Saving Seafood

Biden’s 30×30 plan gives hope, but also uncertainy

June 16, 2021 — On May 6th, the Biden administration released the “Conserving and Restoring America the Beautiful” report that instructed NOAA to expand the National Marine Sanctuaries System, the National Estuarine Research Reserve System, to “help restore fish populations and better protect threatened and endangered species.” This report is considered the administration’s plan to meet the 30% of land and water protected by 2030 or “30 by 30” initiative put forth by executive order (E.O. 14008) in January 2021.

Before getting into the specifics of this report, it is worth reviewing the history of the “30×30” planning process and some of the initial responses from stakeholders:

  • October 2015 – Jane Lubchenco and Kirsten Grorud-Colvert publish a paper in Science Magazine titled: “Making waves: The science and politics of ocean protection”. This paper is credited for introducing the 30% global marine protected area (MPA) target.
  • September 2016 – The World Conservation Congress voted to support increasing the portion of the ocean that is highly protected to at least 30% to help effectively conserve biodiversity.
  • November 2020 – U.S. Representative Raul Grijalva introduced the Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act. Title II of this act called for expanding marine protected areas (MPAs) in U.S. waters to equal 30% of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
  • November 2020 – Immediately after this introduction, more than 830 seafood industry stakeholders sent a letter to Rep. Grijalva expressing their concern about the proposals under Title II.
  • December 2020 – 28 prominent marine scientists sent a similar letter of opposition to Congress, questioning the justification for 30% MPAs described in Title II.

When the Biden administration introduced the 30×30 initiative in January 2021, various fishing industry stakeholders were upset for similar reasons described in the letters of opposition towards Title II of the Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act.

Read the full story at Sustainable Fisheries UW

Biden administration may reinstate Northeast marine monument restrictions

June 16, 2021 — The Biden administration could reinstate commercial fishing restrictions on the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument – and bring a new court challenge from the fishing industry, just months after Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts indicated he would be open to hearing a new case.

Reports Monday in the Washington Post and New York Times described a recommendation from Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to restore boundaries of the Bear Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah, which were established by former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, and cut back by former president Donald Trump in December 2017.

At the urging of ocean environmental groups, Obama imposed commercial fishing restrictions after establishing the 5,000-square mile Northeast marine monument in December 2018. In June 2020, Trump issued a new proclamation lifting those rules.

Within hours of President Biden’s inauguration Jan. 20, environmental groups pressed him to reimpose fishing restrictions, and fishing advocates mobilized, hoping to head that off.

How Biden decides this could set the stage for a new challenge to presidential authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906, which critics say has expanded far beyond its original intent.

“A commercial fishing ban serves no conservation benefit,” said James Budi of the American Sword and Tuna Harvesters, which has urged the Biden administration to hold off on renewing restrictions.

Officials at NMFS themselves say “pelagic longline gear used to catch swordfish has no impact on habitat,” said Budi. “Fishing impact on the monument below us is like a bird flying over the Grand Canyon.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Businesses call for long-term salmon protections in Bristol Bay, Alaska

June 14, 2021 — A group of more than 200 businesses and industry associations sent an open letter to the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and the U.S. Congress yesterday asking for lasting protections in Bristol Bay, Alaska, home to world’s largest sockeye salmon run.

The letter was signed by large foodservice and retail players like Sysco, Hy-Vee, Wegmans, and Publix, as well as outdoor recreation and commercial fishing companies like Grundéns, Patagonia, Costa del Mar, and Keen.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

U.S. to auction leases for 8 wind power sites off New York and New Jersey

June 14, 2021 — The United States plans to auction leases for eight wind power sites in the shallow stretch of the Atlantic between New York’s Long Island and New Jersey.

The proposed sites offer the potential for as much as 7 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power more than 2.6 million homes, the Interior Department said in a statement Friday.

President Biden has laid out an ambitious plan for the development of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030, and these would be the first competitive offshore leases under his administration. Biden’s proposed infrastructure initiatives have stressed that shifting to clean energy will curb planet-warming greenhouse gases while creating jobs to boost the economy.

An organization that represents the scallop industry criticized the auction plans and called on the federal government to change the lease boundaries to better protect fishing grounds.

Shifting one lease area’s borders by five miles would “better ensure that critical scallop populations will be unaffected, while not diminishing the potential for wind power in the area,” the Fisheries Survival Fund said in an emailed statement.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Biden administration proposes offshore wind leases off LI, NJ

June 14, 2021 — The Biden administration on Friday took another major step toward powering local electric grids with offshore wind power, releasing a proposed sale notice for hundreds of thousands of acres off the coasts of Long Island and New Jersey.

An auction for the lease areas could take place later this year or early next, pending a 60-day comment period, an environmental assessment and other steps, officials have previously said, with development of the wind areas potentially taking place in mid- to late 2020s and beyond.

The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management earlier this year had released maps of the proposed sites and, after briefly including areas off the entire East End of Long Island, ultimately eliminated two sections located 15 miles south of the Hamptons. BOEM said they’re not being included “at this time” due to maritime traffic concerns, commercial fisheries, commercial viability and “state preferences.”

On Friday, the Fisheries Survival Fund, representing scallop fishermen and others in the industry, urged the Biden administration to “incrementally change” the proposed lease areas, noting that two are “located in particularly sensitive areas for scallops,” and would have a “serious negative impact” on the scallop fishery.

BOEM, in a statement, said the lease process will include a list of stipulations that would require developers to, among other things, issue a summary of existing users of their area and a “description of efforts to minimize any conflict between existing users” and the developer.

Read the full story at Newsday

For Lease: Windmill Space in the Atlantic Between Long Island and New Jersey

June 11, 2021 — The Biden administration on Friday announced that it would begin the formal process of selling leases to develop offshore wind farms in shallow waters between Long Island and New Jersey as part of its push to transition the nation to renewable energy.

The proposed sale, the first of the Biden administration, includes eight lease areas in the New York Bight, a triangular area in the Atlantic Ocean between Cape May in New Jersey and Montauk Point on the eastern tip of Long Island. Administration officials estimated wind turbines there could generate more than seven gigawatts of electricity — enough to power more than 2.6 million homes.

The move is part of efforts by the Biden administration to jump-start the country’s offshore wind sector. Last month, it gave final approval to the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard and said it would open California’s coast to wind farms. Earlier this week, the administration said it was examining whether to bring wind farms to the Gulf of Mexico. President Biden has set a goal of generating 30,000 megawatts of electricity from offshore wind nationwide by 2030.

That contrasts sharply with former President Donald J. Trump, who disparaged wind turbines, claiming that they destroyed property values, caused cancer and killed birds. His administration favored the development of fossil fuels and disputed the scientific consensus that the emissions produced by the burning of oil, gas and coal are driving climate change.

Read the full story at The New York Times

Biden eyes Gulf of Mexico for wind energy opportunities

June 10, 2021 — Fresh off announcing its intent to explore wind energy initiatives on the U.S. West Coast, the Biden administration is now looking for opportunities to do the same in the Gulf of Mexico.

On Tuesday, 8 June, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced it would release a request-for-information (RFI) solicitation to determine if there’s interest in employing wind technology off the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

U.S. explores wind energy potential in Gulf of Mexico

June 9, 2021 — The Biden administration on Tuesday said it will explore the potential of offshore wind energy development in the Gulf of Mexico, part of its goal to supercharge growth in clean energy over the next decade.

“This is an important first step to see what role the Gulf may play in this exciting frontier,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.

While the Gulf of Mexico is a major hub for offshore oil and gas production, it has had little renewable energy development. President Joe Biden has made the expansion of clean energy, especially offshore wind, a cornerstone of his fight against climate change.

Biden faces criticism in Gulf Coast states after putting a pause on federal drilling auctions. States including Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama sued in March to restore the sales, which are on hold pending a government review.

The Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will publish a Request for Interest (RFI) on June 11 to see if there is any interest in offshore wind development in the Outer Continental Shelf.

Read the full story at Reuters

Offshore Wind Farms Show What Biden’s Climate Plan Is Up Against

June 7, 2021 — A constellation of 5,400 offshore wind turbines meet a growing portion of Europe’s energy needs. The United States has exactly seven.

With more than 90,000 miles of coastline, the country has plenty of places to plunk down turbines. But legal, environmental and economic obstacles and even vanity have stood in the way.

President Biden wants to catch up fast — in fact, his targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions depend on that happening. Yet problems abound, including a shortage of boats big enough to haul the huge equipment to sea, fishermen worried about their livelihoods and wealthy people who fear that the turbines will mar the pristine views from their waterfront mansions. There’s even a century-old, politically fraught federal law, known as the Jones Act, that blocks wind farm developers from using American ports to launch foreign construction vessels.

Annie Hawkins, executive director of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, which includes hundreds of fishing groups and companies, worries that the government is failing to scrutinize proposals and adequately plan.

“What they’re doing is saying, ‘Let’s take this thing we’ve really never done here, go all in, objectors be damned,’” Ms. Hawkins said. “Coming from a fisheries perspective, we know there is going to be a massive-scale displacement. You can’t just go fish somewhere else.”

Fishing groups point to recent problems in Europe to justify their concerns. Orsted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer, for example, has sought a court injunction to keep fishermen and their equipment out of an area of the North Sea set for new turbines while it studies the area.

Orsted said that it had tried to “work collaboratively with fishermen” but that it had sought the order because its work was complicated by gear left in the area by a fisherman it could not identify. “To safely conduct the survey work and only as a last resort, we were left with no choice but to secure the right to remove this gear,” the company said in a statement.

When developers first applied in 2001 for a permit for Cape Wind, a project between Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, resistance was fierce. Opponents included Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who died in 2009, and William I. Koch, an industrialist.

Read the full story at The New York Times

Expanding Wind Power While Killing Fewer Migratory Birds Is Biden’s Quandary

June 7, 2021 — President Biden has taken steps to restore criminal penalties for accidental killing of migratory birds, a move that if adopted as expected later this year would add pressure to wind power developers who are working to fulfill his mandate to boost wind-farm developments as sources of clean energy.

Wind turbines—some with 200-foot blades spinning up to 180 mph—are estimated to kill between 140,000 and 500,000 birds a year through accidental collisions, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The wide variation in the estimate reflects the difficulty in tracking bird deaths, but whatever the toll, it is expected to rise as more wind turbines are built. Wildlife researchers in 2013 estimated that the Energy Department’s 2008 wind-power target would push bird deaths to about 1.4 million annually. That figure hasn’t been updated to reflect the Biden administration’s plans to expand offshore wind farms.

Wind turbines are far from the biggest hazard to birds; nearly 600 million birds die each year from crashing into windows, based on a median estimate by Fish and Wildlife.

Read the full story at the The Wall Street Journal