Saving Seafood

Trump’s proposed cuts to NOAA alarm Maine’s marine community

March 7, 2017 — A Trump administration proposal to slash funding for the federal government’s principal marine agency and eliminate the national Sea Grant program is prompting alarm in Maine’s marine sector because it depends on services provided by both.

President Trump wants to slash the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – the agency responsible for fisheries management, weather forecasting, nautical surveys and assisting marine industries – by 17 percent, The Washington Post reported Friday. And he wants to eliminate NOAA’s Sea Grant program, the marine equivalent of the federal agricultural extension and research service, in the fiscal 2018 budget, which begins Oct. 1.

“There was a lot of concern when the news broke, and a flurry of messages went out to our congressional delegation from fishermen and aquaculturists who understand how they benefit from Sea Grant,” said Paul Anderson, director of Maine Sea Grant at the University of Maine in Orono, one of 33 Sea Grant universities in the country. “I don’t now if on October 1st we will all of a sudden not exist.”

The news has sent reverberations across Maine’s marine community, which has long benefited from the partnership between UMaine and the federal government. Sea Grant researchers created the Fishermen’s Forum – the industry’s premier event – in 1976, and also helped found the Portland Fish Exchange and the university’s Lobster Institute, which researches issues of concern to the industry.

Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, said the cuts to NOAA would be terrible for fishermen. “The industry relies pretty heavily on their forecast reports on the wind and the wave heights and make decisions day to day if they are going to go out, so those satellites are really important,” she said. “And nobody loves (the National Marine Fisheries Service), but keeping them fully funded and their research going is essential to manage our fisheries.”

She noted that recent cuts to the agency’s right-whale monitoring program had hurt fishermen because if scientists didn’t have time to find the whales, they had to assume they weren’t there, increasing the regulatory burden on lobstermen, whose gear the whales sometimes get entangled in.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Oregon Sea Grant funding in the crosshairs

March 7, 2017 — A budget proposal reportedly being floated by the Trump administration would end Oregon State University’s Sea Grant program and could potentially gut other OSU programs as well.

The proposal calls for a 17 percent budget reduction to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which funds research on climate change, ocean conditions, weather patterns and other aspects of earth science. Among the NOAA programs targeted for elimination is Sea Grant, a research and education initiative at 33 U.S. universities, including Oregon State.

The proposed cuts were reported on Friday by the Washington Post, based on a four-page budget memo that has not been made public by the administration.

Oregon Sea Grant Director Shelby Walker said the funding cuts, if approved, would devastate her program. Currently, Walker said, Oregon Sea Grant gets about $2.4 million of its annual budget of $5 million from the federal agency, with another $1.2 million in matching funds from OSU tied directly to NOAA dollars.

“It would basically eliminate the program,” she said of the White House budget proposal.

Read the full story at the Corvallis Gazette-Times

NOAA cuts proposed by Trump could cut jobs in South Mississippi

March 7, 2017 — The agency whose satellite photographs alert Coast residents of approaching hurricanes could see deep budget cuts, putting jobs and programs in South Mississippi in jeopardy.

The Washington Post reports it obtained a four-page budget memo which shows the Trump administration is seeking to cut the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration budget by 17 percent.

Even deeper cuts are proposed for fiscal year 2018, which starts Oct. 1, for NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. It would lose $126 million, or 26 percent of its funds under the current budget. NOAA’s satellite data division would lose $513 million, or 22 percent, the report says.

These programs have staff working at Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, along with the National Marine Fisheries Service and the National Weather Service, which both face 5 percent cuts.

The National Data Buoy Center, headquartered at Stennis under the National Weather Service, maintains a network of buoys that serve all U.S. coastal states and territories. They are used by the weather service supercomputers to produce computer-generated model forecasts of the atmosphere and climate used by recreational boaters, commercial interests and the U.S. military. The NDBC also is responsible for tsunami stations around the world.

NOAA has been at Stennis since the early 1970s and employs more than 250 federal employees and contractors, according to the NOAA website.

These early numbers frequently change during budget negotiations between the federal agency and the White House, and later between Congress and the administration, the article says. The budget figures cited by the Washington Post are part of the Office of Management and Budget’s “passback” document, and are a key part of the annual budget process during which the administration instructs agencies to draw up detailed budgets for submission to Congress.

NOAA representatives at Stennis declined comment on the budget report.

Many of these cuts are for agencies that study climate change. The budget proposal would eliminate the $73 million Sea Grant program that supports coastal research through 33 university programs, among them the University of Southern Mississippi, Mississippi State, Jackson State and University of Mississippi.

