Saving Seafood

Alaska ports hope to keep fish tax: ‘We can’t get answers’ says Stutes

July 10, 2019 — One fisheries item that appears to have escaped Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto pen so far is his desire to divert local fish taxes from coastal communities into state coffers.

Dunleavy’s initial budget in February aimed to repeal the sharing of fisheries business and landing taxes that towns and boroughs split 50/50 with the state. Instead, all of the tax revenues would go to the state’s general fund – a loss of $28 million in FY 2020 to fishing communities.

“There is a recognition that these are viewed as shared resources, and they should be shared by Alaskans,” press secretary Matt Shuckerow said at the time. “So that’s kind of what this proposal does. It takes shared resources and shares them with all Alaskans, not just some select communities.”

The tax split remains in place, and the dollars are still destined for fishing towns, said Rep. Louise Stutes (R-Kodiak), who also represents Cordova, Yakutat and several smaller towns.

“It’s general fund revenue and that has been appropriated to the appropriate communities,” Stutes said in a phone interview. “What we can tell right now is it slipped by unscathed because it appears he did not veto that revenue to the communities that generate the dollars. So, it looks like we’re good to go there.”

What’s not so good is the nearly $1 million cut to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s commercial fisheries budget.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

ALASKA: Feds still working on plan for $56M in disaster relief funds

June 12, 2019 — Alaska fishermen are still awaiting disaster relief funds for the 2016 pink salmon run failure that was the worst in 40 years.

Congress approved $56 million that year for Alaska fishermen, processors and communities hurt by the fishery flop in three Alaska regions: Kodiak, Prince William Sound and Lower Cook Inlet.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game and National Marine Fisheries Service finalized plans and procedures for payouts last August. Since then, the paper push has stalled on various federal agency desks.

NMFS missed a promised June 1 sign off deadline and now says the funds will be released on the first of July, according to Rep. Louise Stutes of Kodiak, who has been tracking the progress.

“It affects all the cannery workers all the processors, all the businesses in the community,” she said. “This has a big trickle-down effect.”

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

ALASKA: Working out details on salmon disaster funds

July 9, 2018 — The following was released by Rep. Louise Stutes:

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

I wanted to provide you with a short update regarding the 2016 pink salmon disaster relief funding distribution.

It was recently announced that over $56 million of the $200 million appropriated for fisheries disasters will be allocated to Alaska. Naturally, I am pleased that out of the nine West Coast disasters and three hurricanes, we received such a large proportion of the funding.

Cordova has been awaiting the arrival of this funding for almost two years and it is critical that the distribution is executed correctly with as little delay as possible.

What types of entities will be eligible and how much each category will receive remains unknown. Currently, the governor’s office, the Department of Fish and Game (DFG), and the Department of Commerce are working with NOAA to make those determinations through a spending plan.

One of my main concerns is who will be eligible. NOAA identified shoreside infrastructure as a potential recipient category and I am working with the State to ensure that, along with our hard-working fishermen, processing workers and direct-support businesses are afforded the relief that they are entitled to. I am in daily communication with the Governor’s Office and DFG to offer input and stay as up-to-date as possible about the timeline and details.

Read the full letter at the Cordova Times

ALASKA: Hundreds of Commercial Fishermen ask Legislators to Pass Stand for Salmon Bill

February 6, 2018 — JUNEAU, Alaska — Thursday, commercial fishermen in the Stand for Salmon coalition delivered nearly 200 letters from their colleagues to the State Legislature in support of House Bill 199, the Stand for Salmon Bill. The bill, sponsored by House Fisheries Committee Chair Rep. Louise Stutes (R-Kodiak), was reintroduced to the Legislature last week at a hearing that drew a standing-room-only audience.

“Salmon are the icons of Alaska and we are renowned globally for sustainable management of the resource. Fishermen make sacrifices every year to ensure harvesting protects the fish first, and it’s not too much to ask that extractive industries are held to the same standards,” said Art Bloom of Tenakee Springs who will fish his 25th season in Bristol Bay this summer.

HB 199 updates state law governing development in salmon habitat, bolstering protections for salmon – a key player in Alaska’s seafood industry, the largest private-sector employer in the state. Salmon fishing creates more than 32,900 full-time jobs every year in the state, with the seafood industry earning $1.6 billion in annual labor income based on 2013 and 2014 averages, $2.1 billion in total labor income and $5.9 billion in total economic activity.

