Saving Seafood

Rep. Bishop Discusses Federal Policy Reforms with Regional Fishing Leaders in New Bedford

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From left: Rep. Bill Keating (D-MA), Mayor Jon Mitchell, and Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) talk with representatives of New Bedford’s seafood industry on Thursday, June 2. (Photo: House Committee on Natural Resources)

June 3, 2016 — The following was released by the House Committee on Natural Resources:

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Today, House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) spent the day touring the United States’ highest grossing commercial fishing port in New Bedford, Massachusetts and meeting with Mayor Jonathan Mitchell, Rep. Bill Keating (D-MA) and local fishing leaders. June 1, 2016 marks the one-year anniversary of the House passage of H.R. 1335, legislation reauthorizing the Magnuson-Stevens Act. This legislation tailors federal fishery management plans to allow more flexibility and local input while also supporting a more robust domestic seafood industry.

Despite bipartisan support in the House and backing from Democratic elected officials in many of the nation’s coastal fisheries communities, the bill waits for action in the Senate.

“I thank Mayor Mitchell, local fishermen and area residents for the warm welcome during today’s visit. I’m also thankful that Congressman Keating was able to join me during this educational experience.

“Today’s trip to New Bedford was another reminder of the challenges facing America’s fisheries and how lackluster policies from Washington are a root cause of the problem. As we heard today, the science and data used to regulate the industry is inadequate, outmoded and must be reformed.

“Threats from Washington of a unilateral national marine monument designation off the coast of Cape Cod is another major concern for these communities. This will only worsen access and do irreparable damage to the fishery industry in the Nation’s top grossing port and others.

“I look forward to working with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to modernize our fishery laws and bring hope to our coastal communities that rely upon a robust and enduring fishing industry.”

The trip included a tour of a shipyard, seafood processing plant and the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

The House Committee on Natural Resources has jurisdiction over federal fisheries laws.

Click here for additional information on the H.R. 1335.

Seafood Industry Airs Views During Congressman’s Visit to New Bedford Waterfront

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New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell (left) and Rep. Rob Bishop (right) discuss fishing issues in New Bedford on Thursday, June 2. (Photo: House Natural Resources Committee)

June 3, 2016 — The following is excerpted from a story published today by the New Bedford Standard-Times:

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — A congressman from the Mountain West got a full dose of a New England coast Thursday, as seafood and fishing industry representatives aired their views on several contentious issues — including the ongoing marine monument debate — during a whirlwind tour of New Bedford’s waterfront.

U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, a Utah Republican and chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, visited the city to get a firsthand look at the highest-value commercial fishing port in the country. Numerous industry leaders from across the region took the opportunity to speak to the committee chairman, particularly about the push for monument status in the New England Canyons and Seamounts, about 100 miles southeast of Cape Cod.

Eric Reid, a general manager with Rhode Island frozen fish business Seafreeze, told Bishop during a noontime forum at the New Bedford Whaling Museum that economic impacts from monument status, which would restrict commercial fishing, could cost $500 million and “countless jobs.”

Reid unfurled a map of ocean waters on a Whaling Museum table and pointed out to Bishop where he felt commercial fishing businesses could, and could not, survive if a monument status was put in place. Reid suggested a line of demarcation in the Canyons and Seamounts area, where bottom-fishing would be allowed north of the line but not to the south.

“We can protect the industry, and we can protect the corals,” Reid said, urging that “pelagic” fishing, or fishing that occurs well above ocean floors, be allowed in both zones.

Bishop called the map an “extremely good” start to alternative proposals for which he could advocate as the issue unfolds in coming months, during the final stretch of President Barack Obama’s administration.

Bob Vanasse, a New Bedford native and executive director of Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization Saving Seafood, said Bishop’s visit hopefully was the first of many lawmaker visits facilitated by the National Coalition for Fishing Communities (NCFC). Saving Seafood launched the coalition last fall, with members that span the country and include New Bedford’s Harbor Development Commission.

“We want to bring these members of Congress who have jurisdiction over the fishing industry, to visit the ports that their laws regulate,” Vanasse said. “This is the kind of communication effort that the National Coalition is about.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford-Standard Times

East Coast Fishing Groups Unite in Opposition to Atlantic Monument

June 2, 2016 — The following was released by the National Coalition for Fishing Communities:

UPDATE: A previous version of this release mistakenly omitted a statement by the American Bluefin Tuna Association. Additionally, since the original release, the American Scallop Association has endorsed the ASMFC resolution. The release has been updated to reflect these changes.

WASHINGTON (NCFC) — The most valuable fishing port in the U.S. – New Bedford, Mass. – and eight major fishing groups from Florida to Massachusetts are backing an Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) resolution opposing current proposals for a monument off the coast of New England. The fisheries most likely to be affected by a National Monument designation inside the continental shelf, including the valuable red crab, swordfish, tuna, and offshore lobster fisheries, have all come out in support of the ASMFC resolution.

Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), Chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, is in New Bedford today, where he will hear from regional stakeholders about the negative effects a monument would have on commercial fisheries.

Multiple environmental groups have been pushing the Obama Administration to use executive authority under the Antiquities Act to designate an offshore monument in the Atlantic. Earlier this month, the ASMFC unanimously approved a resolution urging the Administration to forgo a monument designation and instead allow the current management process protecting ocean ecosystems to continue. If the President decides to create a monument, the ASMFC resolution asks that it be seaward of the continental shelf, only prohibit bottom tending fishing, and that any plan be available for public review before it is implemented.

In a letter to the White House, the American Bluefin Tuna Association (ABTA) expressed concern that a monument designation would eliminate all forms of fishing in the protected areas. “Given that our fishing gear has no negative impact on deep sea coral, a proposed prohibition on the fishing methods we employ would be arbitrary, completely unnecessary and would result in significant negative economic consequences,” ABTA wrote.

A monument declaration may have devastating economic impacts on New Bedford as well. The mayor of New Bedford, Jon Mitchell, has come out strongly against a monument and praised the ASMFC resolution in a statement, saying he “applauds the ASMFC for asking the White House not to establish a marine monument off the coast of New England.”

East Coast fishing groups that may also be severely impacted by a monument designation, including many members of the National Coalition for Fishing Communities (NCFC), are lending their strong support to the ASMFC resolution. One fishery that could suffer if it is prohibited from fishing in a monument area is the red crab fishery, valued at over $15 million.

“Rarely in the history of New England commercial fishing have we seen the entire industry and its regulatory bodies unite behind a single cause,” said the New England Red Crab Harvester’s Association in a statement. “Yet with its recent unanimous vote on the marine monument designation, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission joined industry leaders in sending a clear message to the Obama administration: the current monument process poses a serious threat to effective ocean management, and would have disastrous environmental and economic impacts.”

The Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF), which represents members of the Atlantic sea scallop fishery, supported the ASMFC resolution in a letter to the White House. FSF argued that a monument designation would contradict the President’s own Executive Order 13563, which states in part that regulations should be based on the best available science, involve public participation, and include coordination across agencies.

“Public areas and public resources should be managed in an open and transparent manner, not an imperial stroke of the pen,” FSF wrote.

Other groups that have publicly supported the ASMFC plan are the Garden State Seafood Association, Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, Southeastern Fisheries Association, North Carolina Fisheries Association, and American Scallop Association. All of these groups are members of NCFC, which provides a unified voice for fishing groups and businesses. Similarly, the Blue Water Fishermen’s Association, which is not an NCFC member, wrote to the White House opposing an Atlantic Monument.

National ocean policy threatens new regulatory burdens

May 26, 2016 — Since its creation by Executive Order in 2010, the Obama administration has hailed its National Ocean Policy (NOP) as a non-regulatory, stakeholder-driven initiative that will lead to reduced burdens and less uncertainty for ocean user groups.

In reality, it’s nothing of the sort.

This was highlighted recently during a hearing held by the U.S. House Natural Resources’ Water, Power and Oceans Subcommittee on the implications of the NOP, where House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop summed up many of the concerns of stakeholders when he noted that “it’s creating more uncertainty, and it certainly is not helping the industry and it’s not helping the environment.”

You know what? He’s right.

The Long Island Commercial Fishing Association (LICFA) has been closely monitoring the development and implementation of the NOP since its establishment six years ago.  We’ve had no other choice, as we represent stakeholders in New York’s $1.4 billion boat-to-table seafood industry, with Long Island in particular landing 99 percent of the state’s wild-caught seafood.

Since the beginning, some of the greatest concerns with this policy have centered on the potential regulatory impacts of the policy’s coastal and marine spatial planning (CMSP) and ecosystem-based management (EBM) components.

Read the full story at The Hill

Overregulation threatens local fishing economies, Congressmen say

December 8, 2015 — A U.S. House of Representatives committee held a rare field hearing in Riverhead yesterday, the first time in recent memory such a committee has formally met on the East End.

A three-member panel of the House Committee on Natural Resources convened the hearing to discuss the federal policies that currently regulate the region’s fishing grounds, probing the policies’ basis in science, fishery conditions and economic impacts on the local economy with testimony and questioning  of several invited witnesses.

The committee members who conducted the hearing, hosted by Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley), heard testimony for two hours yesterday at the Suffolk County Community College Culinary Arts Institute on East Main Street.

They also discussed alternatives to what some on the four-member panel characterized as oppressive regulation that could potentially damage the region’s fishing industry.

“In my part of the world, there’s a saying that if you have no farms, you have no food,” said committee chairman Rob Bishop, a Republican congressman from Utah. “The same can be said that if you have no boating access, you have no fish.”

Bishop claimed that federal agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have “ignored state and local laws, input and science” in their regulatory decisions.

Read the full story from Riverhead Local