Saving Seafood

GOP aims to change Endangered Species Act

January 17, 2017 — BILLINGS, Mont. — In control of Congress and soon the White House, Republicans are readying plans to roll back the influence of the Endangered Species Act, one of the government’s most powerful conservation tools, after decades of complaints that it hinders drilling, logging and other activities.

Over the past eight years, GOP lawmakers sponsored dozens of measures aimed at curtailing the landmark law or putting species such as gray wolves and sage grouse out of its reach. Almost all were blocked by Democrats and the White House or lawsuits from environmentalists.

Now, with the ascension of President-elect Donald Trump, Republicans see an opportunity to advance broad changes to a law they contend has been exploited by wildlife advocates to block economic development.

“It has never been used for the rehabilitation of species. It’s been used for control of the land,” said House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop. “We’ve missed the entire purpose of the Endangered Species Act. It has been hijacked.”

Bishop said he “would love to invalidate” the law and would need other lawmakers’ cooperation.

The 1973 act was ushered though Congress nearly unanimously, in part to stave off extinction of the national symbol, the bald eagle. Eagle populations have since rebounded, and the birds were taken off the threatened and endangered list in 2007.

In the eagles’ place, another emblematic species — the wolf — has emerged as a prime example of what critics say is wrong with the current law: seemingly endless litigation that offers federal protection for species long after government biologists conclude that they have recovered.

Wolf attacks on livestock have provoked hostility against the law, which keeps the animals off-limits to hunting in most states. Other species have attracted similar ire — Canada lynx for halting logging projects, the lesser prairie chicken for impeding oil and gas development and salmon for blocking efforts to reallocate water in California.

Reforms proposed by Republicans include placing limits on lawsuits that have been used to maintain protections for some species and force decisions on others, as well as adopting a cap on how many species can be protected and giving states a greater say in the process.

Wildlife advocates are bracing for changes that could make it harder to add species to the protected list and to usher them through to recovery. Dozens are due for decisions this year, including the Pacific walrus and the North American wolverine, two victims of potential habitat loss due to climate change.

“Any species that gets in the way of a congressional initiative or some kind of development will be clearly at risk,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, president of Defenders of Wildlife and a former Fish and Wildlife Service director under President Bill Clinton. “The political lineup is as unfavorable to the Endangered Species Act as I can remember.”

More than 1,600 plants and animals in the U.S. are now shielded by the law. Hundreds more are under consideration for protections. Republicans complain that fewer than 70 have recovered and had protections lifted.

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

LOUISIANA: Charlie Melancon continues battle with Garret Graves’ bill

October 6, 2016 — Controversy continues to swirl around Charlie Melancon and his state agency’s position on regional management of red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico.

The latest for Gov. John Bel Edwards’ appointed top man in the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries comes from a Sept. 15 letter Melancon penned to Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, the standing chairman of the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee.

In the missive, Melancon continued to decry HR 3094, a bill introduced by Rep. Garret Graves, R-Louisiana, that would hand recreational red snapper management in the Gulf of Mexico to the five Gulf states.

Melancon continued to state his objections to the bill, the same ones he and his staff offered in July, and continued to indicate that Bishop’s amendment passed with HR 3094 would put the onus of data collection on the states despite Bishop’s letter to the LDWF that his amendment did not indicate the states would have to assume the costs of data collection.

Read the full story at The Advocate

LOUISIANA: LDWF snapper-management cost estimate undermined

September 13, 2016 — The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries’ contention that state-run management of red snapper would cost more than $10 million in its first year alone was undermined Wednesday when Congressional officials confirmed the federal government would still pay for stock assessments and research efforts in the Gulf of Mexico — absorbing most of the LDWF cost estimate.

The news came during LDWF’s “Red Snapper Education Day” that featured speakers hand-picked by the department to inform members of the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission and the general public on the status of the snapper fishery.

The department, led by Secretary Charlie Melancon, has come under fire from recreational anglers since midsummer for opposing H.R. 3094, which would remove management of Gulf red snapper from the federal government and award it to the Gulf States Red Snapper Management Authority, a group comprised of representatives from each of the five states.

Congressman Garret Graves (R-Baton Rouge) sponsored the bill.

Recreational anglers — who received an 11-day federal snapper season in the Gulf this summer — have long complained the federal system is highly-politicized, mismanaged and favors commercial fishermen.

The prior LDWF administration labored for years to strip management from the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, and worked closely with Graves as the bill made its way through the Congressional process.

Melancon contended in June that an amendment offered by U.S. House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) to eliminate from the bill federal funding of state management was a “poison pill” designed to kill the legislation in Washington, D.C.

Read the full story at Louisiana Sportsman

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

Rep. Rob Bishop blasts Obama’s marine monument

August 29, 2016 — President Obama’s decision to expand a national monument off the coast of Hawaii will cause “great harm” to local industry and fisheries and is an abuse of power, said the Republican head of the House Natural Resources Committee.

“The sweeping size of this expansion is unjustified,” said committee Chairman Rob Bishop of Utah. “It will impose great harm to a critical local industry.”

The president expanded the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument by 442,781 square miles on Friday, one day after the 100th birthday of the National Park Service. Bishop called it an abuse of the Antiquities Act by barring native Hawaiians from providing “meaningful input.” He said the president’s “legacy may be intact,” but it comes at “the expense of local fisheries, cultural traditions and state rights.”

Read the full story at the Washington Examiner

Obama’s Environmental Legacy: Some 24 National Monuments

August 15, 2016 — The race is on to win President Barack Obama’s attention as he puts some final touches on his environmental legacy.

Conservation groups, American Indian tribes and federal lawmakers are urging his administration to preserve millions of acres as national monuments. Such a designation often prevents new drilling and mining on public lands, or the construction of new roads and utility lines.

The flurry of activity is creating enthusiasm — and tensions — in several parts of the country.

Efforts are underway in Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Maine and elsewhere to get Obama to designate new national monuments. Proponents aren’t just focused on land. They’re also looking to greater protections for vast swaths of ocean bottom off the coasts of New England, California and Hawaii.

Proponents of the various monument proposals know that the next administration will have other immediate priorities. Some presidents, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, never exercised their powers to designate national monuments through the 1906 Antiquities Act. The proponents recognize the window of opportunity could be closing for several years.

They’re also aware that Obama’s immediate predecessors, Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, waited almost exclusively until their final months in office to designate national monuments, so there is a chance Obama will become even more active.

That’s disconcerting for many members in Congress, particularly Republicans, who say the Antiquities Act wasn’t designed to bolster a president’s legacy.

“Presidents are starting to abuse this authority as they leave the office. If they actually tried to do this on the first day so that Congress had some ability to respond to it, and the people did, I’d be more comfortable about what their motives are,” said GOP Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at ABC News

U.S. House Makes Strong Statement Against Marine Monument

July 14, 2016 — The following was released by the National Coalition for Fishing Communities:

WASHINGTON (NCFC) — The U.S. House of Representatives made a strong statement against the declaration of marine monuments last night, passing an amendment offered by Congressman Lee Zeldin (R-New York) to bar funding for the designation of any National Marine Monuments by the President.  The amendment to H.R. 5538, the Fiscal Year 2017 Interior and Environment Appropriations bill, passed the House by a vote of 225-202. Congressman Zeldin represents a coastal district and the fishing hub of eastern Long Island, N.Y.

Yesterday, National Coalition for Fishing Communities (NCFC) members the Garden State Seafood Association (NJ), the Red Crab Harvesters Association (MA), the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, and Blue Water Fisheries Inc. (NY) asked fellow NCFC members to reach out to their representatives to support the amendment. The Montauk Tilefish Association (NY) and the Monkfish Defense Fund joined them in calling for support for the amendment.

Mr. Zeldin explained that he offered the amendment to keep commercial fishermen from losing access to important fishing areas through Marine Monument Designations. Opposition to the amendment was led by Congresswoman Niki Tsongas (D-Massachusetts) and Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-Maine).

“As we heard at a field hearing in Riverhead, New York, unilateral marine monument designations override the current public process of established fisheries management and threatens the livelihood of the U.S. fishing industry,” said House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah).

“Congressman Zeldin’s amendment brings us one step closer to protecting local economies while safeguarding local input in management decisions,” Chairman Bishop continued. “Many Presidents—but not all—have used the Antiquities Act, but they use it sparingly. Only a few Administrations, including this one, have abused the Act. President Obama has a long history of abusing the Antiquities Act, locking up land and water with the stroke of a pen.”

“We applaud Congressman Zeldin for his leadership on protecting fishermen both in his district here on Long Island, and across America,” said Bonnie Brady of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association.

Marine Monuments are large areas of ocean where commercial fishing would be banned without consulting the local community, fishermen, or regional fishery managers. Mr. Zeldin’s amendment mandates that, “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to declare a national monument under section 320301 of title 54, United States Code, in the exclusive economic zone of the United States established by Proclamation Numbered 5030, dated March 10, 1983.”

The bill now goes to the U.S. Senate. Any differences between the House and Senate bills must be worked out between the two bodies, and a final bill is expected to be passed by both chambers before Sept. 30. Should the amendment survive the conference process, it will complicate the Obama Administration’s ability to act. While it would not stop a declaration, it would not allow funds to be spent to implement a declaration.

In 2014, President Obama declared a 407,000 square mile National Marine Monument in the Pacific Ocean where commercial fishing was banned and recreational fishing was severely limited.

