Saving Seafood

Obama’s Atlantic Monument Hurts Lobster, Red Crab, and Other Fisheries

September 15, 2016 — President Obama will designate a national monument Thursday covering thousands of square miles in the Atlantic Ocean, pleasing environmental groups but flying in the face of opposition from state officials and fishing organizations.

The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument will cover 4,913 square miles off the coast of New England — an area nearly the size of the state of Connecticut — the White House announced Thursday. It will include “three underwater canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon, and four underwater mountains known as ‘seamounts’ that are biodiversity hotspots and home to many rare and endangered species,” it said.

Robert Vanasse, executive director of fishing advocacy group Saving Seafood, slammed the declaration, saying White House officials never seriously took the concerns of locals into account.

“It’s just really obvious that the fix was in from the start,” Vanasse told BuzzFeed News. “I believe the sound waves hit their eardrums but I don’t believe they were actually listening.”

Though the exact parameters of the monument were not available late Wednesday, Vanasse said the designation could potentially cost the offshore lobster community $10 million a year. He also said red crab, squid, and other fishing industries could take significant hits by a monument designation.

According to the White House, fishing within the monument will be phased out; red crab and lobster fisheries will have seven years before having to leave, and other commercial fishers will have a 60-day transition period.

Vanasse praised the gradual change — because it’ll give the industry time to fight the designation.

“The fact that they have some time is going to be a good thing because we can fight this and we’ll be fighting it with a different administration,” he said. “I imagine that we will see a legal challenge.”

Read the full story at BuzzFeed News

Obama Designates 1st Marine Monument In The Atlantic; Draws Ire of Fishermen

September 15, 2016 — During the Our Ocean conference in Washington, D.C., President Obama announced the creation of the first national marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean.

“We’re protecting fragile ecosystems off the coast of New England, including pristine underseas canyons and seamounts,” Obama said during his remarks. “We’re helping make the oceans more resilient to climate change … and we’re doing it in a way that respects the fishing industry’s unique role in New England’s economy and history.”

Opponents are already challenging the move, calling it an illegal use of presidential authority.

“We don’t normally create laws in this country by the stroke of an imperial pen,” says Bob Vanasse, a spokesman for the National Coalition for Fishing Communities.

He adds, “This is not only an end-run around Congress, it’s an end-run around the entire system the Congress created to protect these ocean resources.”

Vanasse says the move will seriously hurt the fishing industry: “We anticipate the offshore lobster industry will be affected to the tune of about $10 million per year. On top of that one of most affected industries is going to be the Atlantic red crab industry. It is going to be very significantly impacted.”

Senior administration officials say to mitigate the financial harm, they’re designating a smaller area than planned, and lobster and red crab fisheries have been given a seven-year grace period before they have to comply.

Jon Williams, president of the Atlantic Red Crab Company in Massachusetts, says his company will survive, but he tells The Associated Press, “It’s a big blow to us.”

Read and listen to the full story at NPR

Will Obama fence off more of the ocean? US fishermen are fearful

September 13, 2016 — American fishermen are deeply fearful that the Obama White House could cut them off as early as this week from major fishing areas of the U.S. continental shelf on both coasts, further restricting one of the most highly regulated fishing industries in the world.

At stake are millions of dollars in fishing revenue and hundreds of jobs — and in some parts of the country, the survival of an embattled way of life that has persisted for centuries but is facing environmentalist pressures unlike anything before — and without  the chance for hearings and legislative back-and-forth that U.S. laws normally require.

“This totally affects us, but we don’t know what’s going on,” one fishing boat owner, who asked to remain anonymous, told Fox News. “We are just out of the loop. No one even wants to say what effect it will have.”

“They are throwing all fishermen under the bus, along with their supporting industries” declared Marty Scanlon, a fishing boat owner and member of a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fisheries advisory panel on highly migratory fish species in the Atlantic. “They’ve done everything they can to put us out of business.”

What the fishermen fear most is the kind of unilateral action by the White House that they have already seen elsewhere. As part of their ongoing environmental ambitions, the Obama administration’s Council on Environmental Quality, and the president himself, are aggressively interested in creating preservation zones that would ban fishing and other activities within large portions of the 200-mile U.S. “exclusive economic zone” of maritime influence, and just as interested in getting other nations to do so, in their own as well as international waters.

That aim, supported by many important environmental groups, is cited as urgently required for protection against diminishing  biodiversity, overfishing and damage to coral and unique underwater geological features — not to mention the fact that with only a few months remaining in his term, the president sees such sweeping gestures as part of his legacy of achievements, and as the boat owner put it, “the window is narrowing” for the administration to act.

As one result, pressure from lobbying campaigns both for and against new declarations of such no-go zones both along the U.S. northeastern Atlantic coast and the coast of California have been mounting.

So has, apparently, behind-the-scenes maneuvering to get influential Democratic legislators to support such new preservation areas publicly — a tough call, since the affected fishermen are also constituents. So far, many of the Democrats are keeping a low profile.

Read the full story at Fox News

National Marine Monument off New England coast?

September 12, 2016 — The third installment of the Our Ocean forum will convene in Washington, D.C., this week and the betting window is open on whether the Obama administration will use the event to announce the designation of new National Marine Monuments.

No one — neither conservationists nor fishing stakeholders — claims to know exactly what will happen when the two-day, international event opens Thursday. But it has not escaped anyone’s attention that the Obama administration has used the same forum in the past to make similar announcements.

[In March], in a victory for fishing stakeholders, the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality removed Cashes Ledge, which sits about 80 miles off of Gloucester, from consideration as a possible site for a new National Marine Monument.

The Obama administration’s decision not to use the Antiquities Act to designate any portion of Cashes Ledge as a monument validated fishing stakeholders and others who characterized the proposal — which originated with the Conservation Law Foundation, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Pew Charitable Trusts — as an end-run around the existing fisheries management system and wholly unnecessary given the existing protections already afforded the area.

Cashes Ledge currently is closed to commercial fishing.

In the wake of that defeat, conservationists redoubled their lobbying efforts, urging Obama to invoke the 1906 Antiquities Act to unilaterally designate a number of potential sites, including canyons and seamounts off southern New England and off the coast of Monterey, California, as Maritime National Monuments.

“All eyes are on the canyons and seamounts,” said Jackie Odell, executive director of the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Late-term Obama, GOP clash over monuments

September 6, 2016 — President Obama likely isn’t finished using his authority to unilaterally protect land and water as national monuments.

Environmentalists are hoping that Obama will continue his string of monument designations in his final months in office, following the footsteps of many of his predecessors who used the end of their presidencies for major land protections.

Conservationists hope Obama will set aside a massive area in the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Cod, a large swath of land in Utah that American Indian tribes believe to be sacred, an area upstream of the Grand Canyon that’s been eyed for uranium mining and a mountain range near El Paso, Texas, among other locations.

With Congress gridlocked and unable to pass major legislation regarding public lands, greens, Democrats and local advocates near the proposed monuments are calling on Obama to keep bypassing Congress to protect land and water areas.

But nearly every proposal to protect an area from various types of harm and development carries opposition from some locals and industries whose activities could be curtailed or stopped.

Republicans also want to stop Obama and repeal the 1906 Antiquities Act, which the president has used to protect lands.

They say Obama is stretching the law with his monument designations to take unilateral action when Congress will not help, like he has on immigration and climate change.

Read the full story at The Hill

A reel honor: Scientists name new fish after Obama

September 6, 2016 — It isn’t exactly a squid pro quo, but scientists are naming a new fish after President Barack Obama partly as a way to say thanks for his decision last month to create a new protected area off the Hawaiian coast.

National Geographic reported Friday that the maroon and gold creature, which was discovered 300 feet deep in the waters off Kure Atoll, is the only known fish to live within Papahānaumokuākea, an expanse of coral reefs and seamounts home to more than 7,000 species.

One looking for the fish’s official name, however, is likely to stay hooked — a formal description of the species isn’t expected to be published until later this year.

Last week, Obama established the largest protected marine sanctuary in the world when he more than quadrupled the size of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument to protect reefs, marine life habitats and other resources. The expansion will add 442,781 square miles to the monument, making it now a total of 582,578 square miles.

