Saving Seafood

Senator Collins Urges Administration to Work to Find Agreement with Canada on Fishing Gray Zone

September 17, 2020 — The following was released by The Office of Senator Susan Collins (R-ME):

U.S. Senator Susan Collins sent a letter to President Trump urging the Administration to work with Maine and Canadian fisheries to find a solution to conservation issues that unfairly harm Maine’s seafood industry.

Lobstermen and fishermen who work in the Gray Zone—an area located approximately ten miles off the coast of Maine between the U.S. and Canada—are growing increasingly frustrated that their Canadian counterparts who fish in the same areas are not required to follow the same regulations, and thus are undermining American protections and threatening the sustainability of the stock.  This disparity undermines American protections, threatens the sustainability of the stocks, and causes dangerous interactions at sea.

“Maine lobstermen and fishermen have been waiting far too long for a resolution to the Gray Zone dispute, and the toll it is taking on their businesses, their safety, and the resources on which their livelihoods depend continues to mount,” wrote Senator Collins.  “I look forward to working with your Administration to address the inequities presented by the Gray Zone in order to protect our seafood harvesters and invaluable natural resources.”

Generations of Maine lobstermen have marked the tails of egg-bearing females they catch with a v-notch and returned them to the water, allowing them to lay eggs, grow larger, and reproduce in future years.  Maine lobstermen also abide by a maximum size limit, tossing back oversized lobsters in order to keep the stock strong.  Because Canada does not impose such conservation measures on its fisheries, a v-notched or oversized lobster tossed back by a Maine lobsterman can be caught by a Canadian lobsterman merely yards away and brought to market.

Read the full release here

Senators seek to preserve Sea Grant program from Trump budget cuts

May 2, 2019 — A group of 25 U.S. Senators signed a letter last week to the leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee urging them to save a federal program they claim has helped the domestic seafood trade and coastal communities.

The letter comes about a month after the Trump Administration released its proposed budget for the 2020 fiscal year. In that spending plan, the administration called for the elimination of the National Sea Grant program from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) budget. The Sea Grant program was one of three NOAA initiatives targeted for elimination.

The others are the Coastal Zone Management Grants and Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund.

“These eliminations would allow NOAA to better target remaining resources to core missions and services,” the administration stated in its budget proposal.

However, the Senators contend the program, which consists of a network of programs based at 33 universities, helps states better manage and utilize their coastal resources.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross Wants NOAA Fisheries to Reduce the Country’s Seafood Trade Deficit

March 22, 2018 — U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross addressed U.S. fisheries regulations and his concern about the quality of seafood imports with the U.S. Congress on Tuesday, 20 March, and he said he’s looking for NOAA Fisheries officials to work harder to reduce the country’s seafood trade deficit.

Ross testified Tuesday 20 March before the House Appropriation Committee’s Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies to discuss the fiscal year 2019 Commerce budget. He did not mention fisheries-related spending in his opening remarks, but he fielded several questions about it from House members during the hearing,

“It’s one of my pet peeves,” Ross said, when asked by U.S. Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Mississippi) what he planned to do to reduce the country’s seafood trade deficit. “I hate the idea that with all the water surrounding us and all the water inland that we have a trade deficit in fish. I’ve been putting a lot of pressure on the fisheries management group at NOAA to try to deal with the situation.”

Estimates indicate the seafood trade deficit to be about USD 14 billion (EUR 11.4 billion) last year, as the U.S. imports more than 90 percent of the products consumed by the public.

Ross said reducing the deficit needs a two-prong strategy. He said he wants to see the U.S. push for “maximum sustainable catch” from its fisheries while also placing a more critical eye on seafood produced from foreign farms.

“I think there’s some potential that some of the constraints we had on fresh catch here maybe need to be relaxed a little bit,” he said. “I think it’s easy to be a little bit overzealous and therefore hold down the production of fish. Second, I believe there are some inappropriate practices in some of the foreign countries in their aquaculture. It seems to me that we should be very careful about importing seafood from places that do not adhere to the same standards we would have for aquaculture here in the U.S.”

The FY2019 Commerce budget request includes USD 837.3 million (EUR 679.8 million) for NOAA Fisheries. That’s down nearly USD 8 million (EUR 6.5 million) from the FY2018 request of USD 845.1 million (EUR 686.3 million).

One of the programs again cut from the budget was the National Sea Grant Program, which oversees more than 30 programs tied to U.S. colleges. The programs act like agriculture cooperative extensions for marine industry and environmental research.

Read the full story at Seafood Source