Rob Bishop Archives - Page 8 of 8

Chairman Rob Bishop Named Conservationist of the Year

June 6, 2016 — Last week, on the same day Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, was touring New Bedford to see for himself the dramatic impact a potential marine monument would have on New England’s fishing industry, it was announced by the Center for Coastal Conservation that he was the 2016 recipient of the Conservationist of the Year award.

In a statement accompanying the award, Center for Coastal Conservation President Jeff Angers lauded Rep. Bishop for his leadership of the House Natural Resources Committee and his recognition of the economic impact of the recreational fishing industry:

U.S. Representative Rob Bishop (R-Utah) was named the Conservationist of the Year for championing policies promoting healthy fish and wildlife populations and access to America’s public lands and waters. Center for Coastal Conservation President Jeff Angers presented Congressman Bishop with the award at the joint gathering of the American Boating Congress and Center Focus on Washington.

Congressman Bishop has served as the Chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources since 2015 and has been a steadfast ally to America’s sportsmen. His leadership was instrumental in the House passage of H.R. 1335, the Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act. Due in large part to Chairman Bishop’s leadership, H.R. 1335 includes several amendments to the Magnuson Stevens Act (MSA) to better manage recreational fisheries. The measure awaits action in the Senate. In addition, Chairman Bishop helped usher through the House the Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act, H.R. 2406, which will enhance fishing opportunities on federal lands and waters and protect anglers from unnecessary restrictions.

Hundreds of marine recreational fishing and boating industry representatives and conservation leaders converged at the annual event, which included remarks from political pundits Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D- R.I.), Congressmen Garret Graves (R-La.), Patrick Murphy (D-Fla.) and Austin Scott (R-Ga.), among others.

“Chairman Bishop has taken the time to recognize the significant social, economic and conservation benefits that recreational fishing provides to the nation, a quality that has made him an invaluable partner on Capitol Hill,” said Angers. “Congressman Bishop fully appreciates that saltwater recreational fishing generates over $61 billion in annual sales and has a major economic impact that expands beyond our nation’s coastal communities. Almost 500,000 jobs across America – particularly in the manufacturing and retail sectors – are tied to our industry. These jobs are in jeopardy unless we fix our nation’s broken federal marine fisheries management system.”

Read the full statement from the Center for Coastal Conservation

New Bedford Standard-Times: Cooperation pushes fishery advocacy to next level

June 6, 2016 — Last Thursday, House Natural Resources Committee Chair Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) joined Rep. Bill Keating (D-MA) and Mayor Jon Mitchell in New Bedford, Mass., to discuss issues relevant to the local seafood and fishing industries. The National Coalition for Fishing Communities (NCFC), which helped organize Rep. Bishop’s visit, hopes to continue working with the Natural Resources Committee and its staff to arrange bipartisan visits to all the seaports where NCFC members conduct their business.The following editorial about Rep. Bishop and Rep. Keating’s visit to New Bedford was published yesterday by the New Bedford Standard-Times:

Geography is both a blessing and a curse for commercial fishermen in the U.S. They have access to rich fishing grounds along thousands of miles of seacoast, but the distance between the fish they catch and the American consumer prevents a full understanding of the lives of fishing communities.

The visit to New Bedford’s waterfront Thursday by the chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, was more than a step in the right direction, it’s proof of treading the right path. The committee is responsible for ocean issues, including the current reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

City support

The National Coalition for Fishing Communities was formed with city-directed grant money, and the Harbor Development Commission’s membership in the coalition emphatically states the city’s commitment and leadership. Their advocacy is often first to be heard, which means they’ll wait longest for remedy.

Advocacy

Saving Seafood’s years of advocacy in Washington on behalf of the Port of New Bedford and the East Coast has enabled the creation of the coalition. More than two dozen municipalities, businesses, and associations from around the country are represented: Alaska, Hawaii, West Coast, Gulf Coast and East coast. Members from Rhode Island, Long Island, New Jersey and around New England had their voices heard by the chairman on Thursday. An industry with such diversity had its voice heard on national issues and discovered new resources to address local issues more effectively.