Read the full story at CNN

House Water, Power and Oceans Newsletter August 2016

September 6, 2016 — The following was released by the House Committee on Natural Resources’ Subcommittee on Water, Power, and Oceans:

Over the past few months, the House Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans worked towards enhancing water and power supplies, instilling federal transparency and accountability and promoting fishing access in domestic and international waters. In the final months of the 114th Congress, the Subcommittee will continue these efforts through legislative and oversight activities. For additional information about the Subcommittee please visit our website.

PROTECTING FISHING ACCESS

NATIONAL OCEAN POLICY HAS FISHING AND FARMING INTERESTS CONCERNED

The Subcommittee held a May hearing on President Obama’s National Ocean Policy. Following unsuccessful efforts to pass major national ocean policy legislation during three successive Congresses under both Democrat and Republican majorities, the Administration initiated the development of a sweeping multi-agency federal management plan for oceans, which culminated in July 2010 when President Obama issued Executive Order 13547. This Executive Order created the National Ocean Council, which includes the heads of 27 different federal agencies. The National Ocean Policy imposes a new governance structure over agencies to ensure to the fullest extent that all agency actions are consistent with the objectives laid out in the Executive Order, including marine spatial planning and ecosystem-based management.

The Subcommittee heard from witnesses representing fishing interests in the Northeast and Gulf of Mexico and a western farming and ranching witness. The Administration refused to provide a witness for the hearing to help clear up many unanswered questions. Representative Bradley Byrne (R-AL) successfully offered an amendment preventing federal funds from being used to execute actions under the National Ocean Policy to the Fiscal Year 2017 Interior Department appropriations bill.

CHAIRMAN BISHOP VISITS NEW ENGLAND COMMERCIAL FISHERIES PORT

Following the one-year anniversary of the House passage of H.R. 1335, legislation reauthorizing the Magnuson-Stevens Act, House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop spent June 2, 2016 touring one of the Nation’s leading commercial fishing ports in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Accompanied by New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell, Representative Bill Keating, and fishing industry leaders, Bishop spent the day touring the harbor and shore-side facilities that support this robust working waterfront.

Chairman Bishop also participated in a roundtable discussion with dozens of industry representatives at the historic New Bedford Whaling Museum. While the roundtable initially focused on the work of the Committee and efforts to reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the conversation quickly turned to the proposed Marine National Monument off the coast of Massachusetts currently under consideration by President Obama. During the roundtable, industry representatives noted the lack of transparency and presented an industry alternative to the proposal. This alternative mirrors the unified stance taken by state fisheries directors from Maine to Florida outlined in a May 9 letter to President Obama from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

Following this visit, Chairman Rob Bishop penned an op-ed in the Boston Herald discussing the Administration’s Marine National Monument proposal and highlighting the lack of transparency and stakeholder input in the Antiquities Act process. The Chairman’s op-ed can be found here. In response to widespread local opposition to this proposal, Representative Lee Zeldin (R-NY) successfully offered an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2017 Interior Department appropriations bill that prevents federal funds from being used to designate a Marine National Monument in U.S. federal waters (three miles from shore out to 200 miles). This followed the House’s June passage of Zeldin’s H.R. 3070, the “EEZ Zone Clarification and Access Act.” The bill allows recreational striped bass fishing in the Block Island Transit Zone and is the result of grassroots efforts by Long Island fishermen who testified at Natural Resources Committee hearings.

Read the full newsletter at the House Committee on Natural Resources

WPRFMC: Papahanaumokuakea expansion is ‘arbitrary,’ ignores latest science

September 2, 2016 — Using the power given to presidents under the 1906 National Antiquities Act, [President] Obama has now set aside more than twice as much land and water as any president before him. His latest national monument is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in waters near the Hawaiian islands.

The president is quadrupling an area first protected by President George W. Bush 10 years ago. It’s called the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.

Matt Rand, who directs the Global Ocean Legacy Project with the Pew Charitable Trusts, says expanding Papahanaumokuakea keeps [environmental] momentum going in a big way.

“Before President Obama expanded it, it [Papahanaumokuakea] had fallen to the 10th largest marine reserve, which is actually great news,” Rand said. “That means 10 other countries, and 10 other marine reserves, went and one-upped the original Papahanaumokuakea.”

Once again, it’s the largest marine sanctuary in the world.

“Our hope is that President Obama’s bold action now starts another race to protect the ocean,” Rand said.

But that’s sure to be met with stiff resistance from the fishing industry. Paul Dalzell, a senior scientist with the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council in Hawaii, said they’ve set up their own protections to maintain healthy fish populations with things like catch limits. He said the new marine sanctuary is arbitrary and ignores the latest science.

“These environmentalists are going to try to protect something whether that protection is warranted or not,” Dalzell said. “They’re professional advocates, and it’s their job to find something to protect.”

Environmentalists argue that marine sanctuaries can actually help the fishing industry. Setting up marine protections strengthens ecosystems. This, in turn, promotes more productive fisheries outside of protected areas.

Dalzell sees things another way. He said limiting the areas where they traditionally fish will allow foreign fishermen to take away some of their market share.

“How would you like to be told, ‘We’re going to take away 10 percent of your income, but you’re free to go find other work that will make that up?” said Dalzell.

Read the full story at KBIA

Obama In Honolulu: ‘No Nation Is Immune To A Changing Climate’

September 1, 2016 — Climate change and cooperation emerged as key themes Wednesday when President Barack Obama addressed Pacific Island government leaders and others at the East-West Center in Honolulu.

“No nation, not even one as powerful as the United States, is immune to a changing climate,” he said, adding that “there’s no conflict between a healthy economy and a healthy planet.”

“While some members of the U.S. Congress still seem to be debating whether climate change is real or not, you are planning for new places for your people to live,” Obama said. “Crops are withering in the Marshall Islands. Kiribati bought land in another country because theirs may someday be submerged. High seas forced villagers from their homes in Fiji.”

The private speech before the Pacific Islands Conference of Leaders, a group of 20 government officials chaired by Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, came on the eve of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s 10-day event in Honolulu.

More than 9,000 people from 190 countries are coming to what’s been dubbed the “Olympics of Conservation.” It’s the first time that the IUCN’s World Conservation Congress, created in 1948, will meet in the United States — something Obama highlighted in his speech.

Environmental advocates had wanted Obama to speak at the opening ceremony Thursday morning at Blaisdell Center, hoping that’s where he would announce the fourfold expansion of Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

Instead, the president signed the proclamation for the expansion last week.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

Undersea monument plan advocates hear fishermen’s concerns

August 31, 2016 — MYSTIC, Conn. — One hundred and fifty miles east of Cape Cod, a unique undersea landscape of deep canyons and high mountains supports a diverse ecosystem, abundant with colorful corals, fragile sponges, beaked whales, dragonfish and mussels adapted to living in methane hydrate seeps, that is being considered for protection as a National Monument.

Two leading advocates for the designation, which would be given by President Barack Obama under the American Antiquities Act before he leaves office in January, explained why they are lobbying for the designation Tuesday to an audience of both conservation advocates and commercial fishing representatives concerned about losing valuable fishing grounds.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Peter Auster, retired University of Connecticut marine science professor and currently the senior research scientist at the Mystic Aquarium, made their case for declaring the New England Coral Canyons and Seamounts as a Marine National Monument during a program Tuesday evening at the aquarium.

But commercial fishing groups say the designation would cut off their access to productive areas for red crab, swordfish, tuna and offshore lobster harvests, among other species.

“Those areas have been used for hundreds of years,” said Joe Gilbert, owner of Empire Fisheries, which has operations in southeastern Connecticut and elsewhere along Long Island Sound.

He and other fishing representatives argued that if Obama uses the executive authority afforded him in the Antiquities Act to designate the area a monument, the federal and regional fisheries regulatory processes that require public input would be circumvented.

“We feel disenfranchised at this point,” Gilbert said.

Eric Reid of North Kingstown, R.I., who represents commercial fishing interests on the New England Fishery Management Council, said creating the monument would cause “localized economic damage” to the already stressed fishing industry, and advocated for a compromise being recommended by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

Read the full story at The Day