Saving Seafood

Fishermen consider next move after court upholds Atlantic national monument

January 14, 2020 — A federal appeals court has upheld the creation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, affirming that the federal Antiquities Act can be applied at sea as well as on land.

The Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association and other fishing advocates challenged former President Barack Obama’s designation of the 5,000-square-mile area at the edge of the continental shelf south of Georges Bank in 2016. A lower federal court ruled against their lawsuit in 2018.

Conservation groups and environmental advocates joined the arguments in both the lower and appeals courts, portraying the monument protections as critical to protect deep-sea corals, whales and other marine life from future offshore oil exploration and “industrial fishing.”

In an opinion for the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, Circuit Court Judge David Tatel explained why the three-judge panel dismissed all of the fishermen’s arguments against the monument – starting with their contention that the Antiquities Act cannot apply to the sea floor.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Seamounts monument lawsuit appeal rejected by federal court

January 3, 2020 — A lawsuit against a national monument created by U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has been defeated once again after an appeal to an earlier ruling was denied.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has rejected the appeal of an earlier ruling that dismissed a lawsuit brought by fishermen against the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. The monument, created in 2016, will be 4,913 square miles of ocean roughly 130 miles off of the coast of New England that will be closed to commercial activity, including fishing.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Court Upholds Creation of National Monument in Atlantic

December 27, 2019 — A federal appeals court on Friday upheld former President Barack Obama’s designation of a federally protected conservation area in the Atlantic Ocean, a move that commercial fishermen oppose.

Fishing groups sued over the creation of Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, a 5,000-square-mile (8,000-square-kilometer) area that contains fragile deep sea corals and vulnerable species of marine life. The monument was established in 2016.

A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit last year, and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the decision Friday.

The appeals panel brushed aside arguments that federal law governing monuments applies only to land, not oceans; that the area of the ocean is not “controlled” by the federal government; that it is not compatible with National Marine Sanctuaries Act; and that it is not the “smallest area compatible” with management goals.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The New York Times

Western Pacific Council Director: Marine Monuments ‘Major Impediment’ to U.S. Fisheries

WASHINGTON — May 1, 2019 — The following was released by the National Coalition for Fishing Communities:

In testimony before a House subcommittee today, Kitty Simonds, the Executive Director of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WPRFMC) labeled the increasing number and size of marine monuments a “major impediment” to U.S. fisheries. According to Ms. Simonds, these designations force fishermen to travel farther, longer, and at greater costs, with little conservation benefit.

Members of Saving Seafood’s National Coalition for Fishing Communities also submitted a letter to the Subcommittee, which was entered into the committee hearing record, asking that fishing inside of the marine monuments be managed under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and that future monument designations include input from commercial fishermen. The letter notes that previous monument designations were made “with no formal public hearings, cost-benefit analyses, or input from affected constituents, and despite no compelling reason or threat to marine resources.”

“The Council process allows for stakeholders, scientists, and concerned citizens to review and debate policy decisions in a transparent manner,” the letter states. “In contrast, the Antiquities Act authorizes the president to take away public areas and public resources with no public input. Using executive authority, the President can close any federal lands and waters in an opaque, top-down process that too often excludes the very people who would be most affected.”

The letter was signed by 20 fishing organizations and 8 fishing vessels, representing fishermen from 11 states: California, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Rhode Island.

Ms. Simonds cited other negative consequences of the policy, including making it harder to prevent illegal fishing by foreign vessels in the U.S. EEZ; limiting, along with other closures, fishermen to operate in as little as 17 percent of the U.S. EEZ; and a decrease in the number of longline vessels and the amount of their catch.

“These prohibitions have forced our fishermen out of more than half of the U.S. [Exclusive Economic Zone] EEZ in the [Western and Central Pacific Ocean] and onto the high seas, where they are forced to compete with foreign fleets on the fishing grounds,” said Ms. Simonds in her testimony, delivered before the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife. “Currently 70 percent of the Hawaii longline effort is on the high seas. We also know, based on expert scientific knowledge, that forcing U.S. vessels out of U.S. waters has no conservation benefit to tuna and highly migratory stocks or to protected species.”

 

Trump’s National Monument Changes Return to Spotlight

March 13, 2019 — As Democrats in Congress prepare to scrutinize President Donald Trump’s review of 27 national monuments, most of the recommendations made by ex-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke remain unfinished as other matters consume the White House.

Trump acted quickly in December 2017 on Zinke’s recommendations to shrink two sprawling Utah monuments that had been criticized as federal government overreach by the state’s Republican leaders since their creation by Democratic Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

But in the 15 months since Trump downsized the Utah monuments, the president has done nothing with Zinke’s proposal to shrink two more monuments, in Oregon and Nevada, and change rules at six others, including allowing commercial fishing inside three marine monuments in waters off New England, Hawaii and American Samoa.

Zinke resigned in December amid multiple ethics investigations — and has joined a Washington, D.C. lobbying firm. Trump has nominated as his replacement Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, a former lobbyist for the oil and gas industry and other corporate interests.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S News and World Report

Feds beat fishermen: Court dismisses challenge to Atlantic monument

October 10, 2018 — A federal judge upheld the creation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument last week, dismissing a lawsuit from commercial fishing groups that challenged presidential authority to establish the monument.

The national monument, created by former President Barack Obama, was authorized under the Antiquities Act. Representatives from the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association argued that the act does not include authorization to protect bodies of water and that the monument in question, an area of nearly 5,000 square miles, was too large.

But U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled that the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument complied with the law and sided with the Trump administration’s motion to dismiss the suit.

“In all, plaintiffs offer no factual allegations explaining why the entire monument, including not just the seamounts and canyons but also their ecosystems, is too large,” wrote Boasberg in his decision.

He also clarified that the Antiquities Act histories grant that waterways, as well as land, can be protected under the act.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

Federal court rules against fishermen in Northeast Canyons monument lawsuit

October 10, 2018 — A federal judge last week dismissed a lawsuit brought by commercial fishing groups that challenged the creation of a marine national monument in 2016.

The organizations, which included the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association and the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, claimed the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama did not have the authority to establish the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.

The monument is the first national marine monument established in the Atlantic Ocean. Because of the designation, commercial fishing – except for certain red crab and lobster fishing – is prohibited in the 5,000-square-mile area. The crab and lobster fishing will continue until their permits expire.

While the administration of current U.S. President Donald Trump has been considering reopening it and other marine monuments for commercial fishing, it did seek the dismissal of the lawsuit, claiming the Antiquities Act gave presidents the right to establish and define such monuments.

“This is not a joke, jobs will be lost and thousands of people’s lives will be impacted through a back-door process that did not require formal federal review,” said Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association in a Facebook post.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Fishing Groups Lose Legal Battle Over Marine Monument

October 9, 2018 — 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 “region of great abundance and diversity as well as stark geographic relief.”

“Dating back 100 million years — much older than Yosemite and Yellowstone — they are home to ‘vulnerable ecological communities’ and ‘vibrant ecosystems,’” Boasberg’s 35-page opinion continues. “And, as was true of the hallowed grounds on which Roosevelt waxed poetic, ‘much remains to be discovered about these unique, isolated environments.’”

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

A year later, the Massachusetts Lobstermen’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 “parcels of land” 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 — In today’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,“On 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 ‘generated 5% or less of their annual landings from within the monument’ because it ‘undercuts the case for the ban being harmful.’”

Saving Seafood executive director Bob Vanasse was quoted in the article noting that “‘Trump administration officials have been more open to outside input than their predecessors.’ … ‘They had a lot of meetings with our folks but didn’t listen,’ he said of Obama officials, adding even some Massachusetts Democratic lawmakers raised concerns about the New England marine monument’s fishing restrictions.”

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 – in addition to just logbooks, formally known as “vessel trip reports”, 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 “revoked.” 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 — emails

July 24, 2018 — Senior Interior Department officials prepared last fall to eliminate the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument — 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 Interior’s strategy — including a focus on timber harvesting, mineral rights, and oil and gas extraction — 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.

“This 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,” Bowman wrote.

Saving Seafood Executive Director Bob Vanasse disputed the idea that data didn’t support the repeal of the commercial fishing ban but said it instead was removed because it could be taken out of context.

“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,” Vanasse said in a statement.

He added in an interview: “The suggestion is that the administration is hiding the facts, and I don’t think that’s the case.”

Read the full story at E&E News