Now important fishing areas in the Northwest Atlantic, on the West Coast, and in Alaska, where fishermen have worked for centuries, are under consideration for Monument designations with little public input and no transparency.

In a letter to House colleagues, Mr. Zeldin stated that there is an emerging national consensus that “any efforts to create marine protected areas in the EEZ must be done through the transparent and consultative process laid out by the landmark Magnuson-Stevens fishery conservation law. No one is more invested in protecting America’s waters from overfishing than the hardworking families who rely upon fishing for their livelihoods.”

ERIC REID: Work on marine monument not done yet

July 5, 2016 — In June, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop, a Republican U.S. Rep. Utah, visited New Bedford and spoke to several members of the industry regarding their concerns about a potential marine monument off the coast of New England. Following the meeting, I remarked to The Standard-Times reporter that a monument could potentially cost the industry up to $500 million in economy activity, in addition to countless jobs.

This estimate has been criticized for being far too high. But it is based on two premises — a conservative estimate of the economic impact of fishing in New England, and the lack of clarity surrounding the marine monument discussion.

Currently, the commercial fishing industry from Maine to New Jersey brings in an estimated $1.4 billion per year in landings. These landings support hundreds of millions of dollars more in economic activity for related and shoreside businesses, and employ tens of thousands of people up and down the coast.

Because no one in the Obama administration’s Council on Environmental Quality has put forward an actual, concrete proposal of what an Atlantic monument might look like, the industry considers all of this to be potentially at risk.

Read the full opinion piece at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Rep. Rob Bishop: Antiquities Act abuse heads East

June 27, 2016 — The following is excerpted from an opinion piece by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, published Saturday by the Boston Herald. Rep. Bishop visited New Bedford, Mass., earlier this month, where he met with Mayor Jon Mitchell, Rep. Bill Keating (D-MA), and representatives of the local commercial fishing industry. He also toured a local scallop vessel, the New Bedford harbor, the Fairhaven Shipyard, and a scallop processing company.

Some say cultural trends start on the West Coast and make their way East, but one trend moving eastward is bad news for New Englanders.

In my home state of Utah, the federal government owns 65 percent of the land. That is a problem. In the waning days of his administration, President Clinton compounded the problem by mandating the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. With virtually no local support, he locked up 1.7 million acres of Utah, an area larger than some states.

This monument designation was an abuse of the Antiquities Act. Passed in 1906, the Antiquities Act was originally intended for presidents to quickly prevent looting of archaeological sites. The executive power exercised under the Antiquities Act has grown far beyond the original purpose.

Now [President Obama] has his sights set on New England fisheries off the coast of Cape Cod.

Earlier this month I traveled to New Bedford, the highest-grossing commercial fishing port in our country. I spoke with local seafood workers about a potential marine monument designation off the coast. Such a designation would override the current public process of established fisheries management and could be catastrophic to the 1.8 million-plus jobs that fishing creates.

Fishing leaders expressed concern over restricted access, potential job loss, and the damage to the local fishing industry that would obviously follow a marine monument designation. Instead, they want a better public process created under the House-passed Magnuson-Stevens Act, still pending renewal in the Senate.

Read the full opinion piece at the Boston Herald

Governor of Louisiana opposes red snapper legislation transferring oversight

June 23, 2016 — Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards and the state’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries published an open letter on Wednesday, 22 June stating their opposition to legislation proposed by U.S. Rep. Garret Graves (R-Louisiana) that would transfer oversight over of the Gulf of Mexico’s red snapper fishery from the federal government to those of the Gulf states.

In his letter, the governor said the legislation, H.R. 3094, would not provide funding to allow the state to responsibly manage the fishery.

“H.R. 3094, as recently amended by Congressman Bishop, would not transfer any federal funding to the states to conduct necessary stock assessments, research, data collection, or enforcement. Without federal funding, Louisiana could potentially lack the proper resources to manage the red snapper fishery,” the governor wrote.

“H.R. 3094 would not be a viable option for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. It would be fiscally irresponsible for the department to support any mandate that would result in an unknown amount of fiscal burden placed on the State of Louisiana for the management of a single species of fish,” the statement continued. “As a department, we are charged with managing our fisheries resources for optimum yield; the same applies to our fiscal resources.”

Gov. Edwards, a Democrat, said in his letter that he understood that “some of our user groups are frustrated with the current federal management of red snapper under the authority of NOAA Fisheries and the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council.”

Ewards said his administration remained, “committed to working with NOAA Fisheries, the Council and its members, and all interested stakeholders to ensure optimum utilization of and fair and equitable access to the red snapper resource.”

“The Department’s goal is to begin a collaborative dialogue with our state and federal partners to find a durable solution to these issues concerning management of the red snapper resource for the public good,” he wrote.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource