Estimated 1,000 Fishermen Rally for Reform in Protest Staged in Nation’s Capital

Written By By Don Cuddy

Around 1,000 commercial and recreational fishermen from around the country gathered near the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday to call attention to the regulatory difficulties facing the fishing industry on the East and West coasts.

The rally, billed as Keep Fishermen Fishing, was organized to seek reforms to the Magnuson Stevens Act, the law that governs fishing in federal waters.

Fishermen and industry groups have long complained that inflexible and onerous regulations are hampering their ability to fish and forcing some independent fishermen to abandon their traditional way of life.

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell was among those who spoke at the rally. “There was a great show of support from the fishing community and a big turnout from Congress,” he said. Several senators and around a dozen House members spoke at the gathering, according to the mayor, including a large New England delegation that included Massachusetts Sens. John Kerry and Scott Brown and Reps. Barney Frank, John Tierney and Bill Keating.

Bristol County District Attorney C. Samuel Sutter, running against Keating for Congress in the 9th District, also spoke.

Mitchell, who estimated the crowd at 1,000, focused his remarks on the need to keep fishermen in New England on the water by adopting greater flexibility in the rigid timelines established for rebuilding fish stocks.

“We need regulations geared to the reality at sea and we need more money for research and better stock assessments,” he said.

Read the rest of the article on SouthCoastToday.

Senators Scott Brown and John Kerry lead bipartisan effort to boost domestic fishing industry

 By Robert Rizzuto, The Republican

In what is being hailed as a bipartisan effort to right a decades-old wrong, U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., have joined with colleagues to push a bill that is expected to give the fishing industry in the U.S. a solid push into the future.

The Fisheries Investment and Regulatory Relief Act, or FIRRA as it’s known, would ensure that a significant portion of the money collected from tariffs on imported fish or fish products is cycled back into the American fishing industry, in accordance with the 1954 Saltonstall-Kennedy Act.

The 1954 legislation, sponsored by Democratic Sen. John F. Kennedy and Republican Sen. Leverett Saltonstall, both of Massachusetts, called for 30 percent of tariffs on imported fish to be used for research and development of the domestic fishing industry. But as imports have climbed along with revenue, Congress has typically allocated a majority of the money to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has came under fire for questionable spending in the past.

In February, Brown blasted NOAA after an Inspector General report revealed that the agency had spent more than $300,000 in fines collected from U.S. fisherman to purchase a luxury boat which was used by agency members for recreation on the ocean with family, friends and alcohol.

A summary of the new legislation provided by Kerry’s office stated that in 2010, the government collected $376.6 million in tariffs on imported fish and fish products, which should have set aside $113 million for fishery research and development. In the end, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration received $104.6 million, with just $8.4 million going to fishery development.

Read the full article on MassLive.com

JOHN KERRY: Righting a wrong for our fisheries

In Massachusetts, commercial fishing supports more than 77,000 jobs. Recreational fishing is also an important part of our maritime economy and our local research institutions are world-renowned. However, today our fishermen continue to face economic peril and they are deeply frustrated by science and research they don’t trust and federal regulators in whom they lost faith when abuses were exposed by an investigation.

We can take an important first step in changing the relationship between our fishermen and federal regulators by passing the Fisheries Investment and Regulatory Relief Act which I am introducing in the Commerce Committee with Senator Snowe, a Republican Senator from Maine and my longtime colleague on the Committee. In the House, Congressmen Barney Frank and Frank Guinta will be introducing similar legislation.

The cornerstone of this bill is returning the use of Saltonstall-Kennedy funds to our fishermen, as was the original intent of its creators.

In 2010, the estimated total duties collected on imports of fishery products were $376.6 million. Thirty percent of that total is approximately $113 million that should be used to improve science and help our fisheries. Unfortunately last year, only $8.4 million of that $113 million was used by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for grants for fisheries research and development projects. The remaining funds were used by NOAA for their operations.

This simply can’t continue, especially given the current situation facing our fisheries. Our bill will restore the investment to help the fishermen and communities for whom Sens. Saltonstall and Kennedy originally intended it to protect.

Read the full opinion piece from The Gloucester Times.

EDF chief hedges on key ’08 report

By Richard Gaines | Staff Writer

Doug Rader, chief ocean scientist at Environmental Defense Fund, conceded Monday his organization’s 2008 policy paper predicting a jellyfish-dominated oceanic catastrophe oversimplified the problem.

“Oceans of Abundance,” which was underwritten by the Walton Family Foundation and co-authored by NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, then an EDF official, foresaw “the collapse of global fisheries in our lifetimes,” to be replaced by “massive swarms of jellyfish” — unless the wild stocks were immediately privatized and commodified for “catch share” trading in the global investment market.

EDF’s Rader was responding to a Monday Times story about the publication in the February issue of BioScience on research that found no evidence of a trend toward an explosion of the jellyfish — or “gelatinous zooplankton” — filling the void left by the removal of more complex fishes.

