Saving Seafood

US Senator Sullivan aims to attach FISH Act to US military spending bill

July 15, 2024 — U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) has introduced an amendment to incorporate the Fighting Foreign Illegal Seafood Harvest (FISH) Act into the annual funding bill for the U.S. Department of Defense.

The FISH Act would create a blacklist of vessels with a history of conducting illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing activities. Fishing vessels on the list would be banned from entering U.S. waters, and the legislation also would require the U.S. Coast Guard to increase at-sea inspections of vessels it suspects may be engaged in IUU fishing.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

US Senate bill aims to blacklist vessels involved in illegal fishing

August 30, 2022 — U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and U.S. Sen.  Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) have introduced a bill that seeks to ban vessels involved in illegal fishing from U.S. ports and waters.

The Fighting Foreign Illegal Seafood Harvest (FISH) Act, introduced 25 August, targets foreign illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing by creating a blacklist of vessels that have engaged in IUU fishing, bolstering the U.S. Coast Guard’s enforcement capabilities, and advancing international and bilateral negotiations on international agreements and treaties with a maritime focus.

Read the full article at Seafood Source

GOP senator: Arctic Ocean may be ice-free in summer within 20 years

December 7th, 2018 — Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) on Thursday said the U.S. must prepare for an Arctic Ocean that is ice-free in the summer months within the next 20 years.

Sullivan, speaking at a hearing for the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard, which he chairs, pointed to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicating that as of 2011, Arctic sea ice was “42 percent thinner than it was in 1979.”

“If this trend continues, the Arctic Ocean may be ice-free during the summer months within the next 20 years,” he said.

Read the full story at The Hill

DAVE KUBIAK: Alaska’s senators, especially Sullivan, can positively affect fisheries for generations

January 25, 2016—Alaska and sustainable seafood are synonymous. Whether because of our iconic salmon and halibut fisheries or the fact that 60 percent of the nation’s fish is caught off our coast — when people think of Alaska, they think seafood.

Equally synonymous with Alaska and Alaska seafood is Sen. Ted Stevens and his legacy of championing responsible fisheries management. Indeed, the nation’s federal fisheries management law, the Magnuson-Stevens Act, bears the name and insights of our late senator.

It is fitting, then, that the “Stevens Legacy” is one of our state’s most important exports. Through the various updates of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, Stevens worked to advance sustainable fisheries not just for Alaska but also for the country. In 1996, he led the charge to amend the law to require fishery managers to rebuild depleted stocks in a timely fashion. In 2006, he further improved the act to require science-based annual catch limits for the whole country — something Alaska had been doing for decades. These provisions have become core to U.S. fisheries management and have rebuilt nearly 40 fish populations across the country since 2000.

Now it is Sen. Dan Sullivan’s turn to carry that legacy forward. Sen. Sullivan holds an important membership on the Senate Commerce Committee — where Stevens left his mark on the nation’s fisheries law. With the Magnuson-Stevens Act due for reauthorization, Sullivan has the opportunity to shape and define fisheries management for the next generation of fishermen in Alaska and beyond.

Read the full opinion piece at Alaska Dispatch News