June 11, 2024 — Alaska’s at-large United States House Rep. Mary Peltola spoke with KYUK’s Sage Smiley on morning show “Coffee at KYUK” about two bills she recently proposed meant to regulate the trawl industry and reduce bycatch. She also talked about what she’s hearing about fisheries on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta and her recent amicus brief in support of the Donlin Gold mine development.
Read a rough transcript of the conversation below, which has been lightly edited for clarity and flow:
KYUK (Sage Smiley): Thank you so much for joining me for “Coffee at KYUK,” Rep. Peltola.
Rep. Mary Peltola: Thank you for having me Sage. It’s good to be back on KYUK.
KYUK: So we’re here today, first and foremost, to talk about the two fisheries bills that you recently proposed in the U.S. House. Can you tell us about those bills and what they’re meant to do?
Peltola: Yes, I have two bills that that we have submitted. Honestly, I don’t expect them to have much traction this Congress. The 118th Congress has not been productive. I think we were record-breaking in this very limited number of bills passed last session. And I think we’re on track to be another kind of record-setting year for a limited number of bills passing, but I think it’s important that I introduced these bills to get as much support as I can now and really teeing it up for the 119th Congress.
The first bill is called the Bottom Trawl Clarity Act. And what this bill does is it limits bottom trawling and vulnerable ocean by first mandating that each of the fisheries management councils, there’s eight of them across the U.S., including the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, which oversees Alaskan waters. So it mandates at each of these councils that permits the use of any of the bottom trawl gear, it requires them to define the term “substantial” versus the term “limited bottom contact.” I think that words have a lot of meaning, and defining words is a very important step in in fisheries management. The second thing the Bottom Trawl Clarity Act does is it requires a designation of bottom trawl zones, and it limits areas where gear can scrape the sea floor and where that’s allowed.
The second piece of legislation is called the Bycatch Reduction and Mitigation Act. And this really is helping Alaskan fishermen who have been working for years now to reduce bycatch. And the two things it does is it authorizes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Bycatch Reduction and Engineering program; it appropriates $10 million to that program for five years. Right now, that program has been funded at about $3 million a year, and it just is not putting in the kind of resources that fishermen have really needed to curb bycatch. It also establishes the Bycatch Mitigation Assistance Funds, which will be administered by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and used to help fishermen and fishing vessels purchase new gear or technology to reduce bycatch, such as camera systems and lights, and salmon excluders. And it also allows for philanthropists to donate to that Bycatch Mitigation Assistance Fund. I think there are a lot of wealthy donors who are interested in ocean health who want to help. And so this is a way to give wealthy donors a chance to help on bycatch as well. And these have both been very, very well received. I do want to note that just the fact that I was elected to Congress almost two years ago really had industry sit up and take notice, and on their own they have reduced chum bycatch by 50%. And this is really encouraging to me, because it shows that there is the will, on behalf of a number of the harvesters, to reduce their bycatch, and it shows that it can be done and that we can always be doing better.