Saving Seafood

US aquaculture advocates: Judge’s ruling on Gulf of Mexico proves need for law

September 28, 2018 — A lobbying group organized by more than a dozen powerful seafood companies says a ruling this week by a federal judge that the US National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) doesn’t have the authority to oversee fish pens in federal waters is why new legislation is needed.

In a 15-page opinion handed down Monday, US district court judge Jane Triche Milazzo, in the Eastern District of Louisiana, granted a motion by the Center for Food Safety (CFS) and a coalition of fishing and public interest groups it represented to grant a summary judgment in its lawsuit against NMFS to block its efforts to establish aquaculture in the Gulf of Mexico.

Milazzo has given the plaintiffs 10 days to file a proposed judgment.

CFS filed its lawsuit against NMFS, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in February 2016, arguing that the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA), passed in 1976, was meant to give NMFS authority over the harvesting of wild fish, not aquaculture.

“In analyzing the plain text, statutory scheme, and legislative history of the MSA, this court finds that the term ‘harvesting’ was intended to refer to the traditional fishing of wild fish,” Milazzo wrote in her opinion. “There is nothing in the MSA or its legislative history to suggest that Congress might have intended that the term be defined to include the farming of fish.

“… It is often said that ‘Congress does not ‘hide elephants in mouseholes’, and this court cannot imagine a more fitting example,” she added.

NMFS, in January 2016, with the help of the Gulf Council, finalized regulations to authorize a federal commercial aquaculture permitting scheme in the gulf. According to CFS, the program would have allowed up to 20 industrial facilities and collectively 64 million pounds of fish to be grown each year in the area.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

MARK HELVEY: Protect California’s Drift Gillnet Fishery

August 24, 2018 — WASHINGTON — California’s drift gillnet (DGN) fishery has come under attack in recent months. One of the most prominent media attacks was a July Los Angeles Times editorial “Dead dolphins, whales and sea turtles aren’t acceptable collateral damage for swordfishing,” which irresponsibly called for the shut down of the fishery. Like many similar critiques, it overlooked the ways DGN fishermen have worked to reduce bycatch and the unintended consequences of shutting down the fishery.

It is first important to note that the DGN fishery operates legally subject to all bycatch minimization requirements in federal law. This includes not just the Magnuson-Stevens Act—the primary federal fishing law—but also the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act (ESA). These statutes are precautionary and conservation-minded, and help make U.S. fisheries some of the most environmentally conscious and best managed in the world.

DGN fishermen have collaborated extensively with NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service over the years to further reduce bycatch. Since 1990, the fishery has operated an observer program to effectively monitor bycatch. It has deployed devices such as acoustic pingers to ward off marine mammals from fishing gear, has established the Pacific Offshore Cetacean Take Reduction Plan to further reduce marine mammal interactions, and has implemented time/area closures to reduce interactions with endangered sea turtles.

These measures have led to significant progress in reducing bycatch. For example, no ESA-listed marine mammals have been observed caught in the DGN fishery since the 2010-2011 fishing season and no listed sea turtles since the 2012-2013 season.

As mentioned in the Times editorial, there is indeed good news from fisheries deploying new, experimental deep-set buoy gear. But it is just that – experimental, and it is still unclear whether it will become economically viable. And while fishermen hope that it does, the volumes produced won’t make a dent in the over 80 percent of the 20,000 metric tons of swordfish consumed annually in the U.S. that comes from foreign fisheries.

Often missing from the discussion of the drift gillnet fishery is that most foreign fisheries are far less regulated and are much more environmentally harmful than any U.S. fishery. Should the U.S. DGN fishery be shut down, it will only further increase our reliance on this imported seafood. All U.S. fishermen abide by the highest levels of environmental oversight relative to their foreign counterparts, meaning that U.S. caught seafood comes at a fraction of the ecosystem impacts occurring abroad.

Californians need to understand this and help protect U.S. fisheries that are striving to do things the right way. California’s DGN fishermen provide seafood consumers with a local source of sustainably-caught, premium quality swordfish. We should thank them by keeping them on the water.

Mark Helvey had a 30-year career with NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) before retiring in 2015.  He served as the last Assistant Regional Administrator for Sustainable Fisheries with the NMFS Southwest Region in Long Beach, representing the agency on fishery conservation and management for highly migratory and coastal pelagic species on the west coast.

 

Greg DiDomenico & Diane Pleschner-Steele: Senate MSA reauthorization a step back for fishing communities

August 21, 2018 — The following op-ed was originally published in The Hill and was written by Greg DiDomenico, the Executive Director of the Garden State Seafood Association, and Diane Pleschner-Steele, the Executive Director of the California Wetfish Producers Association:

In July, the House passed H.R. 200 the “Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act,” a much needed update of federal fisheries law that allows for both sustainable fisheries management and the long-term preservation of our nation’s fishing communities. Unfortunately, its counterpart bill making its way through the Senate would likely have the opposite effect.

The Senate bill, S.1520, or the “Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act of 2018,” introduces changes to the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA)—the main law governing U.S. fisheries—that would impose increasingly burdensome regulations on American fishermen and undermine H.R. 200’s goal of increasing flexibility in fisheries management.

Of particular concern are provisions contained in Section 104 of the bill, “Rebuilding Overfished Fisheries.“ Rather than giving fisheries managers more flexibility in how they manage and rebuild fish stocks, these new requirements added to S.1520 make rebuilding requirements more stringent and onerous.

For example, one of the most disturbing changes is the requirement that Regional Fishery Management Councils achieve a 75 percent chance of rebuilding a stock if that stock has not rebuilt in as short a timeframe as possible. What that means in practice is that regulators will be forced to set quotas according to a rigid, predetermined timeframe, rather than one based around scientific evidence or biological necessity. This will lead to quotas that are much lower than they need to be to sustainably manage the species, and fishing communities being unnecessarily hurt in the process.

Read the full opinion piece at The Hill

 

JESSICA HATHAWAY: Bend rather than break

August 3, 2018 –The range of responses to the passage of the Magnuson-Stevens Act reauthorization in the House of Representatives on July 11 shows the diversity and breadth of this industry.

The biggest hold-up on coast-to-coast support for H.R. 200 was the inclusion of a recreational grab at snapper-grouper management in the Gulf of Mexico, which gets a leg up in the House version of the bill (a Senate version is TBD). In the end, most major South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico associations offered their support of the bill with an exception for this portion as well as the attempt to eliminate annual catch limits in recreational fisheries (see Mail Buoy on page 6).

The controversial flexibility clause has perhaps been the most talked about component of this reauthorization. The Fishing Communities Coalition — a group of small-boat fishery associations connected also by their relationships with NGO funding and catch share management — came out strongly opposed to the reauthorization largely because of the flexibility component and the hurdles the bill puts in the way of new catch share programs. These changes, they say, will erode the nation’s deep roots in science-based sustainable fishery management.

However, several provisions in the act aim to include more data points in fishery management, including cooperative data, stock assessment plans for all federally managed stocks and transparency in the council management process.

Read the full opinion piece at National Fisherman

Dems seek tariff relief for fishing industry

August 1, 2018 — The Trump administration announced last week that it would provide up to $12 billion in emergency relief funding for farmers whose businesses are suffering from an escalating trade war.

Now a group of Democratic U.S. representatives is pressing for similar emergency relief for the fishing industry, which is expecting a significant financial hit from a series of increasing export tariffs imposed by China.

H.R. 6528, introduced last Wednesday by Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), would amend a provision in the Magnuson-Stevens Act that allows the federal government to provide funding to harvesters affected by natural or man-made disasters, such as hurricanes and oil spills. The bill would add cases of “unilateral tariffs imposed by other countries on any United States seafood” as events warranting emergency relief.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

Five US House Democrats get behind tariff-relief bill for fishermen

July 30, 2018 — In the same week that President Donald Trump announced his plan to offer land farmers in the US $12 billion to help compensate for losses suffered as a result of his trade scuffles with China and other nations, a small group of Democrats in the House of Representatives have put forth a plan to help fishermen.

HR 6528, introduced Wednesday by Massachusetts representative Seth Moulton, would amend a provision contained in the Magnuson Stevens Act that allows for the government to make money available to harvesters in the case of a natural or man-made disaster. It would add language that clarifies that such funds can also be used in the case of “unilateral tariffs imposed by other countries on any United States seafood.”