The coalition’s website says: “We are committed to the tenets of National Standard Eight of the Magnuson-Stevens Act,” which is summed up in the balancing of the sustainability of both the ocean environment and the fishing community. For the record, The Standard-Times is similarly committed.

Good government

There seems little good to be done recounting the sins of either fishermen or government agents, but it is instructive when considering the case of an alternative for the monument designation proposed to protect corals in fishing grounds south of Cape Cod. Industry representatives cooperated at the White House Executive Office level, the Council on Environmental Quality, to produce an alternative that satisfies preservation and fishing goals alike.

In addition, the CEQ’s counsel can influence how frequently deference might be claimed by regulators, nudging court decisions more in line with the statutory balancing act of National Standard 8.

The chairman’s visit to New Bedford is a recognition that there remain injustices and inequities in the administration of Magnuson-Stevens; reaching out leads to better decisions.

Bipartisanship

Chairman Bishop’s congressional district in Utah borders on the Great Salt Lake, which sees millions of pounds of brine shrimp eggs landed each year. The industry can move more than a billion dollars through the economy annually, but its fortunes are fickle. The lake’s changing salinity affects shrimp reproduction, which can shut the season down if severe enough.

The chairman may have seen the workers in his district reflected in those at the display auction in New Bedford on Thursday, icing down Gulf of Maine flounder. Or at Northern Wind, where workers use machines to process vast amounts of scallops, the port’s signature harvest.

The only “politics” surrounding the chairman’s visit was of the traditional variety: How can we get the people’s business done? New Bedford’s Democratic U.S. Rep. Bill Keating could readily see eye to eye on the issues of fishing communities as they toured the New Bedford waterfront together.

Managing ocean resources may never be easy, but cooperation is what gets the people’s business done, moving toward National Standard 8’s goal of a sustainable balance between humanity and the environment.

Read the editorial at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Congressman Rob Bishop Named Conservationist of the Year

June 3, 2016 — WASHINGTON — U.S. Representative Rob Bishop (R-Utah) was named the Conservationist of the Year for championing policies promoting healthy fish and wildlife populations and access to America’s public lands and waters. Center for Coastal Conservation President Jeff Angers presented Congressman Bishop with the award at the joint gathering of the American Boating Congress and Center Focus on Washington.

Read the full release at The Outdoor Wire

Federal Legislators Tour New Bedford Fisheries, Discuss At-Sea Monitoring

Rep. Bill Keating (left) and Rep. Rob Bishop (right) discuss at-sea monitoring in a visit to New Bedford on Thursday, June 2. (Photo: House Natural Resources Committee)

June 3, 2016 — The following is excerpted from a story published yesterday by WBSM:

The City of New Bedford welcomed a possible congressional ally for the fishing industry Thursday to tour fisheries along the harbor.

Congressman Rob Bishop (R-UT) took a tour of the Whaling City Seafood Auction and seafood processing plant Northern Wind along with Congressman Bill Keating (D-MA), New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell and representatives of the local seafood industry.

Elected officials and members of the fishing industry have expressed grave concern over the federally mandated costs by NOAA for at-sea monitors aboard select fishing vessels across the east coast.

Keating said it’s difficult for legislators outside maritime districts to fully understand the impact of the at-sea monitoring costs.

“It creates a greater challenge to get the understanding why this is so important,” said Keating. “The cost of monitoring $800 a day could be enough to be the difference between success and failure of a small business.”

Read the full story at WBSM

Seafood Industry Airs Views During Congressman’s Visit to New Bedford Waterfront

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell (left) and Rep. Rob Bishop (right) discuss fishing issues in New Bedford on Thursday, June 2. (Photo: House Natural Resources Committee)

June 3, 2016 — The following is excerpted from a story published today by the New Bedford Standard-Times:

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — A congressman from the Mountain West got a full dose of a New England coast Thursday, as seafood and fishing industry representatives aired their views on several contentious issues — including the ongoing marine monument debate — during a whirlwind tour of New Bedford’s waterfront.

U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, a Utah Republican and chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, visited the city to get a firsthand look at the highest-value commercial fishing port in the country. Numerous industry leaders from across the region took the opportunity to speak to the committee chairman, particularly about the push for monument status in the New England Canyons and Seamounts, about 100 miles southeast of Cape Cod.

