Saving Seafood

US seafood industry, ocean groups in unison against red snapper bill

December 19, 2017 — The National Fisheries Institute and ocean conservation groups don’t always see eye to eye on legislation, but they do with regard to HR 3588, the Red Snapper Act, which has been advanced by the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Natural Resources.

They are both against it.

The bill, which the panel approved by a 22-16 vote following a brief markup hearing on Wednesday, along with two amendments to the Magnuson-Stevens Act, would transfer management of the red snapper recreational fishery in the Gulf of Mexico from a federal fisheries management council to several gulf states, including Louisiana. Representative Garrett Graves, who introduced the bill, represents the Republican districts of northern Terrebonne and Lafourche, in Louisiana.

Graves’ bill must still get to the House floor for a vote. And its companion bill, S. 1686, introduced in August by Louisiana senator Bill Cassidy, also a Republican, in the upper chamber’s Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, has just two co-sponsors (Republicans John Kennedy, also from Louisiana, and Luther Strange, from Alabama).

But the recreational fishing industry is excited.

“The need to update our nation’s fisheries management system to ensure the conservation of our public marine resources and reasonable public access to those resources is abundantly clear. We look forward to the full House consideration of the bill,” said Patrick Murray, president of Coastal Conservation Association, one of the nation’s largest sport fishing groups, in a written statement following the vote.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization bill advances in US House

December 14, 2017 — By a 22-16 vote on Wednesday, the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Natural Resources advanced HR 200, the Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act, legislation introduced by representative Donald Young, an Alaska Republican.

The bill was one of 15 scheduled for markup Tuesday and Wednesday by the panel.

With just days to go before Congress breaks for the holidays, the bill to reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Act so far has not received much attention in the Senate. Chances are strong that the debate over the measure will continue well into 2018.

However, that didn’t stop the ocean conservation group Oceana from responding, issuing a statement that warned HR 200 “would weaken science-based conservation of U.S. fish populations and increase the risk of overfishing by removing annual catch limits for many species”.

Oceana campaign director Lora Snyder called the vote “a slap in the face to anyone who cares about ensuring the health of our nation’s fisheries, instead jeopardizing decades of progress in ocean conservation. … [It]  would roll back decades of progress, leading us back down the path to oceans empty of fish and fishermen losing their livelihoods.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News