Saving Seafood

Fishermen Fight to Dismantle First Marine Monument

March 10, 2017 — Unhappy that a Connecticut-sized area off the coast of New England has become a commercial-fishing-free zone, lobstermen and other groups are asking a federal judge to find that President Barack Obama lacked the authority to designate the nation’s first marine monument.

Obama created the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Marine Monument this past September, a move that banned oil and gas exploration within the monument area almost immediately, as well as most commercial fishing. Fishing of lobster and red crab is allowed to continue only for the next seven years.

In a March 7 federal complaint, the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association and four other groups say that designation affects nearly 5,000 square miles of Atlantic Ocean that has been an important commercial fishery for decades.

“For centuries, the Georges Bank has supported lucrative fisheries,” the complaint states. “The iconic fishing communities of New England and throughout the East Coast sprang up because of the value of this fishery.”

The commercial fishers say restrictions associated with the monument are causing irreparable harm.

Read the full story at Courthouse News

American Samoa Congresswomen Asks President Trump To Remove Fishing Prohibitions

March 9, 2017 — U.S President Donald Trump has been asked to remove all marine monument fishing prohibitions and reinstate fisheries management in accordance with federal law.

The request, made yesterday in a two-page letter by US Rep. Rob Bishop, chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources and American Samoa’s Congresswoman Aumua Amata, says prohibitions on commercial fishing in waters around marine monuments have impacted US fishing fleet as well as one cannery operation in Pago Pago.

“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 from the Republican lawmakers point out.

Read the full story at the Pacific Islands Report

Fishing groups challenge Obama’s creation of underwater national monument

March 8, 2017 — A coalition of commercial fishing groups filed a lawsuit Tuesday to challenge the creation of a national monument off the coast of New England.

President Obama created the monument in September using executive authority under the Antiquities Act. The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument is made up of nearly 5,000 square miles of underwater canyons and mountains.

The creation of the monument closed the area to most commercial fishing and has been opposed by fishing groups for months. A coalition of the groups filed their lawsuit Tuesday in federal court.

The groups said creation of the monument was a “unilateral” action by Obama that is bringing economic distress to fishermen and their families. They want it ruled an unlawful use of the Antiquities Act.

“The Northeast Canyons and Seamount National Marine Monument purports to designate a monument in the ocean 130 miles from the nation’s coast. This area of the ocean is not ‘lands owned or controlled’ by the federal government,” the lawsuit says. “Therefore, the Antiquities Act does not authorize the President to establish the Northeast Canyon and Seamounts Marine National Monument.”

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

Fishermen sue Trump over monument Obama created

March 8, 2017 — A commercial fishing coalition is reportedly suing the Trump administration over a massive marine monument that was created by President Obama off the coast of New England last year.

The fishermen claim that the president’s designation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument back in September — under the Antiquities Act — was a “unilateral” action that ultimately wound up causing economic distress and hardship for locals.

In their lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court, the groups requested that the move be ruled as unlawful and asked that President Trump not move forward with Obama’s decision.

“The Northeast Canyons and Seamount National Marine Monument purports to designate a monument in the ocean 130 miles from the nation’s coast. This area of the ocean is not ‘lands owned or controlled’ by the federal government,” the suit says.

“Therefore, the Antiquities Act does not authorize the President to establish the Northeast Canyon and Seamounts Marine National Monument.”

Read the full story at the New York Post

Chairman Bishop, Rep. Radewagen Call on President Trump to Reverse Unilateral Fishing Restrictions

WASHINGTON — March 7, 2017 — The following was released by the House Committee on Natural Resources:

Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) and Rep. Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen (R-American Samoa) sent a letter to President Trump today requesting removal of all marine monument fishing prohibitions and reinstatement of fisheries management under federal law.

“Access to several of the nation’s key fisheries is in jeopardy – through the establishment and expansion of marine national monuments. […] The commercial fishing prohibitions of marine national monuments impact shore-side businesses and local economies of the U.S.,” the letter states.

“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. 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.”

Click here to read the full letter.

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