Eric Reid, a general manager with Rhode Island frozen fish business Seafreeze, told Bishop during a noontime forum at the New Bedford Whaling Museum that economic impacts from monument status, which would restrict commercial fishing, could cost $500 million and “countless jobs.”

Reid unfurled a map of ocean waters on a Whaling Museum table and pointed out to Bishop where he felt commercial fishing businesses could, and could not, survive if a monument status was put in place. Reid suggested a line of demarcation in the Canyons and Seamounts area, where bottom-fishing would be allowed north of the line but not to the south.

“We can protect the industry, and we can protect the corals,” Reid said, urging that “pelagic” fishing, or fishing that occurs well above ocean floors, be allowed in both zones.

Bishop called the map an “extremely good” start to alternative proposals for which he could advocate as the issue unfolds in coming months, during the final stretch of President Barack Obama’s administration.

Bob Vanasse, a New Bedford native and executive director of Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization Saving Seafood, said Bishop’s visit hopefully was the first of many lawmaker visits facilitated by the National Coalition for Fishing Communities (NCFC). Saving Seafood launched the coalition last fall, with members that span the country and include New Bedford’s Harbor Development Commission.

“We want to bring these members of Congress who have jurisdiction over the fishing industry, to visit the ports that their laws regulate,” Vanasse said. “This is the kind of communication effort that the National Coalition is about.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford-Standard Times

East Coast Fishing Groups Unite in Opposition to Atlantic Monument

June 2, 2016 — The following was released by the National Coalition for Fishing Communities:

UPDATE: A previous version of this release mistakenly omitted a statement by the American Bluefin Tuna Association. Additionally, since the original release, the American Scallop Association has endorsed the ASMFC resolution. The release has been updated to reflect these changes.

WASHINGTON (NCFC) — The most valuable fishing port in the U.S. – New Bedford, Mass. – and eight major fishing groups from Florida to Massachusetts are backing an Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) resolution opposing current proposals for a monument off the coast of New England. The fisheries most likely to be affected by a National Monument designation inside the continental shelf, including the valuable red crab, swordfish, tuna, and offshore lobster fisheries, have all come out in support of the ASMFC resolution.

Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), Chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, is in New Bedford today, where he will hear from regional stakeholders about the negative effects a monument would have on commercial fisheries.

Multiple environmental groups have been pushing the Obama Administration to use executive authority under the Antiquities Act to designate an offshore monument in the Atlantic. Earlier this month, the ASMFC unanimously approved a resolution urging the Administration to forgo a monument designation and instead allow the current management process protecting ocean ecosystems to continue. If the President decides to create a monument, the ASMFC resolution asks that it be seaward of the continental shelf, only prohibit bottom tending fishing, and that any plan be available for public review before it is implemented.

In a letter to the White House, the American Bluefin Tuna Association (ABTA) expressed concern that a monument designation would eliminate all forms of fishing in the protected areas. “Given that our fishing gear has no negative impact on deep sea coral, a proposed prohibition on the fishing methods we employ would be arbitrary, completely unnecessary and would result in significant negative economic consequences,” ABTA wrote.

A monument declaration may have devastating economic impacts on New Bedford as well. The mayor of New Bedford, Jon Mitchell, has come out strongly against a monument and praised the ASMFC resolution in a statement, saying he “applauds the ASMFC for asking the White House not to establish a marine monument off the coast of New England.”

East Coast fishing groups that may also be severely impacted by a monument designation, including many members of the National Coalition for Fishing Communities (NCFC), are lending their strong support to the ASMFC resolution. One fishery that could suffer if it is prohibited from fishing in a monument area is the red crab fishery, valued at over $15 million.

“Rarely in the history of New England commercial fishing have we seen the entire industry and its regulatory bodies unite behind a single cause,” said the New England Red Crab Harvester’s Association in a statement. “Yet with its recent unanimous vote on the marine monument designation, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission joined industry leaders in sending a clear message to the Obama administration: the current monument process poses a serious threat to effective ocean management, and would have disastrous environmental and economic impacts.”

The Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF), which represents members of the Atlantic sea scallop fishery, supported the ASMFC resolution in a letter to the White House. FSF argued that a monument designation would contradict the President’s own Executive Order 13563, which states in part that regulations should be based on the best available science, involve public participation, and include coordination across agencies.

“Public areas and public resources should be managed in an open and transparent manner, not an imperial stroke of the pen,” FSF wrote.

Other groups that have publicly supported the ASMFC plan are the Garden State Seafood Association, Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, Southeastern Fisheries Association, North Carolina Fisheries Association, and American Scallop Association. All of these groups are members of NCFC, which provides a unified voice for fishing groups and businesses. Similarly, the Blue Water Fishermen’s Association, which is not an NCFC member, wrote to the White House opposing an Atlantic Monument.

Overregulation threatens local fishing economies, Congressmen say

December 8, 2015 — A U.S. House of Representatives committee held a rare field hearing in Riverhead yesterday, the first time in recent memory such a committee has formally met on the East End.

A three-member panel of the House Committee on Natural Resources convened the hearing to discuss the federal policies that currently regulate the region’s fishing grounds, probing the policies’ basis in science, fishery conditions and economic impacts on the local economy with testimony and questioning of several invited witnesses.

The committee members who conducted the hearing, hosted by Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley), heard testimony for two hours yesterday at the Suffolk County Community College Culinary Arts Institute on East Main Street.

They also discussed alternatives to what some on the four-member panel characterized as oppressive regulation that could potentially damage the region’s fishing industry.

“In my part of the world, there’s a saying that if you have no farms, you have no food,” said committee chairman Rob Bishop, a Republican congressman from Utah. “The same can be said that if you have no boating access, you have no fish.”

Bishop claimed that federal agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have “ignored state and local laws, input and science” in their regulatory decisions.

Read the full story from Riverhead Local

House Panel Supports Efforts to Safeguard Atlantic Coast Fisheries Access, Protect Against Obama Administration’s Potential Unilateral Fisheries Closures

December 7, 2015 — RIVERHEAD, N.Y. – The following was released by the House Committee on Natural Resources:

Today, the House Committee on Natural Resources held an oversight field hearing in Riverhead, NY on public access to Atlantic fisheries and the impact and implementation of federal decision-making on the commercial and recreational fishing industry and local economies. The panel received testimony from fisheries stakeholders and a representative from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

One focal point of the hearing was the possible designation by the Obama Administration of National Marine Monuments along the Atlantic Coast using the Antiquities Act, which would deny public input and usurp established habitat and fisheries management plans. Commercial and recreational fisheries stakeholders before the panel supported Committee efforts to ensure public input in future potential designations.

“I know firsthand what happens when a President abuses the Antiquities Act against the wishes of local residents as a means of shutting off multiple uses of lands and waters. There’s a reason we have laws on the books to ensure federal management decisions are informed by experts at the regional level, in full consultation with states and local users – not under the cover of darkness,” Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) said.

“Fishing and the maritime economy have been a key part of the economy, culture, and history of Long Island for centuries. Now more than ever our fisheries and the dedicated men and women who work in this important industry face challenges that must be addressed,” stated Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) during opening statements. “And now more than ever we must strike the right balance between a strong fishing economy and protecting our critical natural resources. Fairness, transparency, and giving our fishermen and boaters a seat at the table is why we are here today.”

“Designating marine monuments is a relatively new practice that only began in 2006, with a monument designation larger than all of America’s National Parks combined, approximately the size of Germany,” Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ) said during the hearing. “I find it particularly troubling that there is no concern given to local fish and wildlife commissioners or the state and local elected officials when sites are considered. There are serious implications to this designation and local communities should be involved in these designations, rather than a decree from Washington.”

In recent months, Members of Congress on both sides of the political aisle have voiced opposition to the potential Marine Monument designations and called upon the Obama Administration to seek local input on any potential actions.

Earlier this year, the House passed H.R. 1335, a bill to reauthorize and modernize the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA), the primary federal law that governs federal fisheries management. This bill makes key reforms to reflect scientific advancements and regional needs, and includes provisions to ensure that state and local interests are protected from future Marine Monuments designated under the Antiquities Act.

Click here to view witness testimony. Video footage of the hearing will be available here later today.

Read the release here