Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Sen. Warren hosts town hall meeting in Marshfield

August 25, 2017 — More than 1,000 people packed into Marshfield’s Furnace Brook Middle School Thursday night for a town hall meeting hosted by U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-MA.

Residents asked Warren about issues ranging from flood insurance and healthcare to fishing regulations and the national political climate.

Warren was joined on state by 9th District U.S. Rep. William Keating, D-Bourne.

“I really want to hear what she has to say about the current administration and hear what she is going to talk about as far as what we can do to make sure that we are back in the White House in 2020,” Jennifer Mills, of Marshfield, said before the event. Mills took her daughter Shelby, 15, who wanted to ask the senator what the youth of America can do to make a difference.

John Haviland, vice president of the Massachusetts Fisherman’s Partnership, of Marshfield, asked Warren for support on a number of fishing related issues, including controlling the amount of seafood that is imported to the United States and research into the health of the fishing stock.

“We know how important fishing is, not just to the economy or eastern Massachusetts, but it’s way of life,” Warren said. “It’s a part of Massachusetts and a part of Massachusetts heritage. I am deeply proud of our fishermen, because our fishermen try to work with scientists to get the best possible information so we can have sustainable oceans and sustainable fishing over time. ”

Read the full story at Wicked Local

Lawmakers call lobster ban ‘excessive’ in letter to EU

September 29th, 2016 — Sweden’s push to list live American lobsters as an invasive species and ban their import by the full European Union is “an excessive and unscientific response” that jeopardizes its $125 million lobster trade with Massachusetts, according to Rep. Seth Moulton, Sen. Edward J. Markey and the remainder of the state’s congressional delegation.

In a letter sent today to the EU’s directorate-general for the environment that listed Moulton and Markey as the lead signatories, the Bay State delegation picked up where many North American scientists and fisheries regulators have left off in the escalating international trade tiff.

“Isolated reports of individual American lobsters found in European waters do not constitute the invasion of an alien species,” the delegation wrote to Daniel Calleja Crespo. “This possible designation is not merited because, as indicated in the data provided to the (EU) Scientific Forum by the United States and Canada, there is no evidence that American lobster can reproduce in waters as warm as those of coastal Europe.”

They also insist that the initial Swedish risk assessment, which serves as the basis for the Swedish claim, “failed to demonstrate that interbreeding between European and American lobsters produces fertile offspring” and an “outright ban of the importation of live American lobster to the EU is an excessive and unscientific response.”

The import ban, they argued, would dismantle the $200 million trans-Atlantic lobster trade between Canada and the United States with the 28 members of the EU and severely and negatively impact the Massachusetts lobstermen and lobster sellers who annually send about $125 million worth of live American lobsters to the EU.

A link to the letter can be found here 

Read the full story at The Gloucester Times 

Congressman William Keating: Wrong to Bankrupt Fishermen Over Monitors

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — August 31, 2015 — The following op-ed was written by Congressman William R. Keating (D – MA), and originally appeared in the Boston Globe. Congressman Keating wrote to the Globe to denounce plans to shift the costs of at-sea monitoring entirely onto New England fishermen :

For centuries, Massachusetts’ fishermen have played a vital role in our coastal economy, providing our families with food and our communities with revenue. The last decade, in particular, has again demonstrated the grit and perseverance of this historic industry, with changes in regulations, decreasing stocks, and rising fuel costs.

A comprehensive monitoring program is an important tool for collecting essential catch information for managing fisheries. At the end of the day, it is the fishermen who will benefit most from robust and thriving fisheries. However, the majority of the industry is simply unable to cover the costs.

I have worked with my colleagues in Congress and Governor Baker to urge the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to continue to fund the observer program and not shift the burden onto the industry. In the meantime, as discussion continues over the use of Bin 3 groundfish disaster money as an interim solution, this option should not absolve NOAA of its responsibility to deal with this issue both in the short- and long-term.

There are long-term solutions to this problem, including investing in cost-effective alternatives such as the wide-scale adoption of the use of cutting-edge technologies that allow for electronic monitoring. In the meantime, NOAA must find a way to support this historic industry and not bankrupt it with bills that they cannot afford.