Read the full story at The Sun Herald

Trump staff reviewing Obama’s designation of Maine, Utah national monument sites

March 6, 2017 — Republican leaders in Maine and Utah are asking President Trump to step into uncharted territory and rescind national monument designations made by his predecessor.

The Antiquities Act of 1906 doesn’t give the president power to undo a designation, and no president has ever taken such a step. But Trump isn’t like other presidents.

Former President Obama used his power under the act to permanently preserve more land and water using national monument designations than any other president. The land is generally off-limits to timber harvesting, mining and pipelines, and commercial development.

Obama created the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine last summer on 87,500 acres of donated forestland. The expanse includes part of the Penobscot River and stunning views of Mount Katahdin, Maine’s tallest mountain. In Utah, the former president created Bears Ears National Monument on 1.3 million acres of land that’s sacred to Native Americans and is home to tens of thousands of archaeological sites, including ancient cliff dwellings.

Trump’s staff is now reviewing those decisions by the Obama administration to determine economic impacts, whether the law was followed and whether there was appropriate consultation with local officials, the White House told The Associated Press.

Maine Republican Gov. Paul LePage is opposed to the designation, and says federal ownership could stymie industrial development. Republican leaders in Utah contend the monument designation adds another layer of unnecessary federal control in a state where there’s already heavy federal ownership.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald

White House proposes steep budget cut to leading climate science agency

March 6, 2017 — The Trump administration is seeking to slash the budget of one of the government’s premier climate science agencies by 17 percent, delivering steep cuts to research funding and satellite programs, according to a four-page budget memo obtained by The Washington Post.

The proposed cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would also eliminate funding for a variety of smaller programs, including external research, coastal management, estuary reserves and “coastal resilience,” which seeks to bolster the ability of coastal areas to withstand major storms and rising seas.

NOAA is part of the Commerce Department, which would be hit by an overall 18 percent budget reduction from its current funding level.

The Office of Management and Budget also asked the Commerce Department to provide information about how much it would cost to lay off employees, while saying those employees who do remain with the department should get a 1.9 percent pay increase in January 2018. It requested estimates for terminating leases and government “property disposal.”

The OMB outline for the Commerce Department for fiscal 2018 proposed sharp reductions in specific areas within NOAA such as spending on education, grants and research. NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research would lose $126 million, or 26 percent, of the funds it has under the current budget. Its satellite data division would lose $513 million, or 22 percent, of its current funding under the proposal.

Read the full story at the Washington Post

Executive order may miss fishing regulations

March 2, 2017 — An executive order by President Donald Trump designed to radically cut back on federal regulations has spurred disagreement among fishermen about how it will affect them – and lawmakers and regulators aren’t sure what the answer is.

Groups that represent both commercial and recreational fishermen are divided over whether President Trump’s “one in, two out” approach to federal regulations will benefit their industry, harm it or not affect it at all.

In North Carolina, Jerry Schill, executive director of the N.C. Fisheries Association, an industry advocacy group dedicated to promoting the state’s seafood industry, said he’s been exchanging emails with fishing interests from all around the country about the matter.

“The consensus seems to be that it doesn’t affect the commercial fishing regulations, although I wish it did,” Mr. Schill said. “If the administration or others in (Washington) D.C. don’t know if it affects the fishing regulations, and the attorneys that represent commercial fishing suggest that it doesn’t, then it more than likely won’t. Specifically, we’ve been watching the dialogue with the Fisheries Survival Fund.”

The FSF is a fund established in 1998 to ensure the long-term sustainability of the Atlantic sea scallop fishery. The fund works with academic institutions and independent scientific experts to foster cooperative research and help sustain the fishery.

Read the full story at the Carteret County News-Times

Executive order storm may be tempest in fisheries management teapot

February 28, 2017 — President Trump’s executive order directing that federal agencies choose two regulations for repeal whenever they propose a new one raised the angst of legislators and industry members concerned with the management of the nation’s fisheries.

Trump’s executive order, Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs, directs agencies to repeal two existing regulations for every new regulation, and to do it in a way that does not increase the total cost of compliance.

In a Feb. 2 letter to the President, House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Raúl Grijalva and Water, Power and Oceans Subcommittee Ranking Member Jared Huffman warned the President that his executive order would prevent the National Marine Fisheries Service from:

  • Setting and adjusting commercial and recreational fishing seasons.
  • Adjusting landings quotas or other conservation or management related measures.
  • Adopting new or amended fishery management plans without getting advance authority from the administration.

