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Saving Seafood Coalition Members Applaud Proclamation Restoring Commercial Fishing to Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Monument

June 5, 2020 โ€” WASHINGTON โ€” Members of Saving Seafoodโ€™s National Coalition for Fishing Communities thank President Trump for the presidential proclamation signed today restoring sustainable commercial fishing activities in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. Our members are grateful to elected officials from both parties, White House staff, and fisheries managers who have pushed for our fisheries to be managed under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and who have advocated for commercial fishermen to be fully included in the regulatory processes that shape their livelihoods.

Under the proclamation, a revision to President Barack Obamaโ€™s executive order designating the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Monument, the contours of the monument remain unchanged, and potentially destructive oil drilling and exploration remains banned. But commercial fishermen are now allowed to resume fishing in waters they had fished for decades before the monument was created, in areas that President Obama and others called โ€œpristineโ€ even before commercial fishermen were banned from them. It also restores parity with recreational fishermen, who were never prohibited from fishing in the monument area.

Our members believe in robust debate among industry, scientists, regulators and environmentalists to produce the best decisions regarding fisheries management. While it is not perfect, the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the primary law governing U.S. federal fisheries, has been championed by both industry and environmental advocates for helping to make U.S. fisheries a sustainable model for the world. Todayโ€™s revision restores management of fisheries within the monument area to the regional management councils created under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, once again allowing for the robust debate such impactful policy decisions demand.

In April 2010, President Obama signed a Presidential Memorandum establishing the โ€œAmericaโ€™s Great Outdoors Initiativeโ€ to โ€œpromote and support innovative community-level efforts to conserve outdoor spaces and to reconnect Americans to the outdoors.โ€ In the ensuing report the administration pledged to implement โ€œa transparent and open approach to new national monument designations tailored to engaging local, state, and national interests.โ€ Unfortunately, the Obama Administration did not uphold President Obamaโ€™s pledge in the creation of the Atlantic marine monument, or in the expansion of Pacific marine monuments.

In a 2017 letter to President Trump asking him to restore fishing in marine national monuments, then-Chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources Representative Rob Bishop (R-UT) and Representative Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen (R-AS) wrote, โ€œRemoval of the fishing prohibitions in the monument proclamations and the return of U.S. fisheries management to the Regional Fishery Management Councils would continue to prevent overfishing and protect the marine environment as required by the MSA and other applicable laws, while allowing our fishing fleet to compete with their foreign competitors. Using the Antiquities Act to close U.S. waters to domestic fisheries is a clear example of federal overreach and regulatory duplication and obstructs well managed, sustainable U.S. fishing industries in favor of their foreign counterparts.โ€

The nationโ€™s eight regional councils have also repeatedly pushed for management of fishing in marine national monuments to be returned to the council process. Just last week in a letter to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, they wrote, โ€œThe ban on commercial fishing within Marine National Monument waters is a regulatory burden on domestic fisheries, requiring many of the affected American fishermen to travel outside U.S. waters with increased operational expenses and higher safety-at-sea risks.โ€ They further stated, โ€œmarine National Monument designations in their present form hinder the Councilsโ€™ ability to sustainably manage fisheries throughout their range, and they restrict the Councils and the National Marine Fisheries Service from acquiring invaluable knowledge about the stocks and the marine ecosystem made available through catch-and-effort and observer data.โ€

Mayor Jon Mitchell of New Bedford, Massachusetts, the nationโ€™s top fishing port by value, a Democrat, expressed deep concern about the lack of broad stakeholder consensus in the monument designation, and expressed his preference for the council process. In testimony before Congress in 2017, he said, โ€œThe 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. 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.โ€

The council process has led to many conservation successes, such as efforts to preserve coral habitats in the Mid-Atlantic. Most importantly, these conservation successes were achieved through robust debate among all stakeholders. Saving Seafood Coalition members are pleased that todayโ€™s proclamation will allow this robust debate to once again guide fisheries management in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Monument.

Coalition members also continue to believe that there is no difference in principle between the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Monument and other U.S. marine national monuments in the Pacific, and that the council process is the appropriate method for managing fisheries in all U.S. federal waters. The U.S. has the largest exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the world, and the U.S. Pacific is the largest part of the U.S. EEZ, with our Pacific fishermen working hard to provide economic vitality to their communities, and food security to our nation.

Our members look forward to working with the White House to restore the proper regulation of commercial fishing under the Magnuson-Stevens Act in the Papahฤnaumokuฤkea Marine National Monument, the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument, and the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument.

Interior boss: No monument changes planned, but up to Trump

May 23, 2019 โ€” U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said Wednesday he has no plans for additional changes to national monuments that were recommended by his predecessor, but that itโ€™s ultimately up to President Donald Trump.

The comments at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee meeting are the latest indication that recommendations to shrink two monuments in Oregon and Nevada and change rules at six others remain relegated to backburner status as the White House deals with other issues.

Trump acted in December 2017 to shrink two sprawling Utah monuments on the recommendations of then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who was tasked with reviewing 27 national monuments around the country. Since then, he has done nothing else with Zinkeโ€™s recommendations.

The monument review was based on arguments from Trump and others that a law signed by President Theodore Roosevelt allowing presidents to declare monuments had been improperly used to protect wide expanses of lands instead of places with particular historical or archaeological value.

New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall, a Democrat, asked at Wednesdayโ€™s hearing if there were plans to move forward on the other eight monuments.

โ€œI think the answer is no,โ€ Bernhardt said.

He said he has not received any further instruction on Zinkeโ€™s report from Trump. โ€œThe president is ultimately the holder of the pen,โ€ said Bernhardt, who was confirmed as Interior Secretary last month.

Bernhardt is a former lobbyist for the oil and gas industry and other corporate interests who became the acting secretary after Zinke resigned in December amid multiple ethics investigations.

Read the full story at Boston.com

Fishing Groups Lose Legal Battle Over Marine Monument

October 9, 2018 โ€” The national monument that former President Barack Obama established in the Atlantic Ocean survived a court challenge Friday, with a federal judge finding that the majesty of even underwater lands is worthy of protection.

Appropriating words that President Teddy Roosevelt once used to praise the Yosemite Valley, the Canyon of Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg noted that the Canyons and Seamounts of the Northwestern Atlantic Ocean are a โ€œregion of great abundance and diversity as well as stark geographic relief.โ€

โ€œDating back 100 million years โ€” much older than Yosemite and Yellowstone โ€” they are home to โ€˜vulnerable ecological communitiesโ€™ and โ€˜vibrant ecosystems,โ€™โ€ Boasbergโ€™s 35-page opinion continues. โ€œAnd, as was true of the hallowed grounds on which Roosevelt waxed poetic, โ€˜much remains to be discovered about these unique, isolated environments.โ€™โ€

When Obama created the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument in 2016, he relied on a 1906 law passed in Rooseveltโ€™s administration.

A year later, the Massachusetts Lobstermenโ€™s Association and four other groups filed suit to unravel the 5,000-square-mile designation: They claimed that high seas do not qualify as the small โ€œparcels of landโ€ discussed in the Antiquities Act.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

Documents Released on Trump Administration Defense of National Monument Actions

July 25, 2018 โ€” In todayโ€™s print edition, the Washington Post published an article by Juliet Eilperin on the Trump administration and national monuments. The article, based on internal documents from the Interior Department, was critical of senior officials for allegedly dismissing positive information on the benefits of national monuments.

The majority of the story focused on land-based monuments, but with regard to marine monuments, the Post reported that,โ€œOn Sept. 11, 2017, Randal Bowman, the lead staffer for the review, suggested deleting language that most fishing vessels near the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument โ€˜generated 5% or less of their annual landings from within the monumentโ€™ because it โ€˜undercuts the case for the ban being harmful.โ€™โ€

Saving Seafood executive director Bob Vanasse was quoted in the article noting that โ€œโ€˜Trump administration officials have been more open to outside input than their predecessors.โ€™ โ€ฆ โ€˜They had a lot of meetings with our folks but didnโ€™t listen,โ€™ he said of Obama officials, adding even some Massachusetts Democratic lawmakers raised concerns about the New England marine monumentโ€™s fishing restrictions.โ€

The article suggested that Mr. Bowman, a career Interior Department employee and not a Trump administration appointee, purposefully excised information from logbook data indicating that, on the whole, most vessels fishing near the monument generate just 5 percent of their landings from within the monument.

However, there are valid reasons to be cautious about the logbook-data driven 5 percent statistic. There are more sources available to characterize fishing activity โ€“ in addition to just logbooks, formally known as โ€œvessel trip reportsโ€, which was the sole source cited in the email referenced in the Post story. While, as the material references states, the information comes from NOAA and the fishery management councils so it can be presumed accurate, the context is missing.

An Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) survey identified recent (2014-2015) fishing activity within the boundaries of the National Monument that, if the Obama executive order is not reversed, will be closed to the fishery in the future. The results indicate that 12-14 percent of the offshore lobster fishery effort and 13-14 percent of revenue ($2.4-2.8 million annually) for the lobster and Jonah crab fishery comes from the area of the National Monument. This revenue is significantly higher than that derived from the vessel trip report (logbook) analysis, which is only about $0.7 million annually.

The document cited in the Post story correctly cites the $2.4-$2.8 million annual revenue in those fisheries, but it does not make clear the significant percentage of offshore revenue that comes from the monument area. Similarly, when the document cites $1.8 million from the Monument region annually (2010-2015), that includes only the $0.7 million lobster trap revenues derived from vessel trip reports, not the total indicated by the ASMFC survey for more recent years.

While it is generally accurate, if one looks at the entire fishing industry in the region, to make the statement that only a small number of vessels derive more than 5 percent of their revenue from the Monument area, for those vessels and fisheries that conduct significant portions of their operations in the monument area, the economic harm is significant.

Also, in a document attached to the story, a margin comment erroneously states that NOAA advised the Interior Department that the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification for red crab was โ€œrevoked.โ€ That is not the case. In 2009, the red crab fishery became the first MSC-certified fishery on the East Coast. The certification was never revoked. The certification expired because the participants in the fishery determined that the cost to pursue renewal of the certification exceeded the financial benefits they anticipated would arise from maintaining it, and they decided voluntarily to allow it to lapse.

Read the full Washington Post story

Read further coverage of this story from E&E News

Interior wrote proclamations scuttling ocean sites โ€” emails

July 24, 2018 โ€” Senior Interior Department officials prepared last fall to eliminate the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument โ€” even as they had yet to agree on the public justifications for doing so, according to newly disclosed internal documents.

Interior last week accidentally released thousands of pages of unredacted internal emails in response to Freedom of Information Act requests.

Copies of those emails, provided to E&E News by the Center for Western Priorities, detail Interiorโ€™s strategy โ€” including a focus on timber harvesting, mineral rights, and oil and gas extraction โ€” as it reviewed the boundaries of more than two dozen national monuments under an executive order from President Trump.

The documents also disclose internal deliberations over the future of some marine monuments, including reintroducing commercial fishing to some sites and reducing the boundaries of others.

In [a] September email, [Interior official Randy Bowman] advised that Interior strike data on commercial fishing in the [Northeast Canyons and Seamounts monument]. A deleted sentence states that four vessels in 2014-15 relied on the monument area for more than 25 percent of their annual revenues, while the majority of ships generated less than 5 percent of their revenues from the area.

โ€œThis section, while accurate (except for one sentence) seems to me to undercut the case for the commercial fishing closure being harmful. I suggest in the attached deleting most of it for that reason,โ€ Bowman wrote.

Saving Seafood Executive Director Bob Vanasse disputed the idea that data didnโ€™t support the repeal of the commercial fishing ban but said it instead was removed because it could be taken out of context.

โ€œWhile it is generally accurate, if one looks at the entire fishing industry in the region, to make the statement that only a small number of vessels derive more than 5 percent of their revenue from the Monument area, for those vessels and fisheries that conduct significant portions of their operations in the monument area, the economic harm is significant,โ€ Vanasse said in a statement.

He added in an interview: โ€œThe suggestion is that the administration is hiding the facts, and I donโ€™t think thatโ€™s the case.โ€

Read the full story at E&E News

 

Chairman Bishop Invites Patagonia CEO to Testify Before House Natural Resources Committee

December 15, 2017 โ€” The following was released by the House Committee on Natural Resources:

Today, House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) sent a letter to founder and CEO of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, inviting him to testify before the Committee on the Antiquities Act, national monuments and federal land management.

โ€œThe committee believes that major public policy decisions involving millions of acres of public land should be discussed, debated, and considered in the light of day,โ€ the letter states. โ€œThe committee also believes it is important to understand and allow for all perspectives to be presented fairly and respectfullyโ€ฆ

โ€œOver the last several months, the House Committee on Natural Resources has invited stakeholders from across the country to engage in a public conversation on these and related mattersโ€ฆ

โ€œAs part of this continuing process, I wish to invite you to testify before the Committee about your views on federal land management.โ€

Click here to read the full letter.

Fight over national monuments intensifies

October 16, 2017 โ€” WASHINGTON โ€” Conservatives have opened a new front in the fight over the future of Americaโ€™s national monuments.

House Republicans are moving forward with a bill to reform a century-old conservation law, raising the stakes in their ongoing effort to curtail the presidentโ€™sโ€™ ability to set aside wide swaths of federal land as national monuments and protect them from future development.

The new legislation, from Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), comes as the White House mulls reductions to several previously declared monuments. Thatโ€™s an effort environmentalists consider an affront to the Antiquities Act, a law signed by conservation champion Theodore Roosevelt in 1906.

Conservatives, industry groups and Westerners have long pushed for changes to the Antiquities Act, saying presidents of both parties have abused the law, handcuffing local communities who could look to create jobs on public land. President Trump is an ally in that effort.

Environmentalists and most Democrats consider the Antiquities Act a bedrock American conservation law and have vowed to fight any effort to water it down.

The reform effort has its impetus in what conservatives consider an abuse of federal monument designation powers.

Sixteen presidents have used the Antiquities Act to lock up federal land over the last century. But President Obama used it the most often, and protected by far the most acreage โ€” 553.6 million acres of land and sea monuments โ€” inspiring a fresh round of legislative proposals.

Read the full story at The Hill

Committee Passes Legislation to Require Transparency, Public Input in Antiquities Act

October 12, 2017 โ€” WASHINGTON โ€” The following was released by the House Committee on Natural Resources 

Today, the House Committee on Natural Resources passed H.R. 3990, the โ€œNational Monument Creation and Protection Actโ€ or the โ€œCAP Act.โ€ Introduced by Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT), the bill protects archeological resources while ensuring public transparency and accountability in the executiveโ€™s use of the Antiquities Act.

 โ€œCongress never intended to give one individual the power to unilaterally seize enormous swathes of our nationโ€™s public landsโ€ฆ Our problem isnโ€™t President Obama or President Trump. Itโ€™s the underlying law โ€“ a statute that provides authority to dictate national monument decisions in secrecy and without public input. The only path to the accountability we all seek โ€“ no matter which party controls the White House โ€“ is to amend the Act itself,โ€ Bishop stated.

โ€œUnder this new, tiered framework, no longer would we have to blindly trust the judgement or fear the whims of any president. The bill ensures a reasonable degree of consultation with local stakeholders and an open public process would be required by law. It strengthens the presidentโ€™s authority to protect actual antiquities without the threat of disenfranchising people.

 โ€œUltimately, if enacted, it will strengthen the original intent of the law while also providing much needed accountability.โ€   

 Click here to view Chairman Bishopโ€™s full opening statement.

Click here to view full markup action.

Click here for more information on H.R. 3990. 

Chairman Bishop Releases Antiquities Act Reform Legislation

WASHINGTON โ€” October 10, 2017 โ€” The following was released by the House Natural Resources Committee:

The Full Committee will hold a markup on Wednesday, October 11, 2017 at 4:00 PM until 6:00 PM in 1334 Longworth House Office Building, to consider H.R. 3990 (Rep. Rob Bishop of UT), the โ€œNational Monument Creation and Protection Act,โ€ and H. Res. 555 (Rep. Raul Grijalva of AZ).

Chairman Bishop released the following statement:

โ€œThe 1906 Antiquities Act was originally intended as an executive tool to protect historical and archeological artifacts and structures under threat. Regrettably, this worthy goal has been manipulated for ulterior political purposes. Today the Act is too often used as an excuse for presidents to unilaterally lock up vast tracts of public land without any mechanism for people to provide input or voice concerns. This is wrong.   

โ€œThis legislation provides for accountability in the Actโ€™s uses. It modernizes the law to restore its intent, allowing for the protection of actual antiquities without disenfranchisement of local voices and perspectives. It standardizes and limits the presidentโ€™s power to reshape monuments.

โ€œIf my colleagues are serious about their calls for accountability under this Act โ€“ no matter which party controls the White House โ€“ they will support this bill.โ€

  • H.R. 3990 (Rep. Rob Bishop of UT), To amend title 54, United States Code, to reform the Antiquities Act of 1906, and for other purposes. โ€œNational Monument Creation and Protection Act.โ€
  • H. Res. 555 (Rep. Raul Grijalva), Of inquiry requesting the President and directing the Secretary of the Interior to transmit, respectively, certain documents and other information to the House of Representatives relating to the executive order on the review of designations under the Antiquities Act.
WHAT: Full Committee Markup on H.R. 3990 and H. Res. 555
WHEN: Wednesday, October 11
4:00 PM-6:00PM
WHERE: 1334 Longworth House Office Building

Visit the Committee Calendar for additional information once it is made available. The meeting is open to the public and a video feed will stream live at House Committee on Natural Resources.

Interior Report Recommends Cuts or Changes to Seven National Land Monuments

September 19, 2017 โ€” Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has recommended cutbacks or other changes to nearly half the geographic national monuments he recently reviewed at the request of President Donald Trump, according to a report sent to the White House and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The report recommends reducing the boundaries of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante preserves in Utah, and reopening hundreds of thousands of square miles of protected oceans in both the Pacific and Atlantic to commercial fishingโ€”in actions numerous environmental groups would likely fight to block.

Mr. Zinke recommended no changes to 17 other national monuments that the president included in the review, which he ordered after complaining some of his predecessors had locked up too much land and water in the preserves that can be created by presidents or Congress under the Antiquities Act of 1906. Most of the monuments that Mr. Zinke reviewed were created by two of Mr. Trumpโ€™s Democratic predecessors, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

If the president acts on the recommendations, they could have enormous economic implications in areas around the monuments.

For example, huge fisheries could reopen in both the Atlantic and Pacific. Prior to a nearly 600,000-square-mile area being created as the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument by the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, the region was a major fishery for Hawaii and Samoa, Mr. Zinke said in his report. Along with the two other marine monuments he singled out for change, he asked the president to take actions including through boundary reductions to allow most commercial fishing to resume.

Read the full story at the Wall Street Journal

 

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