The team was headed by ecologist Robert Condon of the Dauphin Island Sea in Alabama and 17 other scientists.

Oceans’ acidic shift may be fastest in 300 million years

Written by Deborah Zabarenko | Environment Correspondent

The world’s oceans are turning acidic at what could be the fastest pace of any time in the past 300 million years, even more rapidly than during a monster emission of planet-warming carbon 56 million years ago, scientists said on Thursday.

Looking back at that bygone warm period in Earth’s history could offer help in forecasting the impact of human-spurred climate change, researchers said of a review of hundreds of studies of ancient climate records published in the journal Science.

Quickly acidifying seawater eats away at coral reefs, which provide habitat for other animals and plants, and makes it harder for mussels and oysters to form protective shells. It can also interfere with small organisms that feed commercial fish like salmon.

The phenomenon has been a top concern of Jane Lubchenco, the head of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who has conducted demonstrations about acidification during hearings in the U.S. Congress.

Oceans get more acidic when more carbon gets into the atmosphere. In pre-industrial times, that occurred periodically in natural pulses of carbon that also pushed up global temperatures, the scientists wrote.

Human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels, have increased the level of atmospheric carbon to 392 parts per million from about 280 parts per million at the start of the industrial revolution. Carbon dioxide is one of several heat-trapping gases that contribute to global warming.

Read the rest of the article on Reuters.

Feds Approve Ban on Cruise Ship Sewage Discharge

“This is a great day for the California coast, which is far too precious a resource to be used as a dumping ground,” said Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto). “This ‘No Discharge Zone’ – the largest in the nation – protects our coastal economy, our environment and our public health.”

Local beach off Crissy Field in San Francisco, CA. Courtesy of the U.S. EPA.

Written by Dan Bacher | Staff Writer

The federal government on February 9 approved a landmark California proposal banning the discharge of more than 22 million gallons of treated vessel sewage to shorelines and shallow marine waters in California every year, drawing praise from environmental and shipping industry groups alike.

U.S. EPA’s Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld signed a rule that will finalize EPA’s decision and approve a state proposal to ban all sewage discharges from large cruise ships and most other large ocean-going ships to state marine waters along California’s 1,624 mile coast from Mexico to Oregon and surrounding major islands.

The action established a new federal regulation banning even treated sewage from being discharged in California’s marine waters.

“This is an important step to protect California’s coastline,” said Governor Jerry Brown. “I want to commend the shipping industry, environmental groups and U.S. EPA for working with California to craft a common sense approach to keeping our coastal waters clean.”

“By approving California’s ‘No Discharge Zone,’ EPA will prohibit more than 20 million gallons of vessel sewage from entering the state’s coastal waters,” said Jared Blumenfeld. “Not only will this rule help protect important marine species, it also benefits the fishing industry, marine habitats and the millions of residents and tourists who visit California beaches each year.”

This action strengthens protection of California’s coastal waters from the adverse effects of sewage discharges from a growing number of large vessels, according to an announcement from the the U.S. EPA.

Read the rest of the story on Alternet.

What Obama’s Government Reform Proposal Means for Our Oceans

Making Sure NOAA Stays Strong During Federal Reorganization

The Oscar Dyson, an NOAA vessel, headed to summer feeding grounds off the Alaskan coast to study whales that have been teetering on extinction for decades. - AP/ NOAA

By Michael Conathan | Director of Ocean Policy

On January 13, President Barack Obama announced his plan to implement a sweeping reorganization of the Department of Commerce by consolidating six agencies involved in trade and economic competitiveness. One unintended consequence of this reshuffling is that by redesigning the Commerce Department, we now must find a home for the agency that comprised more than 60 percent of its budget—the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, our nation’s primary ocean research agency.

In a December 2010 report, “A Focus on Competitiveness,” John Podesta, Sarah Rosen Wartell, and Jitinder Kohli detailed why President Obama’s proposed restructuring makes sense for America. But it’s worth taking a closer look at how such a move would affect NOAA and in turn affect how we manage our oceans.

The president’s plan would relocate NOAA to the Department of the Interior. In his remarks, President Obama went so far as to suggest that the Department of the Interior was a “more sensible place” for NOAA, and that it only ended up at Commerce at its inception in 1970 because then-President Richard Nixon was feuding with then-Secretary of the Interior Walter Hickle, who had publicly criticized President Nixon’s handling of the Vietnam War.

While this storied example of Beltway pettiness has circulated among ocean policy wonks for years, the reality is rather more complex. In fact, when NOAA was established in 1970, 80 percent of its budget and more than two-thirds of its employees came from the Environmental Science Services Administration—an agency that included the Weather Bureau, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, and Environmental Data Services—which was already housed at the Department of Commerce.

Since the announcement, many environmental groups have decried the move as potentially compromising NOAA’s scientific integrity by shifting the agency to a department that has developed a reputation for being industry friendly. Certainly, degradation of NOAA’s science-first attitude is to be avoided at all costs. Yet there is no reason the agency’s mission can’t be maintained under the auspices of Interior provided the agency retains its structural integrity and its budgetary clout.

