Washington

WASHINGTON — 12 March 2013 — On Wednesday, the House Natural Resources Committee will hold the first of several hearings on the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. The expected witness list as released by the committee is below, and you can watch the hearing live (10:00 AM ET) at http://naturalresources.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=322259

PANEL I
 
– Bob Jones, Executive Director, Southeastern Fisheries Association
– Dr. Robert Shipp, Chair and Professor, Department of Marine Sciences – University of South Alabama
– Robert Dooley, President, United Catcher Boats
– John Pappalardo, Chief Executive Officer, Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association
– Captain Keith Logan, Charterboat Captain, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
– Bob Gill, Co-owner, Shrimp Landing, Florida
– Joseph Plesha, Chief Legal Officer, Trident Seafoods Corporation
 
PANEL II
 
– Sam Rauch, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Regulatory Programs, NMFS, NOAA, Department of Commerce

 

Watch the hearing live at 10:00 AM ET on Wednesday, March 13, 2013

 

WASHINGTON — March 11, 2013 — The following is the text of a letter sent today by Congressman John Tierney to House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings

The Honorable Doc Hastings
Chairman
Committee on Natural Resources
U.S. House of Representatives
1324 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Chairman Hastings:

I understand the Natural Resources Committee will soon convene its first in a series of hearings on the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (public Law 94-265). This is welcomed news, as fishermen in my district and throughout the country are facing near catastrophic circumstances under the existing regulatory structure. Comprehensive and thoughtful reform is long overdue, so I appreciate your attentiveness to such a critical issue and your willingness to begin what I expect will be a bipartisan reauthorization process.

I certainly agree with those who believe that we must increase flexibility and stability for fishermen, while maintaining healthy fish stocks. It is also imperative to ensure that any limitations placed on allowable catch be based on peer-reviewed stock assessments undertaken in the preceding year. A greater emphasis must be placed on the impact of fishery management plans on recreational and commercial fishermen and coastal businesses, and the Secretary of Commerce must be required to put forth plans to mitigate such effects.

Finally, further flexibility must be given to rebuilding timelines in order to appropriately take into consideration effects on stocks other than commercial and recreational fishermen, such as environmental changes and their impact on marine ecosystems.

As the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) acknowledged in the past year, the lack of progress in rebuilding a number of groundfish stocks critical to the economic survival of the fishing industry in New England cannot be blamed on the actions of fishermen. It is clear that continued cuts to catch limits have not mitigated this repeated failure. I trust that you and your Committee Members will be informed and guided by the testimony, evidence, and analysis presented at the series of hearings and fully consider whether simply amending the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act is sufficient to meet the diverse challenges confronting the fishing industry or if an entire new legislative and regulatory framework is warranted.

Additionally, as you are likely aware, in the last seven months, federal fisheries disasters have been declared in 9 states, including Alaska, Mississippi, and Massachusetts. With drastic cuts to catch limits looming, and with fishermen and their families already struggling to make ends meet, economic assistance is desperately needed. I have filed bipartisan legislation – entitled the Fisheries Disaster Relief and Research Investment Act – that would provide fishermen and their communities with the financial assistance they need without increasing discretionary spending. My bill would also ensure that duties collected from imported fish products support efforts to improve science and ultimately rebuild and sustain healthy fish populations. I respectfully request that the Committee either include the Fisheries Disaster Relief and Research Investment Act as part of any comprehensive legislation to reform the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act or advance it as a stand-alone measure. I look forward to speaking with you further about this at your earliest convenience.

Finally, I believe it is important for you and your Committee Members to hear directly from fishermen about the impact the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and its implementation has had on their lives and businesses. As we have previously discussed, I have the privilege of representing Gloucester, Massachusetts – the nation's oldest fishing port. I understand John Pappalardo of the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen's Association will be testifying at this week's hearing. However, as you and your staff plan for future hearings, I would encourage you to consider inviting fishermen and other relevant stakeholders from Gloucester.

Thank you for your attention and consideration. I look forward to continuing our work together to help our fishermen and ensure they are treated with fairness.

Sincerely, 

John F. Tierney

 

Read a PDF version of the letter here 

 

 

 

March 11, 2013 — The fourth 10-year revision and re-authorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act is about to get underway.

The process will highlight different perspectives on the need for writing flexibility into the law — which was the subject of two national rallies at the Capitol, one in 2010 and another in 2012 — from the team of Congressman John Tierney and former Congressman Barney Frank, advocates of the need for flexibility on the one hand, to Congressman and U.S. Senate candidate Ed Markey on the other, who does not share their view of the law as an inflexible impediment to a revitalized industry.

