectrum News 13

 

Interior takes major steps on offshore wind in Atlantic, Gulf

November 1, 2021 — The Biden administration is planning to extend the fledgling offshore wind sector’s footprint deeper into the southern Atlantic and into the Gulf of Mexico, Interior Department officials announced yesterday.

In addition to taking the first steps to offering lease sales off the coasts of North Carolina, Louisiana and Texas, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will begin the environmental review of a Massachusetts offshore wind project, the 11th proposed wind array advanced by the administration this year.

“These milestones represent great potential for addressing climate change through a clean, reliable, domestic energy resource while providing good-paying jobs,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in a statement, adding a promise to “responsibly and sustainably” move on the administration’s offshore wind goals.

Read the full story at E&E News

The U.S. Wants to Turn Both Coasts Into Massive Offshore Windfarms

October 18, 2021 — The Biden administration is planning a rapid buildout of offshore wind turbines along the U.S. coastline.

At a wind power industry conference in Boston on Wednesday, Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Interior, announced her intention to begin leasing federal waters off the east coast of the Mid-Atlantic, North and South Carolina, the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of Maine, California and Oregon to wind power developers by 2025.

“The Interior Department is laying out an ambitious road map as we advance the administration’s plans to confront climate change, create good-paying jobs, and accelerate the nation’s transition to a cleaner energy future,” Haaland said. “We have big goals to achieve a clean energy economy and Interior is meeting the moment.”

The agency will begin by searching for leasable waters in which to create seven major commercial offshore wind farms, meeting a White House directive to substantially build out wind technology and establish well-paying clean jobs. In March, president Biden announced plans to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power (enough to power more than 10-million U.S. homes for a year) by 2030, employing 44,000 people along the way. This would prevent 78 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, the administration wrote in the announcement, creating more than $12-billion in capital investment.

Read the full story at VICE

 

New wind farms would dot US coastlines under Biden plan

October 14, 2021 — Seven major offshore wind farms would be developed on the East and West coasts and in the Gulf of Mexico under a plan announced Wednesday by the Biden administration.

The projects are part of President Joe Biden’s plan to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030, generating enough electricity to power more than 10 million homes.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said her department hopes to hold lease sales by 2025 off the coasts of Maine, New York and the mid-Atlantic, as well as the Carolinas, California, Oregon and the Gulf of Mexico. The projects are part of Biden’s plan to address global warming and could avoid about 78 million metric tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions, while creating up to 77,000 jobs, officials said.

“The Interior Department is laying out an ambitious road map as we advance the administration’s plans to confront climate change, create good-paying jobs and accelerate the nation’s transition to a cleaner energy future,” Haaland said. “We have big goals to achieve a clean energy economy and Interior is meeting the moment.”

In addition to offshore wind, the Interior Department is working with other federal agencies to increase renewable energy production on public lands, Haaland said, with a goal of at least 25 gigawatts of onshore renewable energy from wind and solar power by 2025.

Read the full story at the AP