Read the opinion piece from Congressman William Keating online at the Boston Globe

Mass. Governor, Congressional Delegation to Obama Administration: Fund At-Sea Monitoring for New England Fishermen

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — August 20, 2015 — Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, and all nine Members of Congress from Massachusetts have called upon the Obama Administration to reverse recent policy decisions and continue the funding of at-sea monitoring for Northeastern fishermen. While the agency currently funds at-sea monitors, fishermen will have to assume the full cost of the program beginning this year, which the industry contends they will be unable to afford.

In a letter to Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and the Chairs and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, Governor Baker and the Massachusetts Congressional delegation expressed “serious concern over recent actions taken by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.” The signatories are especially critical of the agency’s current at-sea monitoring policy, specifically its plan to shift funding of the program from NOAA onto fishermen, noting that such a move could potentially bankrupt the industry.

The Republican Governor and the all-Democratic Congressional delegation have joined forces to criticize the Administration decision and the heavy costs that individual fishermen are likely to incur as a result of this policy, especially in light of the fact that fishermen are still recovering from the federal economic disaster declared by the Commerce Department in 2012.

Citing a NOAA analysis of the transfer, the letter notes that monitors will cost the fishery $2.64 million in the first year alone, and would lead to an estimated 60 percent of the vessels in the fishery operating at a loss. According to the Governor and legislators, this amounts to an “unfunded mandate that could lead to the end of the Northeast Groundfishery as we know it.”

At its June meeting, the New England Fishery Management Council requested that NOAA take administrative actions to “improve the efficiency of the program,” as well as “reduce costs of the [at-sea monitoring program] without compromising compliance” with current laws. In its response to the Council, NOAA rejected these requests, stating that they were not “consistent with current regulatory requirements and statistical standards.”

The Gloucester, Massachusetts-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, which represents a significant percentage of the groundfish fleet, criticized NOAA’s decisions, while coming out in support of efforts by Gov. Baker and Congress to force a change in agency policy.

“The Council has questioned the benefits and the costs to the groundfish fishery of the at-sea monitoring program, and has given their clear directive to the Agency to either suspend or make the existing program more cost effective,” said Jackie Odell, Executive Director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition. “All requests made to date have received an astounding ‘no’ from NOAA. The Northeast Seafood Coalition strongly supports the requests made by the Council, Governor Baker and Members of Congress. When is enough, enough?”

In addition to Secretary Pritzker, the letter was sent to Sens. Thad Cochran and Barbara Mikulski, and Reps. Hal Rogers and Nita Lowey. Gov. Baker and Sens. Warren and Markey are joined by Reps. Richard Neal, Jim McGovern, Michael Capuano, Stephen Lynch, Niki Tsongas, William Keating, Joseph Kennedy, Katherine Clark, and Seth Moulton as signatories of the letter.

Read the letter from Gov. Baker and the Massachusetts Congressional delegation

Read the NEFMC’s request to NOAA on at-sea monitoring

Read NOAA’s rejection of the NEMFC’s at-sea monitoring request

 

Baker and Mass. congressional delegation urge federal officials to pay for ground fishing observers

August 19, 2015 — In an effort to reduce the financial burdens on the region’s struggling fishermen, Governor Charlie Baker and the state’s congressional delegation urged federal officials this week to pay for a controversial program that requires observers to monitor fishermen who catch cod, flounder, and other bottom-dwelling fish.

In a letter sent to the secretary of the US Department of Commerce, which oversees the nation’s fishing industry, Baker and the delegation expressed “serious concern” about a decision this year by the National Marine Fisheries Service to require the region’s fishermen to pay for the observer program.

Fishermen insist they can’t afford to pay for the observers, especially after major cuts to their quotas. The Fisheries Service estimates that it costs $710 a day every time an observer accompanies a fisherman to sea, and the agency’s research has suggested that requiring fishermen to cover those costs would cause about 60 percent of their boats to operate at a loss.

“To shift the cost of this ineffective program onto the fishery just as the industry begins to rebuild is not only imprudent, but irresponsible,” Baker and the delegation wrote. “This equates to an unfunded mandate that could lead to the end of the Northeast Groundfish Fishery as we know it.”

Read the full story at the Boston Globe