As the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, and a Democratic candidate in the special election to succeed former Sen. John Kerry, Markey, a Malden Democrat from a landlocked district, will be a key figure in the rewriting of the law. Unlike Tierney and Frank, however, Markey has repeatedly said he believes the Magnuson-Stevens Act has more than enough flexibility, essentially putting him in lockstep with the White House and environmental activists.

The House Natural Resources Committee holds its first hearing into the future nature of the original fishery conservation and management act on Wednesday, with nation’s oldest fishery, the Northeast groundfishery in shambles and bipartisan sentiment strong for writing enough flexibility into the law to give harvesters a reasonable chance to survive while stocks in duress are rebuilt.

The hearing, to be conducted by Chairman Doc Hastings, a Washington state Republican, will involve an invited group of witnesses — but just one New Englander, John Pappalardo, executive director of the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association. The 10 a.m. hearing will be available by webcast on the committee website.

The hearings are beginning earlier than in past decades. Enacted in 1976, Magnuson-Stevens established the 200-mile exclusive economic zone and banished foreign factory trawlers that were cleaning out stocks of the Northwest Atlantic that had been worked by Europeans since the 14th century. The law was modified and reauthorized in 1986, ’96 and 2006.

 

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

 

WASHINGTON — March 8, 2013 — A bipartisan group of senators is pressing for an independent review of how the federal government calculates fishing stocks in the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic.

Those stocks are used to determine catch limits and have long been a source of contention for the fishing industry and environmentalists.

Environmental groups concerned about dwindling stocks of vulnerable species say overfishing could affect the Gulf region’s ecology and economy for decades.

Fishermen say current catch limits are based on flawed science and have cost coastal communities jobs and other economic benefits.

The senators, led by Republican Marco Rubio of Florida, want to settle the dispute.

They’ve asked the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ watchdog arm, to look into how the National Marine Fisheries Service determines which fishing stocks to analyze, how often they’re examined and how much it costs federal taxpayers to conduct the inventory.

 

Read the full article at Tallahassee.com

 

 

March 7, 2013 — Massachusetts Congressman Ed Markey introduced revised legislation Wednesday intended to fight the widespread mislabeling of seafood.

Markey filed the bill in response to studies on seafood fraud, including a report by the environmental group Oceana that found a third of 1,215 fish samples it collected from 674 retail outlets were mislabeled.

"Fish fraud is a national problem that needs a national solution," Markey said in a statement. "From tackle to table, this bill makes the entire seafood supply chain more transparent and trustworthy."

The bill aims to ensure that information about domestic and imported fish — such as its species and where and how it was caught — follow the fish from boat to market.

It also seeks to establish civil penalties for violators and strengthen the ability of federal regulators to stop fraudulent seafood shipments from entering the country.

 

Read the full story at South Coast Today

 

 

March 6, 2013 — US Representative and Senate candidate Ed Markey Wednesday introduced a new version of bill to combat seafood fraud by tracking fish from a boat to a diner’s plate.

Markey amended earlier legislation he filed in July to reflect input from federal agencies, fishermen, consumer and conservation groups. The new bill will require information already collected by fishermen, such as species name, catch location, and harvest method, to be made available to consumers and requires imported fish to have equivalent documentation.

It also expands the ability of the US Food and Drug Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to refuse entry of unsafe or fraudulent seafood shipments.

 

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

March 6, 2013 — The Honorable Doc Hastings, Chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources has informed Members of Congress and staff that the Committee will hold an oversight hearing on the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act on Wednesday, March 13, 2013, at 10:00 a.m., in Room 1324 Longworth House Office Building.

Witnesses are by invitation only.

View the website of the House Natural Resources Committee (Majority)

View the website of the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular Affairs (Majority)

View the website of the House Natural Resources Committee (Democrats)

Wiew the website of the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular Affairs (Democrats)

 

 

March 6, 2013 — The following was released by the office of Congressman Ed Markey, (D-Massachusetts) Ranking Member of the House Natural Resources Committee:

National Studies Show Rampant Fish Mislabeling that Cheats Fishermen, Consumers

WASHINGTON (March 6, 2013) – Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) today introduced a new bipartisan version of his legislation to combat rampant seafood fraud, a nationwide epidemic that cheats fishermen and consumers, while posing health risks to pregnant mothers and others. The legislation responds to studies showing most recently that seafood is mislabeled 33 percent of the time in restaurants, supermarkets, and other retail locations across the United States. This second version of Rep. Markey’s legislation reflects intensive discussions with fishermen, consumer and conservation groups, and federal agencies that improved the original legislation.
 
“Fish fraud is a national problem that needs a national solution. This bill finally tells the seafood swindlers and fish fraudsters that we will protect America's fishermen and consumers from Massachusetts to Alaska,” said Rep. Markey, the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee. “From tackle to table, this bill makes the entire seafood supply chain more transparent and trustworthy.”
 