Read the full story at Alaska Native News

 

Will the fish habitat ballot proposal prod Alaska lawmakers to pass a similar bill? Don’t count on it.

January 30, 2018 — JUNEAU, Ala. — Opponents of a citizens initiative to boost protections for salmon habitat have a path to adapt the proposal to better suit them: helping pass a similar bill through the Alaska Legislature, which would render the initiative void.

The largely Democratic House majority last week introduced a new version of its legislation, House Bill 199, that could serve as that vehicle. Both proposals would create new permitting systems for projects that would affect fish habitat.

But the initiative’s pro-development opponents say they’re not exactly thrilled by HB 199 either.

And they’re making no promises to try to transform it into a compromise measure that could permit resource-development projects while still achieving some of the habitat protections that supporters want.

“These solutions have to be to problems that actually exist,” said Soldotna Republican Sen. Peter Micciche, a Cook Inlet commercial salmon fisherman who also works for ConocoPhillips. “The Senate majority doesn’t recognize, at this point, that there’s a gap.”

The state elections division has not yet placed the initiative on the ballot. Yet it’s already proven polarizing, and its legality is also being challenged in the Alaska Supreme Court.

The initiative is backed by an array of conservation groups that have teamed with three sponsors: Mike Wood, a Cook Inlet commercial setnet fisherman; Gayla Hoseth, a tribal chief from the Bristol Bay region; and Stephanie Quinn-Davidson, an Anchorage ecologist and fisheries advocate.

The supporters say Alaska’s permitting standards are outdated and wouldn’t provide adequate fish protections if proposed megaprojects such as dams, coal export projects, and the Pebble mine near Bristol Bay are ultimately built. The eight-page initiative would create a two-level permitting system with more stringent rules, like requiring that developers avoid or minimize damage to fish habitat or promise to clean up damage caused by projects.

The initiative has raised $300,000, with support from conservation groups like Homer-based Cook Inletkeeper, Virginia-based Trout Unlimited, the Oregon-based Wild Salmon Center and New Venture Fund, a left-leaning nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., according to filings with state campaign finance regulators.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

 

ALASKA: State Rep. Stutes moves for disaster declaration for pink salmon

September 1, 2016 — Wheels are already in motion to provide two measures of relief for Alaska’s pink salmon industry, which is reeling from the lowest harvest since the late 1970s.

Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, began the process last week to have the Walker Administration declare the pink salmon season a disaster, which would allow access to federal relief funds.

Pinks are Alaska’s highest volume salmon fishery and hundreds of fishermen depend on the fish to boost their overall catches and paychecks. So far the statewide harvest has reached just 36 million humpies out of a preseason forecast of 90 million. That compares to a catch of 190 million pinks last summer.

“This is the worst salmon year in nearly 40 years, and that’s huge,” she said. “It doesn’t just affect the fishermen; it’s a trickle-down effect on the cannery workers, the processors, and nearly all businesses in the community. It’s a disaster, there’s no other way to describe it.”

Stutes, who chairs the House fisheries committee and is known as a straight talker, said she has gotten very positive response from the state Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development.

“They are on it and already moving forward,” Stutes said.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

ALASKA: Lawmakers rewrite fisheries tax bill

April 8, 2016 — JUNEAU, Alaska — A House fisheries committee advanced a rewrite of Gov. Bill Walker’s fisheries tax bill on Tuesday, diverting half of the potential revenue into a seafood marketing fund.

The bill, one of six proposed taxes on industries from Walker, could raise an additional $18 million in revenue by adding a 1-percent tax increase to portions of the commercial fishing industry.

The new language requires that one-half of the tax increase be deposited into a newly created Alaska Seafood Marketing Fund. The Legislature also is given the option to appropriate the marketing fund to the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.

Seafood marketing has been an ongoing fight in the Legislature. Both the House and the Senate cut the marketing institute’s budget in their respective versions of the state operating budget. Lawmakers said they wanted to see the institute become self-sustaining, with the Senate declaring that it wanted to see a plan by 2017 on how the institute would wean itself off of the general fund by 2019. The operating budget has yet to be finalized.

