Saving Seafood

Congress wary of marine monument plan

September 23, 2015 — Congressional opposition seems to be growing against the method — if not necessarily the intent — of the conservationist effort to create the first marine national monument on the Atlantic seaboard.

The conservationists’ proposal, which implores President Obama to use executive decree in the form of the Antiquities Act to unilaterally create a marine national monument off the coast of Massachusetts in the Gulf of Maine seems to have raised some populist hackles.

A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton said the Salem Democrat believes “any decisions about the future of the Gulf of Maine need to be reached in a collaborative process that includes all stakeholders, including the commonwealth’s fishermen.”

Spokesman Andy Flick said Moulton has not yet decided whether he will testify at Tuesday’s scheduled hearing by a subcommittee of the House Natural Resource Committee on the issue, but that “our staff is working to ensure all stakeholders will have an opportunity to be heard.”

The monument proposal, initially generated by the Conservation Law Foundation, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Pew Charitable Trusts, would have President Obama designate Cashes Ledge — which is about 80 miles east of Gloucester — and an area of deep-water canyons and seamounts south of Georges Bank as a marine national monument that would be off limits to all fishing and future sea-floor development.

Read the full story at Gloucester Daily Times

Mass. Governor, Congressional Delegation to Obama Administration: Fund At-Sea Monitoring for New England Fishermen

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — August 20, 2015 — Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, and all nine Members of Congress from Massachusetts have called upon the Obama Administration to reverse recent policy decisions and continue the funding of at-sea monitoring for Northeastern fishermen. While the agency currently funds at-sea monitors, fishermen will have to assume the full cost of the program beginning this year, which the industry contends they will be unable to afford.

In a letter to Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and the Chairs and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, Governor Baker and the Massachusetts Congressional delegation expressed “serious concern over recent actions taken by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.” The signatories are especially critical of the agency’s current at-sea monitoring policy, specifically its plan to shift funding of the program from NOAA onto fishermen, noting that such a move could potentially bankrupt the industry.

The Republican Governor and the all-Democratic Congressional delegation have joined forces to criticize the Administration decision and the heavy costs that individual fishermen are likely to incur as a result of this policy, especially in light of the fact that fishermen are still recovering from the federal economic disaster declared by the Commerce Department in 2012.

Citing a NOAA analysis of the transfer, the letter notes that monitors will cost the fishery $2.64 million in the first year alone, and would lead to an estimated 60 percent of the vessels in the fishery operating at a loss. According to the Governor and legislators, this amounts to an “unfunded mandate that could lead to the end of the Northeast Groundfishery as we know it.”

At its June meeting, the New England Fishery Management Council requested that NOAA take administrative actions to “improve the efficiency of the program,” as well as “reduce costs of the [at-sea monitoring program] without compromising compliance” with current laws. In its response to the Council, NOAA rejected these requests, stating that they were not “consistent with current regulatory requirements and statistical standards.”

The Gloucester, Massachusetts-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, which represents a significant percentage of the groundfish fleet, criticized NOAA’s decisions, while coming out in support of efforts by Gov. Baker and Congress to force a change in agency policy.

“The Council has questioned the benefits and the costs to the groundfish fishery of the at-sea monitoring program, and has given their clear directive to the Agency to either suspend or make the existing program more cost effective,” said Jackie Odell, Executive Director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition. “All requests made to date have received an astounding ‘no’ from NOAA. The Northeast Seafood Coalition strongly supports the requests made by the Council, Governor Baker and Members of Congress. When is enough, enough?”

In addition to Secretary Pritzker, the letter was sent to Sens. Thad Cochran and Barbara Mikulski, and Reps. Hal Rogers and Nita Lowey. Gov. Baker and Sens. Warren and Markey are joined by Reps. Richard Neal, Jim McGovern, Michael Capuano, Stephen Lynch, Niki Tsongas, William Keating, Joseph Kennedy, Katherine Clark, and Seth Moulton as signatories of the letter.

Read the letter from Gov. Baker and the Massachusetts Congressional delegation

Read the NEFMC’s request to NOAA on at-sea monitoring

Read NOAA’s rejection of the NEMFC’s at-sea monitoring request

 

Baker and Mass. congressional delegation urge federal officials to pay for ground fishing observers

August 19, 2015 — In an effort to reduce the financial burdens on the region’s struggling fishermen, Governor Charlie Baker and the state’s congressional delegation urged federal officials this week to pay for a controversial program that requires observers to monitor fishermen who catch cod, flounder, and other bottom-dwelling fish.

In a letter sent to the secretary of the US Department of Commerce, which oversees the nation’s fishing industry, Baker and the delegation expressed “serious concern” about a decision this year by the National Marine Fisheries Service to require the region’s fishermen to pay for the observer program.

Fishermen insist they can’t afford to pay for the observers, especially after major cuts to their quotas. The Fisheries Service estimates that it costs $710 a day every time an observer accompanies a fisherman to sea, and the agency’s research has suggested that requiring fishermen to cover those costs would cause about 60 percent of their boats to operate at a loss.

“To shift the cost of this ineffective program onto the fishery just as the industry begins to rebuild is not only imprudent, but irresponsible,” Baker and the delegation wrote. “This equates to an unfunded mandate that could lead to the end of the Northeast Groundfish Fishery as we know it.”

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

 

 

Members of Massachusetts Congressional Delegation Write to NOAA on Lobster Monitoring

WASHINGTON — August 12, 2015 (Saving Seafood) — On July 31, 5 members of the Massachusetts Congressional Delegation–Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey and Reps. Bill Keating, Stephen Lynch, and Seth Moulton–wrote to NOAA Assistant Administrator for Fisheries Eileen Sobeck expressing concerns over the agency’s plan to expand at-sea monitoring in the lobster fishery.

Specifically, they expressed concern that, without federal funding paying for the expansion, the cost of $650-$800 per trip will be borne by the vessel operators. This, the letter claims, will cause “many workers to leave the fishery to pursue more economically viable livelihoods in other industries.” The letter also expressed concern over other issues, such as the cost of legal liability.

Read the letter here