To prevent seafood fraud, Rep. Markey’s SAFE Seafood Act, formally the Safety and Fraud Enforcement for Seafood Act, requires information that is already collected by U.S. fishermen — such as species name, catch location, and harvest method — to ‘follow the fish,’ and be made available to consumers. It also requires foreign exporters of seafood to the United States to provide equivalent documentation.
 
The bill also expands the ability of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to refuse entry of unsafe or fraudulent seafood shipments, and allows NOAA to levy civil penalties against violators under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.
 
In addition to the fraud prevention measures, THE SAFE Seafood ACT addresses concerns over seafood safety raised by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in a 2011 report by requiring cooperation and progress reporting. The report found that a lack of coordination between FDA and NOAA is resulting in needless duplication of seafood safety inspections at a time when resources are only allowing for 2 percent of seafood imports to be examined for safety.
 
Rep. Markey was joined in the legislation by original co-sponsors Walter Jones (R-N.C.), John Tierney (D-Mass.), Bill Keating (D-Mass.), and Lois Capps (D-Calif.) and Jo Bonner (R-Ala.). Senator Mark Begich (D-Alaska) will introduce companion legislation in the Senate.

Detailed summary of the legislation:

H.R. XX, the Safety And Fraud Enforcement for Seafood Act (MARKEY, D-Mass.)

In October 2011, separate investigations by the Boston Globe and the advocacy group Oceana found that seafood fraud – the mislabeling or misrepresentation of seafood – by restaurants and grocery stores in the Boston area was rampant. Using DNA testing, the Globe found that 48% of the seafood it sampled from restaurants and stores was not the species that was advertised; Oceana found fraud in 18% of its DNA tests, which were limited to seafood from supermarkets. Subsequent investigations across the country have made similar discoveries, culminating in Oceana’s nationwide report released in February 2013. These results confirm the fears expressed by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in a 2009 report that the Federal government was not adequately addressing seafood fraud, especially with respect to the 91% of seafood that the U.S. imports. This lack of oversight can harm the health and finances of consumers, and negatively affect the profitability of U.S. fishermen who play by the rules. Ensuring that seafood is traceable from sea to sale requires improved coordination of Federal agency activities, and new authorities to hold violators accountable.

Following the Boston Globe investigation, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) sent letters to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) inquiring about their oversight of seafood fraud. The FDA has the lead responsibility for seafood safety and seafood labeling at the Federal level, but NOAA also has significant expertise and resources that could be utilized to address safety concerns. The FTC is responsible for regulating whether seafood is being truthfully advertised. The responses to these letters indicated that the agencies could more effectively work together to combat the issue of seafood fraud. Further, a 2011 GAO report found that Federal agencies are failing to coordinate appropriately to ensure that seafood imported into the U.S. meets basic requirements for safe human consumption. FDA and NOAA had pledged to improve coordination in a 2009 memorandum of understanding, but the GAO report made clear that the agencies have taken little action to implement the agreement.

GAO estimates that only 2% of seafood imported into the U.S. is inspected at all, and that only 0.001% is inspected for seafood fraud. This puts U.S. consumers at risk of being swindled and sickened. It also puts U.S. fishermen at risk of having the prices they receive for their catch undercut by inferior and falsely labeled foreign product. Government reports and outside investigations have made clear that we need to address this issue, leading to the development of H.R. XX, the Safety And Fraud Enforcement for Seafood Act (SAFE Seafood Act).

SAFE Seafood Act
Section by Section Analysis:

Section 1

– Lists the short title as the “Safety And Fraud Enforcement for Seafood Act.”

Section 2

– Requires the Secretary of Commerce (Commerce) and the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to execute a memorandum of understanding to improve interagency cooperation on seafood safety between NOAA and FDA.

– Ensures inspections conducted to determine seafood safety also look for seafood fraud.

– Establishes procedures for increasing the number of local, state, and federal officials authorized to conduct seafood fraud and safety inspections.

– Requires development of a publicly available list of exporters by country who violate Federal seafood safety laws.

Section 3

– Requires HHS, in consultation with Commerce, to update and improve its list of standardized names for seafood and ensure that the list is accurate and publicly available.

– Requires data already required to be collected by U.S. fishermen on species, production method (gear type, farmed or wild), geographic catch area, and weight or number of fish to stay with the seafood through processing, distribution, and sale, and requires equivalent data to accompany imported seafood.

– Allows the Secretary of Commerce to refuse shipments of fraudulent seafood from foreign exporters, and requires the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of Health and Human
Services to coordinate on sanctioning exporters.

– Ensures inspections conducted to determine seafood safety also look for seafood fraud.

