Washington

The long planned national fishing industry rally in Washington, D.C next Wednesday beginning at high noon, approaches under ominous regulatory clouds and fishermen and shoreside businesses in desperate straits.

A "sizeable fraction" faces engineered unemployment via the Obama administration's privatization program known as "catch shares," which comes to New England tethered to fishing cooperatives or sectors intended to cull down the fleet.

With fishing people heading toward the nation's capital from the north, east, southeast and south — and even a few from the West Coast and Alaska — organizers of the "United We Fish" campaign announced new congressional co-sponsors for the bill to write some flexibility into the Magnuson Act that now requires all overfished stocks to be restored to optimal size simultaneously.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

The Congressional act that is the legal backbone of U.S. fisheries management came under fire this week, as U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., requested an independent review of the science that supports the current timelines for rebuilding fish stocks.

In a letter sent Tuesday to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration administrator Jane Lubchenco, Snowe and Frank referred to the 1996 Magnuson-Stevens fishing act requirement that fish stocks be rebuilt within 10 years as an "arbitrary timeline" not based in science.

They asked Lubchenco to request an independent study by the National Academy of Science looking at the scientific justification for the 10-year mandate, at the feasibility of restoring all fish stocks simultaneously and the impact of non-fishing factors like climate change.

Read the complete story at The Cape Cod Times.

With just five days left before the February 24th rally in Washington DC, Florida Republican Congressmen Adam Putnam and Bill Posey have announced that they have both signed on as cosponsors of H.R .1584, the Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act. 

The bi-partisan legislation would provide fisheries managers with additional limited flexibility when setting annual limits while simultaneously rebuilding healthy coastal fisheries.  Rep. Putnam and Rep. Posey join fellow Florida representatives Ander Crenshaw (R), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R), Clifford Stearns (R), Allen Boyd (D), Ginny Brown-Waite (R), and John Mica (R) who have also pledged to support much needed reform to the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Management and Conservation Act (MSA).  

Proposed changes included in H.R. 1584 and S. 1255, the companion Senate bill cosponsored by Florida Senator George LeMieux, would allow fishermen to retain reasonable access to healthy fisheries as fish stocks continue to rebuild and meet conservation objectives.  It also calls for the assessment of the relationship between predator and prey and other environmental and ecological changes to the marine conditions in the stock assessment.

Read the complete story at Ahab's Journal.

The congressional act that is the legal backbone of U.S. fisheries management came under fire this week as Sen. Olympia Snowe and Rep. Barney Frank requested an independent review of the science that supports the current time lines for rebuilding fish stocks.

In a letter sent to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration administrator Jane Lubchenco, Snowe, R-Maine, and Frank, D-Mass., referred to the 1996 Magnuson-Stevens fishing act requirement that fish stocks be rebuilt within 10 years as an "arbitrary time line," not based in science.

They asked Lubchenco to request an independent study by the National Academy of Science looking at the scientific justification for the 10-year mandate, at the feasibility of restoring all fish stocks simultaneously, and the impact of non-fishing factors like climate change.

In an e-mail response to questions from the Cape Cod Times Thursday, Frank also called the rebuilding period "rigid" and "excessively punitive."

Read the complete story at The South Coast Today [subscription site]

note: The Standard-Times is a subscription site.  Unregistered visitors are able to read three stories per month, and registered visitors may view ten.  For unlimited access, please follow the subscription instructions on the site. 

A conservation law is pitting the nation's coastal fishing communities against environmental groups.

Thousands of fishermen, boat captains, and shop owners from New Jersey, Florida and Alaska plan to rally on Capitol Hill next week for Congress' help.

The groups want to change the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which limits fishing for depleted stocks and requires that they be replenished within 10 years. They say lawmakers could save thousands of jobs by easing that time limit.

The fishermen are up against more than 60 environmental groups and hundreds of scientists who oppose the move, arguing it will lead to exploitation of vulnerable fish populations.

Read the complete story at Congress.org

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), Ranking Member of the Senate Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard, and U.S. Representative Barney Frank (D-Mass.) today urged the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to fund a National Research Council study of the 10-year timeline for rebuilding overfished fish stocks, as mandated by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA).

In a letter to NOAA Administrator, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, the lawmakers called for an independent study to determine the economic and ecological costs and benefits as well as the scientific underpinnings of the mandate to rebuild all overfished fish stocks within 10 years.  The study would also address the feasibility of rebuilding all fish stocks simultaneously, the impact of non-fishing related factors such as climate change and coastal development and pollution on fish stock recovery, and would probe whether current investment in fisheries science is sufficient to meet the National Standards established in the MSA.

“Fisheries are an economic engine for our coastal communities, and the Magnuson-Stevens Act includes a commitment to achieve optimum yield from our fisheries while minimizing adverse economic impact.  Congressman Frank and I are asking NOAA to fund this study to determine whether the 10-year rebuilding timeline best meets these mandates,” said Senator Snowe.  “We all share the goal of managing our fisheries sustainably to benefit both the fishermen of today and for future generations.  This study would provide a truly independent assessment of the economic and ecological costs and benefits of the current system and ultimately suggest ways to enhance fishery management.”

“I am pleased to join Senator Snowe in calling for NOAA to fund a study by the National Academy of Science’s National Research Council to provide an independent assessment of the 10-year rebuilding timeline, focusing on its ecological and economic costs and benefits,” said Frank.  “The rigid and arbitrary 10 year rebuilding timeline was one of my major objections to the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and I believe the time has come for it to be reevaluated.”

Read the letter from Senator Snowe and Congressman Frank.

Thousands of commercial, recreational and party/charter boat fishermen and people in businesses depending on them from Alaska, both coasts and the Gulf of Mexico have united under the banner of the Preserve Fishing Coalition to support federal legislation introduced by New Jersey Congressman Frank Pallone and New York Senator Charles Schumer and 26 co-sponsors. The Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act of 2009 (HR 1584 and S 1255) will relieve fishermen from the onerous and totally unnecessary rigidity in stock rebuilding timeframes that have been added to the Magnuson Act by the successful lobbying of activist environmental organizations funded by multi-billion dollar foundations with strong corporate connections.

The Coalition, an ad hoc group started by 14 fishing organization leaders, is coordinating a fishermen's rally on the steps of the Capital starting at noon on February 24th and is collecting signatures on a web-based letter thanking the Act's sponsors for taking the critical first step in returning independent fishermen to their rightful place in the fisheries management process.

The letter will be presented to the legislators at the rally.

Read the complete story at PR Newswire.

Planes, trains and automobiles — and dozens of buses — will be descending on Washington, D.C. beginning next Sunday as a national movement of fishermen gathers in an effort to convince Congress to put more economic opportunity into the Magnuson-Stevens fisheries recovery act.

The rising of the fishermen — an unprecedented fusion of recreational and commercial interests — comes more than 30 years into the nation's commitment to restore the ocean ecosystem. And it's coming at a moment when fishermen and government science agree a remarkable environmental success story is in the making.

Yet rigid deadlines in the Magnuson Act as interpreted by federal fishery regulators are cutting catch limits and sending businesses into bankruptcy and collapse.

"Much progress has been made of the last several years in increasing the sustainability of our stocks," James Balsiger, acting head of the National Marine Fisheries Service, wrote last May in NMFS "2008 Status of the Fisheries."

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

The Obama administration is proposing a grant program that could start zoning marine areas for offshore projects.

The White House released a fiscal 2011 budget proposal this week that includes $20 million in grants for regional ocean partnerships. The competitive grants would support planning for marine zoning.

Advocates of the zoning effort say the proposal — a small part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's $5.55 billion annual budget — would be a big step toward helping improving the marine management.

Read the complete story at The New York Times.

A congressional subcommittee has set the date for its oversight hearing into a U.S. Inspector General's findings that a largely autonomous federal fisheries law enforcement agency has mistreated fishermen as if they were criminals, leading to a "dysfunctional" relationship between regulators and the regulated.

Chairwoman Madeleine Z. Bordallo, D-Guam, announced the hearing before the Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans and Wildlife will be March 3 at 2 p.m. in Washington; the hearing will be Webcast live on the committee's Web site.

Members of the staff of Commerce Department IG Todd Zinser and representatives of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency which polices federal waters, are expected to appear.

Although NOAA chief Jane Lubchenco has announced a series of stopgap measures in response to key findings, the investigators have not commented publicly beyond the 26-page report, which noted that additional work and findings would be posted regarding important individual cases.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.