Saving Seafood

Trump wants to end grants that support Maine fishing jobs

March 20, 2017 — The national $73 million Sea Grant program, which includes about a dozen researchers affiliated with the University of Maine, could be eliminated if Congress approves drastic budget cuts proposed for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by President Trump.

Funding for the state’s Department of Marine Resources and for collecting weather and climate data in the Gulf of Maine also could be put at risk by the president’s proposal.

Paul Anderson, director of the Sea Grant program at University of Maine, said Tuesday that the money NOAA has funded for the program has been “money well spent” because it has helped draw additional funding to Maine and has helped spur economic development.

“I think [Trump] has just got a fundamentally different attitude about government,” Anderson said Tuesday, without going into further detail. “What [people can do to try to protect the program] is write to our congressmen and senators.”

Trump’s administration already is considering slashing funding for the U.S. Coast Guard, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, and for the Environmental Protection Agency, which provides about 20 percent of Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection annual funding. Now, according to the Washington Post, the federal Office of Management and Budget is looking to cut funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by 17 percent.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee Skeptical Of Federal Agency Power

March 17, 2017 — At most Supreme Court confirmation hearings, questions focus on hot-button social issues — abortion, affirmative action, same-sex marriage — and the hearings next week on Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch will be no exception.

But senators are also likely to spend a lot of time examining the nominee’s views on federal regulations — of the environment, health and safety laws for workers, and laws on consumer rights and business.

In question is a doctrine that Gorsuch has criticized but that also once helped his mother.

The Chevron doctrine

The Chevron decision is perhaps the most cited case in American law. Decided unanimously in 1984, it established a general rule of deferring to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of a statute.

The idea is that in passing a law, Congress sets out broad provisions and tells agencies that have considerable expertise to establish rules for carrying out the law’s mandates. In short, the agency is to fill in the details.

The Chevron case stems from the Reagan administration. When President Ronald Reagan took office in the early 1980s, the White House adopted more permissive rules for air pollution caused by manufacturing plants. The Natural Resources Defense Council sued the Environmental Protection Agency, then under the leadership of Anne Gorsuch, contending the agency had exceeded its authority.

Read the full story at NPR

Trump’s budget cuts rattle nerves in Alaska

March 17, 2017 — Massive cuts could be in store for the agencies and people who provide the science and stewardship to preserve and protect our planet.

The budget proposed by President Donald Trump that starts in October puts on the chopping block the agencies and staff in charge of fisheries research and management, weather forecasting, satellite data tracking and the U.S. Coast Guard.

Trump called the cuts a tradeoff to “prioritize rebuilding the military” and to help fund the border wall with Mexico.

The Washington Post broke down a White House memo to the Office of Management and Budget last week that showed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would lose 26 percent of its budget; its satellite data division would lose 22 percent of its current funding.

The National Marine Fisheries Service and the National Weather Service would each face a 5 percent cut.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal

Rep. Moulton, lawmakers: Proposed Coast Guard cuts ’cause for concern’

March 16, 2017 — Opposition to the Trump administration’s proposed slashing of the Coast Guard budget to pay for the Mexican border wall continues to grow, with members of Congress arguing cuts would contradict the president’s goal of rebuilding the nation’s armed forces.

Nearly 60 bi-partisan members of the House of Representatives, including 6th District Congressman Seth Moulton of Salem, signed a letter Monday highlighting the folly of cutting about $1.3 billion, or about 14.3 percent, from the Coast Guard’s $9.1 billion annual budget.

The letter, addressed to the chairman and ranking member of the House subcommittee on homeland security, stated the Office of Management and Budget’s financial outline for the Department of Homeland Security — which includes the Coast Guard — is a “cause for serious alarm.”

“It is nonsensical to pursue a policy of rebuilding the armed forces while proposing large reductions to the U.S. Coast Guard budget,” the letter stated. “Without question, OMB’s proposed cut targeting the Coast Guard directly contradicts the president’s stated goals and should be dismissed.”

The letter points to the pivotal role the Coast Guard plays in the interdiction of illegal drugs and undocumented immigrants and its direct impact on border security and law enforcement. It said the proposed cuts severely discount the value and effectiveness of the U.S. Coast Guard in both areas.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Could fisheries policy change under Trump and Commerce Secretary Ross?

March 15, 2017 — Since January, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees the nation’s fishery regulators, has offered hints that changes to U.S. fishery policy might be in store.

A formal fisheries policy has yet to emerge, and these are, of course, still early days for the Trump Administration. But some observers read in Ross’s recent statements a potential desire to increase fishing.

During the campaign, Trump railed repeatedly against the United States’ trade deficit. And Ross, during his Senate confirmation in January, expressed a wish to reverse the nation’s seafood trade deficit – a tall task given that the U.S. imports 90 percent of the seafood eaten here and has a USD 11 billion (EUR 10.3 billion) seafood trade deficit.

“Given the enormity of our coastlines, given the enormity of our freshwater, I would like to try to figure out how we can become much more self-sufficient in fishing and perhaps even a net exporter,” he said at his confirmation hearing in January, according to Politico.

Then, during his first address to the department’s 47,000 employees, on 1 March, he listed a key challenge for the department of “obtaining maximum sustainable yield.” It was his only reference to the nation’s fisheries during the short speech.

“The Secretary’s remarks reflect the importance our nation’s marine and coastal fisheries resources, and his commitment to ensuring these resources are sustainable for generations to come,” John Ewald, a spokesman for NOAA Fisheries, told SeafoodSource in an email.

How Ross views fisheries matters, since his department oversees both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Marine Fisheries Service. Ross will make appointments to the nation’s regional fishery management councils, and the policies he advances will have profound effects on recreational and commercial fishermen.

Those policies could mark a sharp departure from the conservation-driven policies of the last eight years. The Recreational Fishing Alliance, an early supporter of Trump’s campaign for president, sees the potential for a new day under Trump, and hopes Ross will reverse the Obama administration’s policies.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

House Lawmakers Challenge OMB’s Plan to Slash $1.3B From Coast Guard Budget

March 15, 2017 — A bipartisan group of 58 legislators has sent a letter to the House Appropriations Committee’s homeland security subpanel to oppose the White House’s plan to implement a $1.3 billion reduction in the U.S. Coast Guard’s budget, Defense News reported Monday.

Joe Gould writes the Office of Management and Budget proposed to eliminate the Coast Guard’s Maritime Security Response Team for counterterrorism efforts and cancel funding support for the service branch’s ninth National Security Cutter ship.

The lawmakers led by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-California), chairman of the House Coast Guard and Maritime subcommittee, said in the letter that OMB’s proposed cut to the Coast Guard’s budget “should be dismissed” since it contradicts President Donald Trump’s aim to rebuild the military.

Read the full story at Executive Gov

Read the full letter here

Senators to Trump Administration: Don’t cut Coast Guard budget

March 15, 2017 — Mexico isn’t going to pay for that wall and neither will the Coast Guard, if a bipartisan group of U.S. senators have their way.

According to reports, the FY 2018 Presidential Budget Request could seek an almost 12 percent cut in the service’s budget, apparently in an effort to help pay for increased expenditures elsewhere in the Department of Homeland Security.

A letter sent by Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Gary Peters (D-MI), Patty Murray (D-WA), Roger Wicker (R-MS) and eighteen other senators urges Office of Management and Budget Administrator Mick Mulvaney not to make what could be a $1.3 billion dollar cut to the Coast Guard budget.

The senators note that President Trump has committed to stopping the flow of illegal drugs into the country, protecting its borders, investing in national security, and improving support to armed service members and their families. The Coast Guard plays an outsized role in all these areas and  the senators say thatits budget should be increased rather than gutted.

“We are concerned that the Coast Guard would not be able to maintain maritime presence, respond to individual and national emergencies, and protect our nation’s economic and environmental interests. The proposed reduction… would directly contradict the priorities articulated by the Trump Administration,” wrote the Senators. “We urge you to restore the $1.3 billion dollar cut to the Coast Guard budget, which we firmly believe would result in catastrophic negative impacts to the Coast Guard and its critical role in protecting our homeland, our economy and our environment.”

Read the full story at Marine Log

Read the full letter here

Sean Horgan: We need the resources of the Coast Guard

March 14, 2017 — The news last week that the Trump administration was considering cuts to the U.S. Coast Guard budget to pay for the Mexican border wall was about as welcome as the late-winter blizzard bearing down on Cape Ann.

From national security experts to local harbormasters, there seemed to be profound disbelief in the logic of undermining the Coast Guard’s mission of public safety on the nation’s waters — not to mention its responsibilities for the interdiction of illegal drugs and undocumented immigrants — by funneling any of its operational funds into the construction of the wall.

“It shouldn’t even be a consideration,” said Mark Ring, chairman of the Gloucester Fisheries Commission. “It’s a far cry from people lost at sea to somebody climbing a wall.”

News reports and congressional sources reported the White House’s Office of Management Budget plans to reduce Coast Guard spending by $1.3 billion during the next fiscal year to reinforce the nation’s southern border with a wall and additional border agents.

The Coast Guard now operates with a $9.1 billion annual budget. Reportedly, one area of spending under scrutiny is the $43 million allotted to the agency’s drug interdiction teams.

Major cuts are also planned to the Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Administration to free money for border security.

Read the full opinion piece at the Gloucester Times

Calls grow louder for Trump to reverse marine monument designations

March 13, 2017 — Elected representatives in Congress and industry groups are appealing to the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to investigate the potential of removing marine monument designations made by Trump’s predecessors, Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) and Rep. Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen (R-American Samoa) sent a letter to Trump earlier this week requesting the removal of fishing restrictions and the reinstatement of fisheries management under federal law, according to a letter released by the committee.

“Using the Antiquities Act to close U.S. waters to domestic fisheries is a clear example of federal overreach and regulatory duplication and obstructs well-managed, sustainable U.S. fishing industries in favor of their foreign counterparts,” the letter said. “You alone can act quickly to reverse this travesty, improve our national security, and support the U.S. fishing industry that contributes to the U.S. economy while providing healthy, well-managed fish for America’s tables.”

The letter attributes the closure of the Tri Marine’s Samoa Tuna Processors canning factory in American Samoa in December 2016 to the U.S. purse-seining tuna fleet’s loss of access to fishing areas in the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument designated in 2009 by President George W. Bush. It also criticizes the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument – created by Bush and expanded by Obama – for removing fishing territory from the Hawaii longline fleet.

“[The monument designations] exemplify how a president and government bureaucracies can dispassionately decimate U.S. fishing industries,” the letter said.

In their letter, Bishop and Radewagen urge Trump to “act swiftly and effectively to remove all marine monument fishing prohibitions,” but do not clarify what specific actions they are asking Trump to take to undo the marine monument designations made under the powers of the Antiquities Act.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Portland Press Herald: NOAA budget cuts would have high cost for Maine

March 10, 2017 — Though funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration amounts to less than one-half of 1 percent of discretionary federal spending, it pays outsize dividends for Maine. The people at the center of our state’s $700 million commercial fishing industry depend on NOAA’s weather forecasts, research and fisheries management services. A proposal to slash the agency’s budget is a short-sighted move that would save pennies now only to forfeit dollars later.

The White House plan, first reported last week in The Washington Post, would roll back NOAA’s budget by 17 percent. Among the targeted programs are the National Marine Fisheries Service and National Weather Service, which each would see 5 percent cuts; the satellite division, which would face a 22 percent reduction in funding, and the Sea Grant program, which would be abolished.

None of this is good news for Maine’s marine sector. National Weather Service wind and wave height forecasts are essential to fishermen. So is the research conducted by the National Marine Fisheries Service, which guides decisions about where, how and when to fish and enables fishermen to build business plans around their catch. What’s more, the steep reductions in the satellite division’s budget would deprive the weather and fisheries management offices of data that are crucial to their mission, compounding the harm done by the relatively small direct cuts to the programs themselves.

Read the full opinion piece at the Portland Press Herald