Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act Archives - Page 3 of 6

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell Voices Coalition Concern Over Marine Monuments at House Hearing

WASHINGTON – March 15, 2017 – The following was released by the National Coalition for Fishing Communities:

Today, New Bedford, Mass. Mayor Jon Mitchell delivered written testimony to the House Natural Resources Committee on behalf of Saving Seafood’s National Coalition for Fishing Communities. His testimony expressed serious concerns about the impacts of marine monuments, designated using executive authority under the Antiquities Act, on fishermen and coastal communities.

Mayor Mitchell had planned to testify in person before the Subcommittee on Water, Power, and Oceans as a representative of the NCFC, but was unable to attend the hearing in Washington due to snow and severe weather conditions in the Northeast.

In his testimony, Mayor Mitchell questioned both the “poorly conceived terms of particular monument designations,” as well as “more fundamental concerns with the process itself.” Mayor Mitchell also delivered a letter to the committee signed by eleven NCFC member organizations further detailing their concerns with the monument process and how fishing communities across the country are affected by monument designations.

The letter was signed by the Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association, the California Wetfish Producers Association, the Fisheries Survival Fund, the Garden State Seafood Association, the Hawaii Longline Association, the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition, the North Carolina Fisheries Association, the Southeastern Fisheries Association, the West Coast Seafood Processors Association, and the Western Fishboat Owners Association.

In addition, three NCFC member organizations, the Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association, the Hawaii Longline Association, and the North Carolina Fisheries Association submitted individual letters outlining in further detail their opposition to marine monuments.

Mayor Mitchell was also critical of the monument designation process, by which a president can close off any federal lands or waters on a permanent basis using executive authority under the Antiquities Act. He instead praised the Fishery Management Council process created by the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which he said affords greater opportunities for input from stakeholders, scientists, and the public.

“The monument designation process has evolved effectively into a parallel, much less robust fishery management apparatus that has been conducted entirely independent of the tried and true Fishery Management Council process,” Mayor Mitchell said. “It lacks sufficient amounts of all the ingredients that good policy-making requires: Scientific rigor, direct industry input, transparency, and a deliberate pace that allows adequate time and space for review.”

Mayor Mitchell used his testimony to call attention to issues affecting fishing communities across the country, including New England fishermen harmed by the recently designated Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, and Hawaii fishermen harmed by the expansion of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. He also expressed the concerns of fishermen in Mid-Atlantic, South Atlantic, and Pacific waters in dealing with the monument process.

Mayor Mitchell concluded by calling on Congress to integrate the executive branch’s monument authority with the established processes of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, ensuring that the long-term interests of all stakeholders are accounted for.

“This Congress has an important opportunity to restore the centrality of Magnuson’s Fishery Management Councils to their rightful place as the critical arbiters of fisheries management matters,” Mayor Mitchell said. “Doing so would give fishing communities much more confidence in the way our nation approaches fisheries management. And it could give the marine monument designation process the credibility and acceptance that it regrettably lacks today.”

The mayor spoke at the hearing on behalf of the NCFC. The city of New Bedford, as Mayor Mitchell stated in his testimony, was instrumental in the founding of the Coalition, providing an initial seed grant for its creation.

Read Mayor Mitchell’s full testimony here

Read the NCFC letter here

Read the Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association letter here

Read the Hawaii Longline Association letter here

Read the North Carolina Fisheries Association letter here

New Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross Lists U.S. Fisheries as a Top Department Priority

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) – March 1, 2017 – In his first address (starts at 9:41 in the video) to Department of Commerce employees this morning, newly confirmed Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross included U.S. fisheries among his top priorities for the department.

In a list of ten challenges facing the Commerce Department’s 47,000 employees, including the launch of more NOAA satellites and changes to the methodology of the 2020 U.S. Census, Mr. Ross specifically identified the need for “obtaining maximum sustainable yield for our fisheries.”

Maximum sustainable yield (MSY) refers to the largest catch that can be sustainably taken from a fish stock over an indefinite period of time. Promoting sustainable fishing by achieving maximum sustainable yield is one of the primary goals of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA), the chief law governing fisheries management in the U.S.

The U.S. commercial fishing industry is a vital part of the U.S. economy, with landings of 9.7 billion pounds of seafood in 2015 worth $5.2 billion, according to the latest “Fisheries of the United States” report from NOAA Fisheries. Nevertheless, nearly 90 percent of seafood consumed in the U.S. is imported into the country.

Mr. Ross has previously expressed his support for domestic fisheries and his desire to reduce America’s reliance on seafood imports, which has created an $11 billion trade deficit for the U.S. seafood industry.

“Given the enormity of our coastlines, given the enormity of our freshwater, I would like to try to figure out how we can become much more self-sufficient in fishing and perhaps even a net exporter,” Mr. Ross said at his January confirmation hearing, according to Politico.

Mr. Ross was confirmed in a Senate vote 72-27 Monday night. He is a successful billionaire investor and founder of the private equity firm WL Ross & Co., from which he has agreed to divest as he takes on his new government role.

Despite recent tweaks, New England fishermen want more changes in law

January 13, 2017 — Despite tweaks to fishing guidelines in 2016 aimed at increasing regulatory flexibility, some New England groundfishermen and recreational fishermen still support a move to amend the Magnuson-Stevens Act, sources told Undercurrent News.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA’s) recently made changes to a guideline known National Standard One (NS1), but there will still likely be a push from east coast fishermen to amend the Magnuson-Stevens Act as Republican president-elect Donald Trump takes office.

The effort intends to bring more “flexibility” to fishery management, sources told Undercurrent News.

In October of 2016 NOAA made changes to NS1, which aims to prevent overfishing while achieving the optimum yield from each fishery.

Changes were first proposed in January 2015, and the final rule passed in October 2016 giving regional councils more latitude to set catch limits, a change that was opposed by environmental groups.

Call for flexibility

Fishermen, particularly on the US east coast, have been critical for several years of what they say are rigid timelines that give regulators ten years to rebuild stocks deemed overfished.

Some sources told Undercurrent that the lack of flexibility sometimes forces regulators to severely — and some say, unnecessarily — cut quotas when fisheries are nearing the 10-year mark. If a fishery has shown improvement and is nearing its goal, they claim, it makes no difference in the long run whether they reach that goal in the allotted ten years or sooner.

“I think that it’s possible that those new guidelines acted as a relief valve for that pressure. I don’t know that you’re going to get as much pressure to create flexibility in the act that you would get two years ago,” Shannon Carroll of the Alaska Marine Conservation Council told Undercurrent.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Trump’s rise may bring big changes to main US fishing law

January 12, 2017 — Previously unsuccessful efforts to reform the US’s main federal fishing law, the Magnuson-Stevens Act, are positioned to move ahead under a Donald Trump administration.

New efforts to amend the US Magnuson-Stevens Act are expected from the new Congress, leaving some in industry concerned with any move away from a law judged by many to have worked reasonably well for four decades.

Some in industry have told Undercurrent News that they fear pressures to add more “flexibility” could allow political considerations to undermine science-driven decision-making currently enshrined in the bill, which forms the basis for most federal fishing regulation in US waters.

“Right now you might be looking at potential for a whole lot of changes and revisions,” said an Alaska-based source who wished to remain unnamed. “I would say there should be some anxiety about how far you go giving people flexibility that moves outside the scientific realm.”

But how drastically Magnuson Stevens might change, if at all, remains to be seen, he added.

HR 1335

One such effort, a bill known as HR 1335 sponsored by Alaskan Representative Don Young, faced a veto threat from president Barack Obama, who will be replaced by Trump on Jan. 20.

One of the bill’s central provisions would have reformed Magnuson-Stevens’s mandatory 10-year stock rebuilding timeline, incorporating additional flexibility. Instead of formally defining all stocks in decline as “overfished”, Young’s amendment would allow the term “depleted” when the reason for a stock’s decline is due to depredation or other non-fishing factors.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Oceana Files Legal Challenge to Northern Anchovy Catch Limit

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — November 29, 2016 — Last week, environmental group Oceana filed a lawsuit alleging that a recent National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) specification rule allows commercial fishing for northern anchovy at levels that threaten the anchovy population and the marine ecosystem. The complaint was filed against the NMFS, Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the District Court of Northern California.

The specification rule in question, announced October 26, 2016 under the Coastal Pelagic Species Fishery Management Plan, set an annual catch limit (ACL) of 25,000 metric tons for the central subpopulation of anchovy. In its lawsuit, Oceana claims that the NMFS did not articulate the scientific basis for this ACL, did not base the ACL and related management measures on best available science, and did not explain how it would prevent overfishing and protect the West Coast marine ecosystem’s food web.

In doing so, Oceana claims that the rule violates the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. The complaint claims that the northern anchovy population has severely declined since 2009, and that northern anchovy are “one of the most important forage species” in the California marine ecosystem.

“The Fisheries Service’s actions and failures to act have harmed Oceana’s members’ interest in rebuilding and maintaining a healthy and sustainable population of northern anchovy and a healthy ocean ecosystem,” said the lawsuit, which was filed by lawyers from Earthjustice on Oceana’s behalf. “This harm will continue in the absence of action by the Court.”

Read the full legal complaint as a PDF

U.S. Seafood Producers to White House: Don’t Harm Fisheries for Ocean Monuments

September 12, 2016 — The following was released by the National Coalition for Fishing Communities:

WASHINGTON — Today, in advance of the “Our Oceans” conference being held later this week at the State Department, the National Coalition for Fishing Communities (NCFC) delivered a letter to the White House calling on the President to refrain from designating new marine monuments under the Antiquities Act. Copies of the letter were also delivered to the offices of Senators representing the states of the signers.

The letter, with over 900 fishing industry signers and supported by 35 fishing organizations that represent the majority of domestic seafood harvesters, instead urges the President to conserve marine resources through the federal fisheries management process established by the bipartisan Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Management Act (MSA).

“The federal fisheries management process is among the most effective systems for managing living marine resources in the world,” the letter states. “The misuse of the Antiquities Act to create a marine monument is a repudiation of past and ongoing efforts to make Magnuson-Stevens management even more effective.”

The NCFC members join an ever-growing list of fishing organizations and individuals opposing new ocean monuments via use of the Antiquities Act. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the Council Coordination Committee, and over two dozen individual fish and seafood industry trade organizations have previously written to the White House asking for the MSA continue to guide fisheries management.

Mayors from major East and West coast ports have previously expressed their concerns with monument designations in letters to the White House. NCFC members have also spoke out in opposition to designating a monument off the coast of New England, which would hurt the valuable red crab, swordfish, tuna, and offshore lobster fisheries.

Today’s letter was signed by the following fishing organizations:

Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers
American Scallop Association
American Albacore Fisheries Association
At-Sea Processors Association
Atlantic Bluefin Tuna Association
Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association
California Fisheries and Seafood Institute
California Lobster & Trap Fishermen’s Association
California Sea Urchin Commission
California Wetfish Producers Association
Coalition of Coastal Fisheries
Coos Bay Trawlers
Directed Sustainable Fisheries
Fisheries Survival Fund
Fishermen’s Dock Co-Op
Garden State Seafood Association
Golden King Crab Coalition
Groundfish Forum
Hawaii Longline Association
Long Island Commercial Fishing Association
Midwater Trawlers Cooperative
National Fisheries Institute
North Carolina Fisheries Association
Oregon Trawl Commission
Organized Fishermen of Florida
Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations
Pacific Seafood Processors Association
Pacific Whiting Conservation Cooperative
Southeastern Fisheries Association
Sustainable Fisheries Coalition
United Catcher Boats
Ventura County Commercial Fishermen’s Association
Washington Trollers Association
West Coast Seafood Processors Association
Western Fishboat Owners Association

Read the letter here

House Water, Power and Oceans Newsletter August 2016

September 6, 2016 — The following was released by the House Committee on Natural Resources’ Subcommittee on Water, Power, and Oceans:

Over the past few months, the House Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans worked towards enhancing water and power supplies, instilling federal transparency and accountability and promoting fishing access in domestic and international waters. In the final months of the 114th Congress, the Subcommittee will continue these efforts through legislative and oversight activities. For additional information about the Subcommittee please visit our website.

PROTECTING FISHING ACCESS

NATIONAL OCEAN POLICY HAS FISHING AND FARMING INTERESTS CONCERNED

The Subcommittee held a May hearing on President Obama’s National Ocean Policy. Following unsuccessful efforts to pass major national ocean policy legislation during three successive Congresses under both Democrat and Republican majorities, the Administration initiated the development of a sweeping multi-agency federal management plan for oceans, which culminated in July 2010 when President Obama issued Executive Order 13547. This Executive Order created the National Ocean Council, which includes the heads of 27 different federal agencies. The National Ocean Policy imposes a new governance structure over agencies to ensure to the fullest extent that all agency actions are consistent with the objectives laid out in the Executive Order, including marine spatial planning and ecosystem-based management.

The Subcommittee heard from witnesses representing fishing interests in the Northeast and Gulf of Mexico and a western farming and ranching witness. The Administration refused to provide a witness for the hearing to help clear up many unanswered questions. Representative Bradley Byrne (R-AL) successfully offered an amendment preventing federal funds from being used to execute actions under the National Ocean Policy to the Fiscal Year 2017 Interior Department appropriations bill.

CHAIRMAN BISHOP VISITS NEW ENGLAND COMMERCIAL FISHERIES PORT

Following the one-year anniversary of the House passage of H.R. 1335, legislation reauthorizing the Magnuson-Stevens Act, House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop spent June 2, 2016 touring one of the Nation’s leading commercial fishing ports in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Accompanied by New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell, Representative Bill Keating, and fishing industry leaders, Bishop spent the day touring the harbor and shore-side facilities that support this robust working waterfront.

Chairman Bishop also participated in a roundtable discussion with dozens of industry representatives at the historic New Bedford Whaling Museum. While the roundtable initially focused on the work of the Committee and efforts to reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the conversation quickly turned to the proposed Marine National Monument off the coast of Massachusetts currently under consideration by President Obama. During the roundtable, industry representatives noted the lack of transparency and presented an industry alternative to the proposal. This alternative mirrors the unified stance taken by state fisheries directors from Maine to Florida outlined in a May 9 letter to President Obama from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

Following this visit, Chairman Rob Bishop penned an op-ed in the Boston Herald discussing the Administration’s Marine National Monument proposal and highlighting the lack of transparency and stakeholder input in the Antiquities Act process. The Chairman’s op-ed can be found here. In response to widespread local opposition to this proposal, Representative Lee Zeldin (R-NY) successfully offered an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2017 Interior Department appropriations bill that prevents federal funds from being used to designate a Marine National Monument in U.S. federal waters (three miles from shore out to 200 miles). This followed the House’s June passage of Zeldin’s H.R. 3070, the “EEZ Zone Clarification and Access Act.” The bill allows recreational striped bass fishing in the Block Island Transit Zone and is the result of grassroots efforts by Long Island fishermen who testified at Natural Resources Committee hearings.

Read the full newsletter at the House Committee on Natural Resources

Battle over Cashes Ledge continues between fishermen, environmentalists

August 29, 2016 — Despite the Obama administration’s declaration that Cashes Ledge has been taken off the table as a possible location for a marine national monument, the divisive issue of the monuments continues to percolate nationally between fishermen and conservationists.

From Hawaii to New England, the lines are clearly drawn.

Conservation groups have sustained a steady lobbying campaign to convince President Obama to employ the Antiquities Act to create new marine national monuments in the waters around Cashes Ledge, about 80 miles off Gloucester, and the seamounts off southern New England and Monterey, California.

On Friday, Obama ended a contentious process in the Pacific Ocean when he expanded an existing marine national monument area in the northwest Hawaiian Islands to create the largest protected area on Earth — 582,578 square miles.

Fishing stakeholders and fishing communities have countered with their own public campaign that sharply criticizes the collateral impact of closing more areas to commercial and recreational fishing, as well as the method of using the Antiquities Act as an end-run around the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation Act.

“The Antiquities Act does not require transparency or a robust analysis of the science,” the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition said in a statement. “It does not require any socioeconomic considerations be taken into account. No process is required other than an executive action by the president of the United States.”

The coalition and others, including several members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation and Gov. Charlie Baker, have tried to drive home the point that the current system of federal ocean management requires fishing businesses and communities to follow the established and intricate regulatory procedures established under Magnuson-Stevens.

To allow the creation of marine national monuments by what amounts to presidential fiat, they say, is unfair to those who have operated under the established rules and makes a mockery of Magnuson-Stevens.

“The New England Fishery Management Council is in charge of carrying out this requirement in our region,” the NSC said. “Last year, the council approved Omnibus Habitat Amendment 2 and is presently working on an Omnibus Deep Coral Amendment. These areas include the very areas now proposed and under consideration for a national monument.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

D.B. PLESCHNER: Monument proposal would devastate California’s fishing industry

August 15, 2016 — The following is excerpted from an opinion piece written by D.B. Pleschner, executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association. It was published today in the Sacramento Bee:

California’s fisheries provide healthy, sustainable food, but that could change under a dangerous new proposal being circulated, until recently, behind closed doors at the Legislature.

California’s fishing community – more than 40 harbors, chambers of commerce, seafood processors and recreational and commercial fishing groups – has united to oppose the proposal to declare virtually all offshore seamounts, ridges and banks off the coast as monuments under the Antiquities Act and permanently close these areas to commercial fishing.

After pursuing rumors, fisheries groups discovered the proposal, along with a sign-on letter encouraging legislative support. But no one bothered to seek any input from recreational and commercial fishermen. Even worse, there has been no scientific review or economic analysis, no public participation and no transparency.

The areas identified in the proposal are indeed special places, rich in marine life and valuable corals, sponges and structures. The seamounts and banks are also very important for fisheries.

Tuna, swordfish, rockfish, spiny lobster, sea urchins, white sea bass and species including mackerels, bonito and market squid are all sustainably fished in Southern and Central California. And in Northern California, albacore tuna and other species provide opportunities to fishermen who, for the past few seasons, have been unable to rely on Chinook salmon and Dungeness crab.

These areas do deserve protection. But policies for protecting resources in federal waters exist under the federal Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and other bipartisan laws, such as the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act, which require science-based, peer-reviewed analysis conducted in a fully public and transparent process.

Read the full opinion piece at the Sacramento Bee

NOAA Fisheries releases final acoustic guidance

August 8, 2016 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries has released final guidance to help predict how human-made underwater sounds affect marine mammal hearing.

Sound is critical to the survival of marine mammals. It is a primary means of marine mammal communication, orientation and navigation, finding food, avoiding predators, and mate selection.

NOAA will use the guidance in its assessments and authorizations of activities that generate underwater sound. The guidance also allows federal agencies, industries, and other applicants to more accurately predict effects of their proposed projects and help inform decisions about appropriate mitigation and monitoring. NOAA Fisheries also created online tools to help applicants use the new guidance.

“We recognize that growing levels of ocean noise are affecting marine animals and their habitats in complex ways,” said Eileen Sobeck, assistant NOAA administrator for fisheries. “The guidance is one part of NOAA’s holistic approach to addressing effects of ocean noise on marine life.”

NOAA’s authorities to address the effects of ocean noise on marine resources fall primarily under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, Endangered Species Act, National Marine Sanctuaries Act, and Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation Act. These authorities allow NOAA to recommend or require mitigation in order to reduce or eliminate their predicted noise impacts to species and the places they rely on. NOAA shares this responsibility with a number of other federal agencies.

NOAA released its a broader draft Ocean Noise Strategy Roadmap less than two months ago. The technical document is one example of a step the agency is taking to address increasing levels of ocean noise.