Saving Seafood

US House committee proposes 22 percent cut to NOAA Fisheries budget in 2025

July 22, 2024 — Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have proposed a 22 percent cut to NOAA Fisheries’ 2025 budget, significantly scaling back funding for the agency charged with regulating America’s fisheries.

A 2025 funding bill recently approved by the House Appropriations Committee on a 31-26 vote includes just USD 865 million (EUR 795 million) for NOAA Fisheries’ operations, research, and facilities. That’s USD 248 million (EUR 228 million) less than Congress allocated for the agency in the omnibus 2024 spending bill passed in March 2024 and USD 239 million (EUR 220 million) less than the agency requested for 2025.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Congress considers millions in West Coast fishery disaster relief funds

August 3, 2017 — Congressional appropriation committees are considering whether to provide millions of dollars in disaster relief funds to West Coast fishing fleets as part of the 2018 federal budget.

The amount of funding being considered has ranged from $20 million recommended by the House Appropriations Committee to a failed proposal to allocate $150 million to fishermen, according to officials following the proceedings.

California 2nd District Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) said last week that the $20 million proposed won’t make up for the financial losses experienced by the nine declared West Coast fishery disasters in Alaska, California and Washington. The disaster declaration made in January by then-U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker includes California’s Dungeness and rock crab fishery as well as the Yurok Tribe’s Klamath River Chinook salmon fishery.

“But it’s better than nothing and we’ll keep working on it,” Huffman said of the $20 million proposal. “… We’ll have to take a look at just how inadequate whatever comes out of Congress is. If it’s woefully inadequate to meet the needs, we may need to work on supplemental disaster relief. The Senate will have a say in this, too. I think you can look at it as good news that there is some money in the House bill.”

Huffman and other West Coast representatives had introduced a bill last year that called on Congress to appropriate $130 million to aid the West Coast fleets.

Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations Executive Director Noah Oppenheim said Wednesday that there were hopeful signs during the Senate Appropriations Committee budget review in July that the Senate would support disaster relief funds.

Oppenheim said Sens. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) in particular advocated for an amendment to the Senate committee’s 2018 budget recommendation that would have added $150 million in relief for the fleets. But Oppenheim said Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) did not support the amendment, and it did not make it into the final recommendations.

Read the full story at the Eureka Times-Standard

Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross, testifies before House Appropriations Committee

May 30, 2017 — Those watching Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross testify before the House Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies on the president’s budget request for Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 may at times have been able to anticipate his answers.

As the secretary fielded questions from worried Democrats regarding agencies and programs the White House proposed to eliminate or to drastically cut, his responses remained consistent. Whether answering queries about the elimination of the Sea Grant Program, the Minority Business Development Agency, or the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program, Secretary Ross was unwavering in his answer that tradeoffs had to be made to fund the administration’s priorities, “and with the big increases in defense and military and national security, cuts have to be made somewhere.”

Secretary Ross did highlight two areas of focus within NOAA: weather research and fisheries. He referenced the agency’s prioritization of weather research at the National Weather Service and the National Environmental Satellite and Data Information Service. When Chairman John Culberson (TX-7) pressed the secretary on how he would reduce the $30 billion price tag for the three biggest weather satellite programs over the next 15 years, Secretary Ross shared the complexities of the issue, from the dangers of “catastrophic failure” to the need for forecast accuracy and reliability to bulk buys and problems in the private sector. He praised the agency, saying they had done “a pretty good job balancing all of these variables.”

Mr. Ross also highlighted the role of fisheries, saying he’s “obsessed with the problem that we have a $13 billion … trade deficit, in fish and fish product … so that’s one of the areas we’re going to be focusing very much on.” Representative Steven Palazzo (MS-4) raised a controversial issue, asking the secretary about the shortened three-day season for recreational red snapper fishers in Gulf waters. Secretary Ross pledged he would request the underlying data the agency used to make the decision and would work “to balance the needs of the recreational [fishers] with the needs of the commercial [fishers].”

Both sides of the aisle acknowledged the critical importance of the Department of Commerce to the U.S. How the department could continue to successfully function to support our nation’s economy, workforce, and national security with the cuts proposed in the president’s budget request remains an open question.

Read the full story at the Consortium for Ocean Leadership

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