Plans Set for March National Fishing Rally in D.C.

By Richard Gaines | Staff Writer

Turning the Corner on Ending Overfishing 2012 – Annual Catch Limits Now in Place for Most Federal Fisheries

Everyone – commercial and recreational fishermen, NGOs, Councils, Congress and NOAA – knew it would be a heavy lift to put accountability measures and catch limits in place for all federally managed fisheries. Five years ago this week the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act reauthorization was signed into law and required just that – catch limits for all federally managed fisheries. Well, 2012 is here and we are almost fully over the goal line. Yes, there are a few stragglers, but I can report that all federal fisheries will have catch limits in place in time for the 2012 fishing season.

Signed into law on January 12, 2007, the reauthorized Act called for all federal fisheries to be managed under annual catch limits and enforced through accountability measures by the end of 2011. Over the last five years, NOAA Fisheries, fishermen, the councils, our partner organizations, the science community and many others have been actively engaged and dedicated to achieving this goal.

Reaching this milestone represents a historic achievement and I want to particularly recognize the tremendous amount of effort and sacrifice on the part of our nation’s fishermen and fishing communities to get us here. Catch limits and accountability measures to rebuild stocks and ensure sustainable fisheries represent a collective investment in the future of fishing. And while these benefits will accrue for generations to come, in many cases they do require short-term cost. In addition to fishermen around the country, our eight Regional Fishery Management Councils deserve special recognition. Finally, the men and women of NOAA must also be recognized for their unflagging commitment to this effort and hard work in helping the nation turn the corner in our efforts to end overfishing and rebuild stocks.

Bold goals are difficult, and we all have weathered challenges, controversy and economic difficulties in pursuit of this one. But even as we stand here today with so much work behind us, we know that ending overfishing is not something that is accomplished as a discrete end point. Rather, it is a step in an ongoing and evolutionary process. The science and management of federal fisheries will continue to evolve, change and strengthen to support the needs of our commercial and recreational fisheries and our coastal and ocean resources.

As we begin 2012 and a new leg of this journey, I invite you to reflect on the importance of our collective accomplishment and the strength it provides us to move forward and tackle other issues still in front of us. Some current challenges include working to further refine our management approaches to better meet the needs of fishermen and coastal communities, building on our world class science to better understand trends in fish populations and ecosystem considerations, and taking stronger steps to preserve protected resources like endangered species and marine mammals. Other challenges on the horizon include addressing habitat loss, pollution and environmental change and their effects on our living marine resources. We also must continue to deal with global challenges like pirate fishing.

We have come a long way since 1976 when our nation’s fisheries were being decimated by uncontrolled overfishing by foreign fleets. Thirty-five years later, we now stand at a point in history when the U.S. model of fisheries management has evolved to become an international guidepost for sustainable fishery practices. Still, we have much work ahead. So, on behalf of NOAA Fisheries, I’m proud to congratulate all of you who have been dedicated to achieving this goal and thank you for your involvement and dedication to helping evolve and build the science-based management that has become the signature of U.S. fisheries.

Eric C. Schwaab, Assistant Administrator for NOAA Fisheries

See article: U.S. Tightens Fishing Policy, Setting 2012 Catch Limits for all Managed Species.

U.S. tightens fishing policy, setting 2012 catch limits for all managed species

New restrictions on U.S. fisheries. - Photo courtesy of NOAA.

By Juliet Eilperin | Enviromental Reporter

In an effort to sustain commercial and recreational fishing for the next several decades, the United States this year will become the first country to impose catch limits for every species it manages, from Alaskan pollock to Caribbean queen conch.

Although the policy has attracted scant attention outside the community of those who fish in America and the officials who regulate them, it marks an important shift in a pursuit that has helped define the country since its founding.

Unlike most recent environmental policy debates, which have divided neatly along party lines, this one is about a policy that was forged under President George W. Bush and finalized with President Obama’s backing.

“It’s something that’s arguably first in the world,” said Eric Schwaab, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s assistant administrator for fisheries. “It’s a huge accomplishment for the country.”

Five years ago, Bush signed a reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which dates to the mid-1970s and governs all fishing in U.S. waters. A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers joined environmental groups, some fishing interests and scientists to insert language in the law requiring each fishery to have annual catch limits in place by the end of 2011 to end overfishing.

Although NOAA didn’t meet the law’s Dec. 31 deadline — it has finalized 40 of the 46 fishery management plans that cover all federally managed stocks — officials said they are confident that they will have annual catch limits in place by the time the 2012 fishing year begins for all species. (The timing varies depending on the fish, with some seasons starting May 1 or later.) Some fish, such as mahi-mahi and the prize game fish wahoo in the southeast Atlantic, will have catch limits for the first time.

Read the rest of the story on the Washington Post.