UCN: US seafood industry unites to rally against 30-by-30 push
US seafood industry unites to rally against 30-by-30 push
By Jason Huffman
More than 800 seafood professionals, including top executives at US processing companies, wholesalers, vessel owners and captains, and trade association leaders -- one of the largest coalitions ever organized by the industry -- have joined forces against a single common issue of concern.
That’s roughly how many signatures are on a letter sent Monday to Arizona Democrat Raul Grijalva, chairman of the House of Representatives’ Natural Resources Committee, asking him to rethink the provisions of his ocean climate change bill that could result in restrictions against commercial fishing across 30% of US federal waters by 2030.
The list includes such notable and diverse names as: Joe Bundrant, CEO of Trident Seafoods; Barry Cohen, chairman of the board at Atlantic Capes Fisheries; Sean O'Scannlain, CEO of Fortune International; John Connelly, president of the National Fisheries Institute (NFI); and Stephanie Madsen, executive director of the At-Sea Processors Association (APA).
The proposed sweeping change, they say, doesn’t comport with longstanding and successful US fishery policy, which otherwise relies on science, and it couldn’t come at a worse time for the industry.
"Major parts of our industry have been decimated this year by fallout from COVID-19," reads the four-page letter. "We are genuinely taken aback that you are choosing to end 2020 by introducing legislation that puts the viability of our industry under a second dark cloud of uncertainty, for no discernible reason attached to meaningful improvements in conservation outcomes."
Since it was introduced on Oct. 20, as reported by Undercurrent News, the Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act, HR 8632, has garnered 28 co-sponsors, though all Democrats. The 300-page bill promises big changes for commercial harvesters, including also a commitment to significantly expand the number of wind farms in federal waters.
However, it’s the legislation’s Title II, the so-called "30-by-30" provision, that the industry coalition rails against in its letter to Grijalva. As spelled out in the bill, it would create a task force that would have one year to "develop a plan and schedule consistent with the policy of prohibiting any commercial extractive or destructive human activity on at least 30% of the ocean under United States jurisdiction by 2030.”
The bill would further oblige the US to "support the adoption and implementation of a global goal to protect at least 30% of land and 30% of ocean areas by 2030 under the Convention on Biological Diversity.”
US fishery management already ‘envy of the world’
The industry letter makes six major points, but chiefly it argues that the Title II provision ignores science and the relative success of the Magnuson-Stevens Act of 1976, the law that has served as the foundation of fishery regulations in the US for decades.
“The idea that 30% of the US [exclusive economic zone, or EEZ] should be permanently closed to all commercial fishing activity without the opportunity to update the specific closure boundaries as part of an adaptive management strategy over the long term, ignores what our scientists are telling us about what will drive successful marine conservation in the 21st century,” the letter says.
The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. Image courtesy of NOAA..
Based on some estimates, as much as 24% of US federal waters already are under conservation. That's largely thanks to former president Barack Obama’s declaration via executive order, in late 2016, expanding the size of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, located off the coast of Hawaii, by 442,781 square miles.
The percentage might’ve been considered greater if it were to include the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, a nearly 5,000 square mile section of the Atlantic Ocean also declared by Obama in late 2016. However, outgoing president Donald Trump recently used an executive order to allow commercial fishing in the area.
Trump similarly promised to allow commercial fishing in the Papahānaumokuākea, however, he has yet to act with little more than two months left in his presidency.
While the bill threatens to limit commercial harvesting, it says nothing about recreational fishing, the letter observes.
"There is no scientific basis whatsoever for discriminating against those harvesting seafood and in favor of those catching fish for sport,” it says.
The letter was organized by NFI, APA, Seafood Harvesters of America (SHA) and Saving Seafood, a firm that serves as a public relations and communications service for the seafood industry.
“United States fisheries management is the envy of the world,” said Matt Tinning, APA's director of sustainability and public affairs, in a statement emailed to Undercurrent. “Science-based management under the Magnuson-Stevens Act is a remarkable example of bipartisan policy success. It is achieving exceptional environmental outcomes, preserving vital cultural traditions, creating jobs in communities across the United States, and delivering food with one of the lowest carbon footprints of any protein on Earth. Title II of the Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act will jeopardize that remarkable record of success.”
“This bill appears to ignore that expertise and process and just walls off parts of the ocean to fishing," NFI's Connelly said. "It disregards generations of science-based work and community consensus. Drawing arbitrary lines on a map is not science, it’s politics. Lines on a map don’t actually promote sustainability but they can harm livelihoods that depend on real sustainability work.”
Singatories include some seafood harvesting groups that are more often aligned with conservation groups. Other recognizable names on the letter include Jeffrey and Wayne Reichle, the chairman and president of Lund's Fisheries; Bob Brennan, the CEO of Sea Watch International; Andrew Bornstein, an executive VP at Bornstein Seafoods; Daniel LaVecchia, the president of LaMonica Fine Foods; Anne Tselikis, executive director of the Maine Lobster Dealers' Association; Leigh Habegger, SHA's executive director; and Robert Vanasse, executive director of Saving Seafood.
Also signing on is Edward Anthes-Washburn, director of the port of New Bedford, Massachusetts, a major landings destination for Atlantic scallops and the US' most valuable commercial fishing port.
Former NOAA chief Lubchenco to testify for bill
Grijalva’s bill has a slim chance of getting passed in the waning days of the 116th Congress. Besides the lack of Republican support in the House, it has no companion in the Senate. However, the legislation promises to resurface in the 117th Congress, where Democrats still hold on to the thin hope of winning majority control of the Senate.
Also, several of its measures, including especially the 30-by-30 provision, have been promised by Democratic president-elect Joe Biden as executive orders on his first day in office.
The letter has landed on Grijalva’s desk just one day before a planned hearing by his committee to cover the bill and eight others that appear to have been wrapped into HR 8632, including HR 8253, legislation introduced in September by Virginia representative Don Beyer, a Democrat, that would amend the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to require 30% of revenue from offshore wind energy be deposited in a fund to reimburse individuals or companies suffering damages as a result of the technology’s use.
As one seafood industry stakeholder told Undercurrent recently, Grijalva’s bill appears to be a roadmap of many of the ocean-related changes Democrats will likely try to introduce during the next congressional session.
Among the witnesses scheduled to testify on Tuesday is Jane Lubchenco, who served as administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under president Barack Obama from early 2009 until early 2014. Lubchenco, now a professor at Oregon State University, was one of the participants in the press event Grijalva called to debut his bill.
"This is the bill we have been waiting for," she said at the time. "It draws on the latest science to tap the treasure-trove of ocean solutions to accelerate progress on climate change. The outcome? People win, the economy wins, nature wins."
Other supporters of the Grijalva bill include at least 10 conservation groups, including Earthjustice, Environment America, Greenpeace USA, the League of Conservation Voters, Oceana, Ocean Conservancy, Urban Ocean Lab, National Ocean Protection Coalition, Natural Resources Defense Council and the Surfrider Foundation.
Another witness scheduled to appear on Tuesday is Ray Hillborn, professor at the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, in Seattle, Washington, and a frequent speaker on behalf of the seafood industry. He’s expected to testify against the heavy reliance on marine protected areas suggested by Grijalva’s bill.
Other witnesses include Kelsey Leonard, a member of the Mid-Atlantic Committee on the Ocean and also a citizen of the Shinnecock Indian Nation, in Long Island, New York, and Kelly Kryc, the director of ocean policy at the New England Aquarium, in Boston, Massachusetts.
Contact the author jason.huffman@undercurrentnews.com