October 12, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Internal memos between Earl Comstock, Director of the Office of Policy and Strategic Planning, and Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross show that both men intentionally violated the Magnuson-Stevens Act to allow sports fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico a summer of weekend openers for red snapper.
As a result of the decision, the quota for red snapper was exceeded by an estimated 50 percent. Prior to the decision, red snapper stocks in the Gulf were halfway through a successful rebuilding program. The damage done to the stocks will be assessed this year and likely would result in further cuts to all sectors — recreational, commercial, and charter — next year.
But the insistence to break the law had more nefarious motives than simply to give recreational fishermen more red snapper.
The memos, released as part of a lawsuit against the Department of Commerce by Ocean Conservancy and the Environmental Defense Fund, show that the disaster caused by the decision would “…put the ball squarely in the court of Congress,” wrote Comstock to Ross in a June 7, 2017 memo.
“Congress would need to act to prevent reduced catch limits for all fishing sectors next year. This problem will not be able to be addressed through the fishery management system without a change of law,” Comstock said.
“The Congressional representatives know this, and are looking to DoC [Department of Commerce] for leadership. By resetting the debate and building a strong partnerhsip with the State fishery managers … we can provide the leadership Congress is asking of us,” Comstock wrote to Ross.
Ocean Conservancy called this “playing a game of chicken with Congress. They have manufactured a crisis in the fishery by allowing so much overfishing that now everyone could get hurt next year.”
The reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act is poised to happen in 2018. Already there are half a dozen bills aimed at making changes to MSA, which is the foundation for the nation’s sustainably managed fisheries resources. Comstock’s agenda, as outlined in the memos to Secretary Ross, implies that to respond to the overfishing that will occur on red snapper as a result of the decision, an MSA reauthorization favoring recreational interests would be more likely.
Red snapper was just coming up to its halfway mark of a 27-year rebuilding plan, having been reduced to just 3 percent of historic levels by decades of overfishing.
Stocks were showing a strong recovery under the plan until large overages from the recreational sector resulted in lowering catch levels by 20% in 2014.
Catch rates in the recreational sector are two to three times higher than they were a decade ago, when the rebuilding plan began.
The five states bordering the Gulf of Mexico were estimated to catch 81% of the available quota, before Commerce’s decision to extend their sports fisheries. The estimate of what was taken now is three times the sustainable limit.
It isn’t as though Comstock, who has worked on other recreational issues within the Council system before, including the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council in Alaska, doesn’t know any better.
In a May 2, 2017 testimony to the House Oversight & Government Report Subcommittee, Comstock explained that “NMFS, as required by the Magnuson-Stevens Act, must set an annual catch quota for the red snapper fishery that does not exceed the level specified by the Gulf Council’s scientific advisors, and must prohibit fishing when the quota is reached.”
His memos to his boss five weeks later encourage a complete reversal of that principle, with little regard for the law.
This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.