Saving Seafood

New Maine governor Mills renominates Keliher for state fishing commissioner

January 7, 2019 — The commercial fishing industry, including lobster harvesters, in the US state of Maine, got one of their holiday presents delivered a bit late. Newly elected governor Janet Mills, a Democrat, announced Thursday that she has renominated Patrick Keliher as commissioner of the Department of Marine Resources, the Portland (Maine) Press Herald reports.

Keliher was appointed to the post in 2011 by Republican governor Paul LePage and was not a sure bet to retain the position, though he has received significant industry support. The leaders of eight commercial fishing groups in the US’ second-largest seafood state wrote Mills in late November to express their support for his retention.

Mills has been filling out her cabinet in recent days, but saved the Keliher news to near the end. His name was included in an announcement that also noted the renominations of Ann Head as commissioner of Professional and Financial Regulation, and Maj. Gen. Douglas Farnham as commissioner of Defense, Veterans and Emergency Management.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Bill to require Maine institutions to buy local foods becomes law

July 12, 2018 — BATH, Maine — One of the few bills spared Gov. Paul LePage’s veto pen in the recent legislative session will require state institutions to purchase 20 percent of their food and food products from local producers by 2025.

The program applies to all state institutions except local schools.

“A strong local food economy has long supported Maine’s coastal and rural communities,” said Sen. Eloise Vitelli, D-Arrowsic, the author of L.D. 1584. “By supporting our local fisheries and farms now, we are making long-term investments in the future of these vital industries. I am so pleased to see this bill become law so local farms and fisheries can continue to power our state for generations to come.”

It became law on July 4, after the governor failed to sign it or veto it.

Vitelli said she was inspired to submit the bill by farmers at her local farmers’ market, who told her they needed more people buying their products. Robin Chase of Chase Farm and Bakery is the market manager for the Bath Farmers’ Market, where many local food producers gather to sell their produce. Although unlikely to benefit from the new program since she runs a bakery, Chase was optimistic that it would help other local producers.

“I think it could use more customers,” Chase said. “There’s certainly enough farms in every town in the state of Maine that could provide (state institutions) with local foods. Definitely it would be something to do.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

 

Interior secretary: ‘Opposition’ to offshore drill plan

April 9, 2018 — PLAINSBORO, N.J. — Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Friday acknowledged there is “a lot of opposition” to President Donald Trump’s plan to open most of the nation’s coastline to oil and gas drilling.

Speaking at a forum on offshore wind energy in Plainsboro, New Jersey, Zinke touted Trump’s “all of the above” energy menu that calls for oil and gas, as well as renewable energy projects.

But he noted strong opposition to the drilling plan, adding there is little to no infrastructure in many of those areas to support drilling.

“There is a lot of opposition, particularly off the East Coast and the West Coast, on oil and gas,” Zinke said.

He said on the East Coast, only the Republican governors of Maine and Georgia have expressed support for the drilling plan, which has roiled environmentalists but cheered energy interests. Maine Gov. Paul LePage has endorsed the plan, but Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has hesitated to take a public position on it.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Washington Post

Maine: 2017 commercial fishing landings are fourth highest ever

March 2, 2018 — AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine commercial fishermen once again landed more than a half-billion dollars worth of marine resources in 2017.

At $569,173,089, the total value stands as the fourth highest ever and marks only the sixth time that Maine harvesters have surpassed $500 million.

“Maine’s commercial harvesters have again established our state as a leader in the sustainable, responsible management of marine resources,” said Governor Paul R. LePage. “Not only do they contribute greatly to our state’s economy, they consistently deliver the best seafood in the world.”

Lobster landings in 2017 were the sixth highest on record at 110,819,760 pounds, despite declining by 16 percent from 2016. Value also dropped from $4.08 a pound in 2016 to $3.91 a pound for an overall value of $433,789,855, which still represented the fourth highest landed value for Maine’s iconic fishery. When accounting for bonuses paid to harvesters by 15 of 20 co-ops, the overall landed value of lobster was $450,799,283.

According to National Marine Fisheries Service data, American lobster was the species of highest landed value in the United States in 2015 and 2016, and Maine’s landings accounted for approximately 80 percent of that landed value in 2016.

Herring, the primary bait source for the lobster industry, again represented the second most valuable commercial fishery at $17,993,786 on the strength of a record per-pound price of 27 cents. Harvesters landed 66,453,073 pounds, most of which was harvested from the in-shore Gulf of Maine area known as Area 1A.

Despite a drop of nearly 4 million pounds landed and a dip of $3.8 million in value, Maine’s softshell clam industry remained the third most valuable commercial fishery at $12,363,328.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American 

 

Opponents, supporters react to Trump’s offshore drilling plan

February 6, 2018 — Environmentalists, fishermen, and state governments are signaling their opposition to the Trump administration’s proposed plan to reopen the ocean off Cape Cod and New England to oil and gas exploration.

“We are skeptical of anything the Trump Administration is doing in the marine environment or anything they are proposing to do,” said Conservation Law Foundation Vice President Priscilla Brooks.

A 2016 Bureau of Ocean Energy Management report estimated nearly 90 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 327 trillion tons of natural gas existed in mostly unexplored areas of the U.S. continental shelf. The new push for fossil fuel exploration and recovery was announced Jan. 4 with the unveiling of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s Draft Five Year Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program. It is part of President Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to make the U.S. more energy independent.

Currently, offshore fossil fuel exploration is controlled by a BOEM plan finalized near the end of the Obama presidency. Obama invoked a 1953 law, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, to give what he said would be permanent protection from drilling to the continental shelf from Virginia to Maine.

But there were doubts that Obama’s use of the 1953 law would hold up in court, and the new plan is meant to replace the current one. International Association of Drilling Contractors President Jason McFarland hailed the inclusion of the Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic and an expansion of Gulf of Mexico drilling areas as an important step in achieving the goal of U.S. energy dominance in the world.

“IADC has long argued for access to areas that hold potential for oil and gas development,” McFarland wrote in comments last month, citing a U.S. Energy Information Administration estimate of a 48 percent growth in worldwide energy demand over the next 20 years. “The number and scale of the recoverable resources is large, and can lead to thousands of new jobs and billions of dollars in investment.”

But the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association and the various fishermen’s associations have panned the proposal. Last week, the New England Fishery Management Council approved a comment letter to BOEM that requested Mid-Atlantic and Northern Atlantic lease areas be excluded from the exploration and drilling.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

 

Trump has proposed offshore drilling in the Atlantic. Here’s what it means for N.J.

January 24, 2018 — When President Trump’s administration announced plans earlier this month to reconsider drilling off the Atlantic coast, officials and community leaders up and down the Jersey Shore began digging in for a fight they thought they’d won in 2016. Here are the basic facts behind the plan and the reasons why so many groups are against the proposal.

Trump’s plan: Drill baby drill

Trump’s Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke proposed opening nearly all federal waters to offshore drilling. The federal waters would be divided into sections and then the leases to those sections would be auctioned off to oil companies. Under the proposal, 25 of the government’s 26 planning areas would be opened up for 47 potential lease sales.

New Jersey would be part of the North Atlantic section, and leases for areas off the Jersey Shore would be auctioned off in 2021 and 2023.

“Responsibly developing our energy resources on the Outer Continental Shelf in a safe and well-regulated way is important to our economy and energy security, and it provides billions of dollars to fund the conservation of our coastlines, public lands and parks,” Zinke said in a press release announcing the plan.

Who supports this plan?

Only one governor on the Atlantic Coast — Paul LePage of Maine, pictured above — has expressed approval of the plan. The Maine governor has said that he supports the plan because he believes it will bring jobs to his state and lower energy costs for Maine residents.

In a December 2013 report, the American Petroleum Institute — a group that advocates for the expansion of oil and natural development nationwide — estimated that offshore drilling could bring more than 8,000 jobs to New Jersey and bring in $515 million in revenue for the state government.

Uncertain potential for profit

Oil and gas companies could stand to profit from drilling off the Jersey Shore, but only if they find enough oil out there.

The last offshore exploration near the Garden State was in the 1970s and 1980s, when companies like Texaco and Tenneco drilled wells near the Hudson Canyon, a little less than 100 miles east of Atlantic City.

According to reports filed with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the exploration found no significant oil deposits and small amounts of natural gas reserves.

Has there been drilling off of the shore before?

Technically yes, but the exploratory drilling of the 1970s and 1980s was the farthest that the process has ever gotten. No lease sales have occurred in the Atlantic since 1983.

In 2017, a BOEM assessment estimated that the Atlantic contained an between 1.15 billion and 9.19 billion barrels of oil, a fraction of the estimated 76.69 billion to 105.59 billions barrels throughout all federal waters. According to the same assessment, the North Atlantic is estimated to hold between 0.06 billion and 5.11 billion barrels.

Read the full story at the NJ.com

 

Maine’s congressional delegation unites against drilling off New England coast

January 12, 2018 — U.S. Reps. Bruce Poliquin and Chellie Pingree of Maine are among the co-sponsors of a bill that would prohibit gas drilling off the coast of New England.

Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King on Thursday signed on to a similar measure introduced in the Senate.

The House bill, which is also supported by representatives from New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut, comes in response to a plan announced by President Donald Trump’s administration last week to expand drilling in U.S. coastal waters.

“I am opposed to oil drilling off the coast of our state of Maine,” said Poliquin in a written statement. “So much of our state’s economy and tens of thousands of Maine jobs along our coast depend on our marine and tourism industries. I am committed to protecting Maine’s unique natural resources.”

Pingree has also vowed to fight the president’s policy.

“President Trump’s offshore drilling plan is unprecedented and will face major opposition from Mainers,” Pingree said in a statement last week.

The House bill was introduced Thursday with Rep. David N. Cicilline, R-Rhode Island, as the lead sponsor. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King have also announced their opposition to Trump’s plan and wrote a letter to that effect to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke earlier this week.

“With our environment so closely tied to the vitality of Maine’s economy, we cannot risk the health of our ocean on a shortsighted proposal that could impact Maine people for generations,” Collins and King said in a joint statement.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

 

Senators from 12 states seek offshore drilling exemptions like Florida’s

January 12, 2018 — WASHINGTON — Twenty-two Democratic U.S. senators from 12 states on Thursday joined the chorus of local representatives seeking exemptions from Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s newly proposed offshore drilling plan, after his surprise move on Tuesday to shield Florida.

Zinke surprised lawmakers, governors, and industry groups on Tuesday night by announcing that Florida would be removed from the Interior Department’s proposal to open up over 90 percent of federal waters to oil and gas leasing.

Zinke had met in Tallahasee, Florida’s capital, with Republican Governor Rick Scott, who told the Interior chief that drilling puts his state’s coastal tourism economy at risk. Scott is widely expected to challenge Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, who is up for re-election this year.

The White House dismissed suggestions that Florida’s exemption was a political favor to Scott. “I am not aware of any political favor that that would have been part of,” spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters.

“Just like Florida, our states are unique with vibrant coastal economies,” wrote the 22 senators, who include Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California. “Providing all of our states with the same exemption from dangerous offshore oil and gas drilling would ensure that vital industries from tourism to recreation to fishing are not needlessly placed in harm’s way,” they wrote.

Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift said Zinke intends to meet with every coastal governor affected by the agency’s proposed offshore drilling plan, a process that could take a year.

Democrats are not alone in pressuring Zinke to exempt their states from drilling. South Carolina’s Republican Governor Henry McMaster asked Zinke for an exemption, citing the value of his state’s coastal tourist economy.

Read the full story at Reuters

 

Portland Press Herald: Offshore drilling threatens important Maine industries

January 12, 2018 — The Trump administration Tuesday removed the waters off Florida – and only Florida – from the list of areas newly open to offshore drilling, and in doing so made a compelling case that the Maine coast should be removed as well.

After opposition from Republican Gov. Rick Scott, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said Florida would not be part of a plan to make more than 90 percent of the outer continental shelf available by lease to energy extraction companies. Florida, Zinke said, was “unique,” with its coasts “heavily reliant on tourism as an economic driver.”

Sound familiar?

Not only is Maine’s $6 billion-a-year tourism industry largely dependent on a clean and picturesque coastline, so too is the $1.7 billion-a-year lobster industry. Together, they have an economic impact far greater than the fossil fuel industry ever could here.

It should go without saying that a spill on par with the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, which pumped 215 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, causing $17 billion in damages and effects on wildlife and coastal areas that are still seen today, would be catastrophic for the state. But even routine seismic testing and the everyday extraction of oil and gas could affect the fishery and degrade the coastline.

Read the full editorial at the Portland Press Herald

 

Coastal governors oppose Trump’s offshore drilling plan

January 5, 2018 — Governors along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts are opposing the Trump administration’s proposal to open almost all U.S. waters to oil and natural gas drilling.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced Thursday a draft proposal that would allow offshore drilling for crude oil and natural gas on the Atlantic Coast and in the Arctic, reversing the Obama’s administration’s block in those areas. It also permits drilling along the Pacific Coast as well as more possibilities in the Gulf of Mexico. Under the plan, spanning the years 2019 to 2024, more than 90 percent of the total acres on the Outer Continental Shelf would be made available for leasing.

Zinke said the Interior Department has identified 47 potential lease sales, including seven in the Pacific and nine off the Atlantic coast. That would mark a dramatic shift in policy, not just from the Obama era. The last offshore lease sale for the East Coast was in 1983 and for the West Coast in 1984.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican and ally of President Trump, quickly said no thanks to Zinke’s plan, citing drilling as a threat to the state’s tourism industry.

Read the full story at the Washington Examiner