“All fisheries that take place in federal waters require regulatory action to open and close season, set catch limits, modify conservation and management measures, or adjust participation eligibility requirements,” the congressmen wrote. “We urge you to rescind the executive orders immediately and eliminate political interference with the processes that help commercial and charter fishermen earn their livelihoods, and allow recreational anglers access to well-managed stocks.”

Last Friday, Drew Minkiewicz, a Washington, D.C., attorney who represents commercial fishing interests and provides counsel on regulatory issues, said Trump’s executive order “is not going to impact or delay the operation of fisheries management at all.” Minkiewicz spoke before the White House announced the President’s latest executive order.

According to Minkiewicz, the administration’s Office of Management and Budget has determined that the executive order applies only to “significant actions” as defined in another executive order issued during the Clinton administration.

“More than 99 percent of NMFS regulations are not deemed significant,” he said. “There could be maybe one rule in the next four years this (the recent executive order) applies to.”

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Tred Barta: President Trump Should Stop the Obama Attack on New England Fisherman

February 28, 2017 — In the waning days of his administration, Barack Obama decided to seriously cripple the American fishing industry. By executive order, the former president designated a vast underwater expanse off the coast of New England as the nation’s first aquatic national monument. This decision, driven by evidence-free environmental concerns, effectively banned all commercial fishing in the area.

It’s well within President Trump’s powers to modify this decision, and he ought to do so immediately. Left alone, this designation will undermine the regional economy and deprive countless families of their livelihoods.

The monument, officially announced in September, covers about 5,000 square miles of ocean located 130 miles from Cape Cod. For over 40 years, commercial fishermen have harvested this area for crab, squid, swordfish, tuna, and other high-demand seafood. It’s particularly rich in lobster, of which some 800,000 pounds are caught every year.

This order ends all that activity. Some fishing companies had just 60 days to leave the area.

This exodus will bring economic ruin all along the coast. Bill Palombo, a Newport, Rhode Island lobsterman who runs three boats in the monument waters, says he expects to “just go out of business.” Jon Williams runs Atlantic Red Crab, which employs 150 workers in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and he says the drop in harvests will force him to “maybe sell my business”.

The central promise of the Trump White House is the protection of solid jobs for working families. This order kills exactly those positions: stable, well-paid, immune to outsourcing, and available to workers without a college degree. In the Maine lobster industry, which supports 6,300 local jobs, the average starting salary is over $50,000.

Read the full story at Breitbart

Environmental and fishing groups sue to save salmon

February 24, 2017 — Environmental and fishing groups are suing the federal government to provide cooler habitat for migrating fish in the Columbia River system of Washington and Oregon.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Seattle against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Scott Pruitt, President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the agency.

The lawsuit was filed by Columbia Riverkeeper, Snake River Waterkeeper, Idaho Rivers United, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, and the Institute for Fisheries Resources.

It seeks to compel the EPA to create a temperature pollution budget for the river system, to keep rivers cool enough to support salmon and steelhead runs in the face of global warming.

Giant dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers create reservoirs that cause water temperatures to rise in summer months, hurting fish.

Read the full story from the Associated Press here 

White House to eject its environmental advisers from their longtime main headquarters on Friday

February 24, 2017 — The following is an excerpt from a story published yesterday by the Washington Post:

The White House on Friday will move its Council on Environmental Quality out of its main headquarters at 722 Jackson Place, a red brick townhouse it has occupied since it was established nearly half a century ago.

Although some White House CEQ staffers will remain in adjoining townhouses, the shift means the council will lose its main conference room. While the influence of CEQ waxes and wanes depending on which president is in office, it traditionally plays a key role in executing the White House’s overall environmental agenda and coordinating key decisions among different agencies.

The number of staffers also varies widely at different times, and includes employees detailed from other agencies. Shortly after being established under Richard Nixon, it had 54 staffers: its first chair, the late Russell Train, recalled in an oral history interview with Bates College that it had the same number of employees as the Council of Economic Advisers “and I was told we couldn’t have any more than they did.” At the end of former president Barack Obama’s term, the number of career staffers was about 15 out of the roughly 50-person staff, and earlier in his term the total staff reached 60 employees.

Under several administrations, including Obama’s, Clinton’s and Nixon’s, the council has steered federal decision-making in a more environmentally-friendly direction. “We really put the environmental impact process into effect and was able to bring the various agencies somewhat to heel who didn’t want to comply,” Train recalled in the 1999 Bates interview.

Read the full story at the Washington Post