Co-sponsors of the bill include representatives Chellie Pingree of Maine, Stephen Lynch and William Keating, both of Massachusetts, Jared Huffman of California, and Raul Grijalva of Arizona.

Pingree, an organic farmer, has been particularly vocal about the president’s tough trade stance, writing letters to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and US Trade Representative.

“Farmers haven’t been the only ones to suffer the consequences of the Trump administration’s sloppy trade actions,” she said in a statement issued this week.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Fishing industry at odds with environmentalists over changes to U.S. fishing laws

July 30, 2018 — Fishermen and environmentalists are at odds over a suite of changes to U.S. fishing laws that was approved by the House of Representatives, and the proposal faces a new hurdle in the Senate.

The House passed changes to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, a 42-year-old set of rules designed to protect fisheries from over-harvest, on July 11, largely along party lines. Environmental groups have derided the changes as antithetical to the purpose of the act, which many fishermen and conservationists credit with saving seafood stocks such as New England sea scallops and Bering Sea snow crab.

Supporters of the House bill and several commercial and recreational fishing groups have said the changes merely provide managers with flexibility and refocus the Magnuson-Stevens Act on sound science.

The big question is whether a bill will also pass the Senate before the midterm election. No bill has been proposed yet, and the election could bring changes that make it more difficult for such a bill to pass.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Los Angeles Times

 

Rhode Island Commercial Fishing Companies Support US House Changes To Magnuson-Stevens Act

July 24, 2018 — Local commercial fishing companies are part of a national coalition backing changes to federal fisheries law.

The law, known as the Magnuson-Stevens Act, has regulated marine fisheries across the country since 1976.

If a stock is being overfished, regional fishery management councils are required to rebuild the species within 10 years. However, the U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a partisan bill, H.R. 200, with largely Republican support that would scrap that rule.

“The 10-year rebuilding timeline was a completely arbitrary number; it was not based on science, it wasn’t based on biology, anything like that. It was just a random number that was picked,” Meghan Lapp, spokeswoman for Rhode Island-based Seafreeze Ltd., said.

Lapp said the company, along with others a part of the National Caolition for Fishing Communities, supports the bill because councils need more flexibility when developing rebuilding plans.

“(The councils) can take into consideration other factors, environmental factors, predator-prey relationships, etc.,” she said. “So, it’s actually more scientifically based than the previous version of Magnuson.”

Lapp said that flexibility could also help regional managers set better annual catch limits.

Read the full story at Rhode Island Public Radio

Gulf Coast lawmakers push bill on red snapper quotas

July 23, 2018 — After years of feuding with the federal government over red snapper fishing quotas, Gulf Coast lawmakers are pushing a bill to seize decision-making powers from the federal government and give them to state regulators.

Lawmakers say states know the resources best and better understand the impact of their decisions, but environmentalists worry the reforms will bypass science-based conservation methods and subject quota decisions to the whims of local politics, ultimately threatening fish stocks that fuel local economies and provide food to millions of Americans.

“This a huge economic thing as well as a question of freedom of the American people to fish in their own waters,” said Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-AL.

Byrne says he and other critics are frustrated with federal regulators, who the critics say rely on faulty science and don’t fully understand the local impact of their decisions.

Recreational fishing is a $63 billion a year industry in the United States, nearly a half million jobs. Byrne says that’s why it’s critically important to change the way conservation decisions are made.

“We’re taking control away from the federal government and giving it to state authorities who are closer to it and who we think make the better decisions,” Byrne said.

Read the full story at KXAN

House OKs overhaul of federal fishing laws, loosening limits and expanding angler access. Is the Senate next?

July 23, 2018 — Dig out the tackle box and gas up the boat. The most sweeping overhaul of federal fishing laws in more than a decade is swimming its way through Congress – and long-frustrated recreational anglers are delighted.

The reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, passed by the House this month largely along partisan lines, aims to give weekend fishermen expanded access to rebounding saltwater stocks that the decades-old law has helped rescue. A similar but more limited measure is making its way through the Senate and could be approved later this year.

Past efforts to loosen restrictions have largely died, in no small part because of  opposition by the Obama administration. But private-boat anglers and the coastal businesses that support them sense momentum on their side, pointing to steps lawmakers have taken to advance their agenda and temporary actions the Trump administration has taken during the past year to expand saltwater access.

Read the full story at USA Today