After the committee voted to move the bill to House Finance, chair Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, asked for an update from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the Alaska Department of Revenue on taxing issues raised during public testimony on the bill.

See the full story at Homer News

ALASKA: Fishing groups voice opposition to CFEC reorganization

April 7, 2016 — Following an April 4 hearing that drew unanimous opposition from fishing groups, the House Resources Committee held a bill that would make statutory changes to the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission.

The bill is a relatively simple administrative fix, but sits in a tangle created by an administrative order by Gov. Bill Walker that has attracted criticism over its legality, a legislative audit of the agency, and opposition from fishermen.

Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, introduced the bill, but drastically scaled down the original version introduced last year to simply meet the needs of a 2015 legislative audit recommending some of the changes directed by Walker’s order.

Now, the bill’s main elements address administrative fixes: moving the CFEC commissioners to part-time pay and changing CFEC employees’ statutory designations.

“It changes (commissioners) from being on a monthly rate to a daily rate,” summarized Stutes’ staffer Reid Harris.

It also changes CFEC employees’ designation from “exempt” to “classified,” another statutory change.

“This bill is drafted to the recommendations of the audit,” Harris said.

Both recommendations enable Walker’s order, which folded CFEC duties into the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Walker’s order mandated the CFEC to fold some of its duties into the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Committee Chair Refuses to Advance Alaska Governor’s Fisheries Tax Hike

February 24, 2016 — Commercial fisheries may see taxes increase, but only if other resource industries do, too.

Under a budgetary thundercloud, Gov. Bill Walker is trying to squeeze funding from any source. A commercial fisheries tax bump, part of nine such bills in the Legislature, has slowed to a crawl in committee as fishermen decry it.

Fishermen, and House Fisheries Committee chair Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, fear Walker’s tax plan could disproportionately pinpoint the commercial fishing industry while other resource taxes die.

Stutes said during a Feb. 23 committee hearing that she’ll hold the bill in committee until further study.

“I have some reservations about passing this bill out of committee,” said Stutes. “I’ve been seeing a lot of the other resource tax bills faltering. I’m going to hold this in committee until I’m comfortable that the fishing industry is not being singled out. I would like this committee to assimilate and digest what they’ve heard.”

United Fishermen of Alaska, the state’s largest fishing industry group, brooked little opposition to the bill during a February meeting, but cracks appeared once Stutes opened the committee to public comment. The committee heard from fisherman that the tax plan seemed poorly thought out.

Richie Davis, a representative for the Seafood Producers Cooperative, said the tax bump is proof that either the Walker’s administration doesn’t fully grasp the social and economic aspects of the fishing industry, or “or somebody is using Alaska’s fiscal crisis as a springboard to cripple our industry.”

1 percent across the board

House Bill 251 would levy a 1 percent increase on commercial fisheries taxes. Current rates range from 1 percent to 5 percent, depending on the category.

Comment from two separate hearings on Feb. 18 and Feb. 23 called the tax plan too simple, too rushed, and too ignorant of the other resource taxes in the state. A 1 percent across-the-board raise, fishermen said, ignores the industry’s nuances and unique challenges.

The fisheries tax schedule is one of the more complex in Alaska tax code. The fisheries business tax and fisheries resource landings tax sprawl across different categories and sectors.

The state levies a fishery business tax and a fisheries resource landing tax, which distinguish between established fisheries and developing fisheries, each with different rates for floating processors, salmon canneries, and shore based processors.

The 1 percent tax rate increase doesn’t make enough distinctions, industry said.

“The approach HB 251 takes is quite frankly oversimplified,” said Vince O’Shea, vice president of Pacific Seafood Processors Association.

O’Shea, along with Icicle Seafoods representative Kris Norosz, pointed out that a 1 percent increase could conceivably work for some sectors but would stress salmon canneries, which are glutted with oversupply and having trouble profiting at the current 4.5 percent cannery rate.

“There hasn’t been quite enough analysis on the proposed action,” said Norosz. “I’m not quite sure how we got to this.”

Ken Alper, director of the state’s Department of Revenue Tax Division, said the 1 percent tax rate bump aims to bridge the gap between the state’s spending on fisheries management and its revenue.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce