Saving Seafood

Massachusetts Fishing industry hurting, congress looking to help

May 5, 2020 — Things have been slow at the Port of New Bedford.

The fishing industry is hurting since restaurants have been shut down. Local fisherman estimate nearly 70% of seafood consumed in the country is done so in restaurants.

“We’re probably scaled down at this point about half of where we would be historically from a head-count perspective,” explained Keith Decker, president and CEO of Blue Harvest Fisheries in New Bedford.

Decker says many of New Englands biggest exports — like lobster and scallops— are not being bought, and prices are way down.

Massachusetts congressional delegation secured $300 million for it’s fishing industry through the Cares Act in late March, but that money hasn’t hit the docks yet.

“We’re proud of the money we got put in the Cares Act,” said Representative Seth Moulton, (D) MA.

Read the full story at ABC 6

Massachusetts congressional delegation urges feds to include seafood in food aid purchases

May 4, 2020 — Members of the all-Democratic Massachusetts congressional delegation are pushing to include East Coast seafood in purchasing agreements funded by the federal Coronavirus Food Assistance Program.

Sens. Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren and Reps. William Keating and Seth Moulton said in a letter Friday to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue that when the U.S. Department of Agriculture begins its purchasing programs intended to assist those the pandemic has affected, the USDA should include domestic seafood.

Purdue in April announced that the USDA would be making about $19 billion in purchases through the coronavirus assistance program, the lawmakers said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Bangor Daily News

Lawmakers question status of USD 300 million fisheries aid

April 30, 2020 — Lawmakers from the U.S. state of Massachusetts sent a letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Wednesday, 29 April, citing their “frustration and concern” over the lack of action on a USD 300 million (EUR 274.1 million) relief package for American fisheries that Congress passed a month ago.

In the letter, U.S. Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, along with U.S. Reps. Seth Moulton and Bill Keating, sent Ross a list of five questions regarding the aid that was part of the USD 2.2 trillion (EUR 2.01 trillion) CARES Act. President Donald Trump signed the bill into law on 27 March.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Sens. Markey & Warren, Reps. Moulton and Keating Demand Immediate Guidance for Fisheries Disaster Assistance Funding During Coronavirus Emergency

April 29, 2020 — UPDATE: The following release has been updated with a new link to the letter, available HERE.

The following was released by Massachusetts Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, and Representatives Seth Moulton and Bill Keating:

Today, Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Representatives William Keating (MA-09) and Seth Moulton (MA-06) called for the immediate release of federal guidance for how fishery participants can access the designated $300 million in disaster assistance funding included in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. In their letter to the Commerce Department, the Massachusetts lawmakers report that it appears to be bureaucratic inefficiencies that are behind the failure to issue guidance in a timely manner and ask when it will be issued, as well as when assistance will be distributed. The CARES Act was signed into law more than a month ago, and while other programs have already released funding to provide economic relief to various communities and industries, the Commerce Department has yet even to release guidelines for how disaster assistance can be accessed by struggling fishing and seafood businesses.

“This silence and delay poses a particular problem because fishery participants do not know how to determine whether they will be eligible for the CARES Act assistance,” write the lawmakers in their letter to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.“The Commerce Department needs to issue guidance as soon as possible so that fisheries aid can reach those who desperately need it.”

A copy of the letter can be found HERE.

In the letter, the lawmakers ask for responses to questions that include:

  • Which Commerce Department entity is principally responsible for the preparation and promulgation of this guidance?
  • When will the guidance be finalized and published? What issues remain to be resolved before this can happen?
  • Will the guidance be open for public comment before it is finalized or will it be issued in final form?
  • After guidance is issued, when does the Commerce Department expect to begin distributing CARES Act assistance to fishery participants?

On April 2, Senators Markey and Warren led a letter urging the Department of Commerce and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to act swiftly, equitably, and transparently in allocating fisheries disaster assistance funding. On March 23, Senators Markey and Warren, and Alaska Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan called on Senate leadership to include support for the fishing industry in coronavirus economic relief packages.

Massachusetts lawmakers call on government to help New England fisheries during COVID-19 crisis

April 6, 2020 — Members of Massachusetts’ congressional delegation are calling on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to give New England fisheries a needed boost as they battle through the COVID-19 outbreak.

U.S. senators Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren, along with U.S. representatives William Keating and Seth Moulton, on 2 April sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue asking him to use part of the USD 9.5 billion (EUR 8.8 billion) earmarked for agricultural producers – from the USD 2.2 trillion (EUR 2.0 trillion) CARES Act Congress passed in late March – to help seafood processors and other companies.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Keating Pushes USDA to Buy American Seafood Under CARES Act

April 6, 2020 — U.S. Rep. William Keating, who represents the 9th Congressional District in Massachusetts, joined some of his Capitol Hill colleagues today in urging the USDA to include U.S. seafood companies in a $9.5 billion program designed to help farmers affected by the coronavirus.

Keating, Rep. Seth Moulton, and Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren wrote to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and said the federal government should take steps to buy American seafood through the CARES Act agricultural assistance program.

“The pandemic-driven closure of restaurants and other businesses has devastated the New England seafood industry, as about two-thirds of seafood is consumed in restaurants and outside the home. Fishermen and processors that supply restaurants and local food systems need support,” the letter reads.

Read the full story at WBSM

Rep. Moulton: Fish aid first in string of relief packages

April 1, 2020 — The $300 million direct assistance to the U.S. seafood industry to mitigate the economic impact of the novel coronavirus is expected to be just the first of a string of federal relief measures enacted in the coming months, U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton said Tuesday.

Moulton conceded that many of the details of the direct assistance remain sketchy on eligibility requirements and the distribution of the direct aid to the seafood industry stretching from Hawaii and Alaska to Massachusetts and Maine.

“I know people have a lot of questions,” Moulton said by phone. “There are only dribbles of information every day.”

Moulton, who continues to recover from contracting what he said is a mild case of COVID-19, said he anticipates the funds will be distributed in a manner employed in other fishery disaster assistance packages.

In previous assistance packages, the Commerce Department received the congressional appropriation and distributed the funds to individual regions — such as New England, Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico — to be managed by individual states and local communities.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Fishermen look to DC delegation for aid

November 25, 2019 — Former fisherman Sam Parisi appeared before the city Fisheries Commission on Thursday night to tout his campaign for national legislation to help fishermen as the federal Farm Bill helps farmers.

“We need someone to draft a fish bill like the farm bill,” Parisi told the commission members at City Hall. “The only way we can survive is with federal legislation and assistance. Farmers get paid not to grow certain crops. Why can’t we get paid not to fish certain stocks?”

Parisi requested the commission write a letter to the city’s congressional delegation in support of drafting of a bill specifically to help fishermen and fishing communities. But commission members, while appreciative of Parisi’s sentiments, also expressed concerns that a campaign to write, pass and enact federal legislation is fraught with its own perils.

“The danger is saying we’ll back a bill that doesn’t exist,” said Chairman Mark Ring. “You don’t want to back something 100% without seeing it.”

While Parisi’s concept was short on specifics beyond federal reimbursement when catch quotas are cut, his proposal led to an active discussion on the next steps for a fishery that continues to find itself under the siege of still-dormant cod quota in the Gulf of Maine, questionable stock assessments and expanding regulation — and cost — of all manner of monitoring.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Maine lobsterer group calls Rep. Seth Moulton to task

September 18, 2019 — The head of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association countered comments Monday by U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, saying Moulton mischaracterized the organization’s motives and actions when it withdrew its support for the federal plan for increased protections to the North Atlantic right whales.

“Contrary to the congressman’s characterization, the MLA remains engaged in the (take reduction team) process and will continue to work with the agency and our members to identify measures to the risk that the Maine lobster industry poses to right whales,” Patrice McCarron wrote in an email to the Gloucester Daily Times. “However, the MLA cannot support the Northeast lobster fishery being singled out as the sole source of entanglement risk.”

The Maine Lobstermen’s Association on Aug. 30 withdrew its support for the most current plan devised by the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team because of what it described as questionable data from NOAA scientists and an unfair portrayal of the industry’s culpability as a primary cause of injury or death to the right whales. It also criticized the rule-making process as rushed.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Moulton praises local lobsterers for staying at whale rule table

September 17, 2019 — U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton on Monday called the Maine Lobstermen’s Association shortsighted for stepping away from the federal plan to increase protections for North Atlantic right whales, saying the defection will dull its membership’s ability to influence the plan ultimately adopted by NOAA Fisheries.

“It limits their involvement in the solution going forward,” Moulton said on a teleconference organized by the International Fund for Animal Welfare. “We really want to get everyone on board here and we want to make sure that it’s a solution that works for all the stakeholders. I don’t think you’re going to find any lobstermen that who say they want the right whale to go away.”

Moulton, a primary author of a House bill to help save the endangered right whales, said he believes the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association’s decision to remain at the table as the Atlantic right whale take reduction team thrashes out the final plan for the approval of NOAA Fisheries is the proper one.

“I think part of the reason the Massachusetts lobstermen are at the table to be a part of this process and its agreement moving forward is because they recognize that if this gets even more dire, they may literally be regulated out of business,” Moulton said. “I think the lobstermen in Massachusetts are being really smart. I think right now the lobstermen in Maine are being shortsighted. But we hope to bring them back on board, because ultimately they’re going to be better off having a seat at the table than not.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times