May 26, 2024 — U.S. Rep. Mary Sattler Peltola, a Democrat from Alaska, introduced two bills on Wednesday that align with her long-time political, professional and personal incentives to protect marine ecosystems from industrial trawling fleets.
The Bottom Trawl Clarity Act addresses a decades-long controversy in Alaska that would require regional fishery management councils to change the regulatory definition of “midwater” trawlers’ fishing nets that have “substantial bottom contact” with the ocean floor to a more accurate definition. The current regulations allow the trawlers to fish in ecologically sensitive areas closed to bottom trawling.
“We’re very serious about it, and it’s a real bipartisan bill; it addresses a real problem with a real solution,” said the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress in an extensive interview with USA TODAY on May 22.