Saving Seafood

Massachusetts lawmakers call on government to help New England fisheries during COVID-19 crisis

April 6, 2020 — Members of Massachusetts’ congressional delegation are calling on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to give New England fisheries a needed boost as they battle through the COVID-19 outbreak.

U.S. senators Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren, along with U.S. representatives William Keating and Seth Moulton, on 2 April sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue asking him to use part of the USD 9.5 billion (EUR 8.8 billion) earmarked for agricultural producers – from the USD 2.2 trillion (EUR 2.0 trillion) CARES Act Congress passed in late March – to help seafood processors and other companies.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Keating Pushes USDA to Buy American Seafood Under CARES Act

April 6, 2020 — U.S. Rep. William Keating, who represents the 9th Congressional District in Massachusetts, joined some of his Capitol Hill colleagues today in urging the USDA to include U.S. seafood companies in a $9.5 billion program designed to help farmers affected by the coronavirus.

Keating, Rep. Seth Moulton, and Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren wrote to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and said the federal government should take steps to buy American seafood through the CARES Act agricultural assistance program.

“The pandemic-driven closure of restaurants and other businesses has devastated the New England seafood industry, as about two-thirds of seafood is consumed in restaurants and outside the home. Fishermen and processors that supply restaurants and local food systems need support,” the letter reads.

Read the full story at WBSM

Rep. Moulton: Fish aid first in string of relief packages

April 1, 2020 — The $300 million direct assistance to the U.S. seafood industry to mitigate the economic impact of the novel coronavirus is expected to be just the first of a string of federal relief measures enacted in the coming months, U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton said Tuesday.

Moulton conceded that many of the details of the direct assistance remain sketchy on eligibility requirements and the distribution of the direct aid to the seafood industry stretching from Hawaii and Alaska to Massachusetts and Maine.

“I know people have a lot of questions,” Moulton said by phone. “There are only dribbles of information every day.”

Moulton, who continues to recover from contracting what he said is a mild case of COVID-19, said he anticipates the funds will be distributed in a manner employed in other fishery disaster assistance packages.

In previous assistance packages, the Commerce Department received the congressional appropriation and distributed the funds to individual regions — such as New England, Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico — to be managed by individual states and local communities.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Fishermen look to DC delegation for aid

November 25, 2019 — Former fisherman Sam Parisi appeared before the city Fisheries Commission on Thursday night to tout his campaign for national legislation to help fishermen as the federal Farm Bill helps farmers.

“We need someone to draft a fish bill like the farm bill,” Parisi told the commission members at City Hall. “The only way we can survive is with federal legislation and assistance. Farmers get paid not to grow certain crops. Why can’t we get paid not to fish certain stocks?”

Parisi requested the commission write a letter to the city’s congressional delegation in support of drafting of a bill specifically to help fishermen and fishing communities. But commission members, while appreciative of Parisi’s sentiments, also expressed concerns that a campaign to write, pass and enact federal legislation is fraught with its own perils.

“The danger is saying we’ll back a bill that doesn’t exist,” said Chairman Mark Ring. “You don’t want to back something 100% without seeing it.”

While Parisi’s concept was short on specifics beyond federal reimbursement when catch quotas are cut, his proposal led to an active discussion on the next steps for a fishery that continues to find itself under the siege of still-dormant cod quota in the Gulf of Maine, questionable stock assessments and expanding regulation — and cost — of all manner of monitoring.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Maine lobsterer group calls Rep. Seth Moulton to task

September 18, 2019 — The head of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association countered comments Monday by U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, saying Moulton mischaracterized the organization’s motives and actions when it withdrew its support for the federal plan for increased protections to the North Atlantic right whales.

“Contrary to the congressman’s characterization, the MLA remains engaged in the (take reduction team) process and will continue to work with the agency and our members to identify measures to the risk that the Maine lobster industry poses to right whales,” Patrice McCarron wrote in an email to the Gloucester Daily Times. “However, the MLA cannot support the Northeast lobster fishery being singled out as the sole source of entanglement risk.”

The Maine Lobstermen’s Association on Aug. 30 withdrew its support for the most current plan devised by the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team because of what it described as questionable data from NOAA scientists and an unfair portrayal of the industry’s culpability as a primary cause of injury or death to the right whales. It also criticized the rule-making process as rushed.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Moulton praises local lobsterers for staying at whale rule table

September 17, 2019 — U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton on Monday called the Maine Lobstermen’s Association shortsighted for stepping away from the federal plan to increase protections for North Atlantic right whales, saying the defection will dull its membership’s ability to influence the plan ultimately adopted by NOAA Fisheries.

“It limits their involvement in the solution going forward,” Moulton said on a teleconference organized by the International Fund for Animal Welfare. “We really want to get everyone on board here and we want to make sure that it’s a solution that works for all the stakeholders. I don’t think you’re going to find any lobstermen that who say they want the right whale to go away.”

Moulton, a primary author of a House bill to help save the endangered right whales, said he believes the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association’s decision to remain at the table as the Atlantic right whale take reduction team thrashes out the final plan for the approval of NOAA Fisheries is the proper one.

“I think part of the reason the Massachusetts lobstermen are at the table to be a part of this process and its agreement moving forward is because they recognize that if this gets even more dire, they may literally be regulated out of business,” Moulton said. “I think the lobstermen in Massachusetts are being really smart. I think right now the lobstermen in Maine are being shortsighted. But we hope to bring them back on board, because ultimately they’re going to be better off having a seat at the table than not.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Looking at the lobster double-squeeze

August 7, 2019 — The forklifts didn’t stop for U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton on Tuesday afternoon when the congressman visited a Gloucester lobster wholesaler to talk about the challenges facing the Massachusetts lobster industry. But that didn’t seem to deter the congressman.

As Moulton toured the tank room and docks at the Cape Ann Lobstermen co-op in East Gloucester with co-owner Tessa Browne, the blur of activity continued, the constant beep-beep of forklifts serving as the soundtrack to the discussion on the double-squeeze facing the industry — expanded Chinese and European tariffs internationally and new protections for the North Atlantic right whales here at home.

Moulton asked Browne, who owns and operates the business with her husband Ryan, how much drag the tariffs have created for the lobster dealer. She quickly offered him a palpable example. Moving to the larger of the two lobster tanks, she explained how the bugs were stored by size.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Cape Cod lawmakers push for right whale protection

July 30, 2019 — Advocates and legislators gathered Monday to discuss the threats facing North Atlantic right whales and to call for more conservation efforts.

Rep. Dylan Fernandes and Sen. Julian Cyr hosted a briefing on efforts to protect the right whale with “Calvin,” a life-size 42-foot long inflatable right whale. Right whales are one of the most endangered whale species, with only an estimated 411 whales remaining, according to the New England Aquarium, and most right whale deaths are caused by fishing gear entanglements and vessel strikes.

Advocates called on Congress to pass H.R. 1568, the Scientific Assistance for the Very Endangered Right Whales Act, which was introduced by Congressman Seth Moulton. The bill would authorize funding to develop technology to reduce entanglement and vessel strike deaths. The bill was introduced March 6, and the House Natural Resources Committee voted it out favorably on May 1.

Read the full story at the Daily Hampshire Gazette

Moulton, Ferrante: Trade war hurting lobstermen

July 1, 2019 — The U.S. trade war with China has turned into a war of another kind, as representatives at the state and federal levels are taking aim at tariffs that have rocked several sectors of the New England seafood industry.

In Washington, U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, a Democratic candidate for president, filed legislation to expand disaster relief to fisheries — such as the New England lobster industry — harmed by retaliatory tariffs that have choked off lucrative trade with China.

The bill calls for amending the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act “to require NOAA to evaluate the impacts of duties imposed on American seafood” and to ultimately allow the federal Department of Commerce to consider the impact of trade wars on the fishing industry as a means of providing disaster relief.

A similar measure was filed in the U.S. Senate by Sen. Ron Wyden, the senior senator from Oregon.

“The president’s lack of strategy and the uncertainty in our local economy is the perfect storm for local fishermen who are already doing more with less,” Moulton said in a statement. “Until the president ends his misguided trade war, Congress should step up and provide some relief.”

In Boston, state Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante of Gloucester pushed for a hearing in Gloucester by a joint committee of the Massachusetts Legislature on the Trump administration’s trade policies with China “and its effects on the Massachusetts lobster industry and corresponding ports.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

US congressmen propose expanding fishermen disaster relief to include tariffs

July 1, 2019 — A pair of Democratic lawmakers announced on Wednesday, 26 June, that they have filed legislation to amend the Magnuson-Stevens Act to enable the federal government to expand the scope of fishery disasters to include trade wars.

In a joint release, Oregon U.S. Senator Ron Wyden and Massachusetts U.S. Representative Seth Moulton said their bills would require the Department of Commerce to consider the economic impact the Trump Administration’s embargoes, and the retaliatory ones implemented by nations like China.

According to NOAA Fisheries website, there have been 87 fishery disasters either approved or awaiting approval since 1985.

Moulton said the ongoing trade war is taking money away from hard working fishermen and making families’ grocery bills more expensive.

“The president’s lack of strategy and the uncertainty in our local economy is the perfect storm for local fishermen who are already doing more with less,” he said. “Until the president ends his misguided trade war, Congress should step up and provide some relief.”

A number of industries have been affected by the tariffs, Wyden said, including American fisheries.

Read the full story at Seafood Source