– Requires development of a publicly available list of exporters by country that violate Federal seafood fraud laws.

Section 4

– Gives state attorneys general the authority to bring a civil action on behalf of a state’s residents to enjoin fraud and/or receive damages.

Section 5

– Requires a biennial joint report from Commerce and HHS on progress made in ensuring seafood safety and preventing seafood fraud.

Section 6

-Protection of stronger state seafood safety and fraud laws.

Section 7

– Definitions: Seafood fraud means the mislabeling or misrepresentation of seafood in violation of the Act or other Federal laws and regulations.

 
Summary of the major changes to the bill:

SAFE Seafood Act – Changes from 112th to 113th

After the introduction of the Safety And Fraud Enforcement for Seafood Act (H.R. 6200) in the 112th Congress, Rep. Markey worked with the fishing industry, conservation and consumer groups, and the affected federal agencies (FDA and NOAA) to improve the bill language in advance of reintroduction in the 113th Congress. While the general principles and mechanisms remain intact, the following significant changes were made:

– Section 2 dealing with seafood safety was revised to more fully recognize FDA’s existing authority and new responsibilities under the Food Safety Modernization Act, especially with respect to refusal of admission of seafood based on safety concerns.

– Section 2 was also amended to provide more flexibility for FDA in determining how to incorporate data obtained through inspection of seafood by other federal, state and local agencies into their seafood safety inspection program.

– Section 3 dealing with seafood traceability was revised to require more specific information about where imported fish was caught or grown.

– Section 3 was also revised to ‘hold harmless’ from penalties any domestic seller of seafood that passes along a product that was misrepresented to that seller, provided that the seller can produce the original fraudulent documentation that came with the seafood shipment.

– Section 3 was further amended to clarify the roles of NOAA and FDA in refusing imports of seafood found to be fraudulent.

– Finally, Section 3 was changed to make clear that it required updating of FDA’s List of Standardized Names for Seafood, rather than the creation of a new and separate list.

 

Read the Boston Globe story "Mislabeled fish a national problem"

 

 

March 1, 2013 — Jane Lubchenco’s tenure as NOAA administrator ended Thursday, three years, 11 months and nine days after it began, with the groundfishey she promised to save in an apparent death spiral

Her next stop will be Stanford University, which has hired the marine scientist long associated with marine protected areas and other concepts to limit or control fishing for the spring semester to be the Mimi and Peter E. Haas Distinguished Visitor at Stanford’s Haas Center for Public Service.

No successor or acting head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been named.

In the Obama administration, she delivered on his 2008 campaign promise for “change you can believe in,” but the changes she brought, while audacious in nature — junking the original notion of the wild stocks as commonly held for an allocation of catching rights based on the principle of commodity trading — did not produce the promised results, conservation of the resource and profitability for the participants.

Her appointment brought into authority over the oceans and atmosphere a figure many in the fishing community came to see as an ideologue, and her initiatives triggered angry protests by fishermen and their families, as she moved quickly to institute her program which was predicated on making the still largely locally owned industry more open and available to investors.

The first protest, outside NOAA’s Northeast headquarters in Gloucester’s Blackburn Industrial Park in October 2009, featured a effigy of Lubchenco lynching fishermen. In February 2010, up to 5,000 fishermen and supporters gathered at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., united for the first time in history by common concerns. A third protest followed in D.C. a year later.

 

Read the full story at The Gloucester Times

 

 

March 1, 2013 — A day after the NBC Nightly News highlighted the economic disaster facing small fishing boat businesses in Gloucester, Congressman John Tierney once again called on his colleagues Thursday to support disaster relief legislation for the Northeast groundfishery.

Congress stripped $150 million in disaster assistance from a Senate approved $60 billion Hurricane Sandy relief bill at the end of the 112th Congress. Despite having acknowledged the disaster in a legal finding declared by the Department of Commerce last September, the Obama administration has not advocated publicly for disaster assistance to address the issue.

“As public outcry intensifies, I urge my colleagues to join me in pressing for relief for our fishermen,” said Tierney in a prepared statement. “The fishing industry is one of the oldest and most relied upon in the country, and it is facing near catastrophe. The Department of Commerce has recognized this and designated fisheries disasters in Massachusetts and several other states last year. Yet, sufficient relief for our fishermen still has not been provided.

”Fishermen in my district and across the country deserve better,” Tierney said.

In a letter to his colleagues, Tierney wrote about his bill, identified as H.R. 799

”Each year, the federal government receives funds collected from tariffs on imported fish products,” Tierney wrote. “The Saltonstall-Kennedy Act of 1954 directed that a percentage of these funds go to benefit and improve our domestic fishing industry. Since then, an ever-increasing amount of those monies has been inappropriately redirected to fund the operations of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

 

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times