Saving Seafood

Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola will be absent from House floor to prepare fish for winter storage

November 5, 2024 — Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Alaska) will not be in attendance for House votes this week, so she can prepare fish for her family.

“This week, Representative Peltola will be in the state putting up fish with family to fill freezers for the winter. Mary’s family—as well as her late husband’s family—relies in part on her for subsistence duties,” her office said in a statement.

“Representative Peltola will submit publicly available statements to the Congressional record reflecting how she would have voted if present,” the statement added.

Read the full article at The Hill

ALASKA: US House candidates debate Alaskan fisheries management

October 30, 2024 — Candidates for the sole U.S. House of Representatives seat up for election in Alaska were able to make their positions on the state’s struggling seafood industry heard during the 2024 Alaska Fisheries Debate, hosted by the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce.

Incumbent U.S. Representative Mary Peltola (D-Alaska) touted her record on providing support to the state’s commercial fishing sector while pointing to the bills she has sponsored as a path forward for the industry.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Peltola moves to ban US support of offshore aquaculture in federal waters

August 5, 2024 –A new bill from U.S. Representative Mary Peltola (D-Alaska) would ban U.S. agencies from permitting or supporting offshore aquaculture in federal waters without authorization from Congress.

The Domestic Seafood Production Act (DSPA) would specifically put a halt to ongoing governmental efforts to foster and encourage finfish farming in federal waters as Congress considers the future of offshore aquaculture in U.S. waters.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Peltola Introduces Domestic Seafood Production Act

August 1, 2024 — Rep. Mary Sattler Peltola (D-AK) this week introduced the Domestic Seafood Production Act (DSPA), legislation to help address food security in communities historically reliant on coastal and marine resources by helping them build seafood processing capacity for local use.

Peltola’s bill would prevent rapid offshore finfish aquaculture permitting and its harmful effects on the environment and local ecosystems by prohibiting permitting or construction of offshore fish farms in U.S. Federal waters in the absence of Congressional authorization.

The bill encourages research on the effects of finfish aquaculture on the ecosystem and potential offshore locations that may be least impactful to the marine environment and commercially important fish stocks.

“In Alaska, so many communities rely on fish and seafood production both for subsistence and good-paying jobs,” Rep. Peltola said. “My bill would support our local fishing and maritime communities while strengthening our domestic seafood supply chain.”

Read the full story at Yahoo! News

Magnuson-Stevens Act reauthorization back on the docket

June 28, 2024 — A bipartisan group of U.S. Representatives has re-introduced a bill in the latest bid to reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA).

U.S. representatives Jared Huffman (D-California), who is the ranking member of the U.S. Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries, along with Ed Case (D-Hawaii), Mary Peltola (D-Alaska), and U.S. Delegate James Moylan (R-Guam), reintroduced the “Sustaining America’s Fisheries for the Future Act” in a bid to renew the MSA – the law governing fisheries management at a federal level. The law was enacted in 1976 and was last reauthorized in 2006.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource