Washington, D.C. - On Friday, the House Natural Resources Committee held a balanced hearing on the state of fisheries management in the United States. Witnesses were unanimous in their praise of the 2006 Magnuson-Stevens Act amendments, and in their call for the reauthorization to not “turn back the clock" by allowing continued overfishing, eliminating rebuilding timelines, and allowing economics, rather than science, to drive fisheries management.
“Today, we heard from a diverse group of stakeholders directly impacted by the reauthorization of Magnuson-Stevens. The message was clear-let’s improve existing fisheries management law, not gut it. We cannot turn back the clock to the bad old days of overfishing. The best way to protect our fisheries and provide for our coastal communities is with a serious, deliberate, and collaborative approach to Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization and I look forward to working with my colleagues in the future," said DeFazio.
Witnesses also criticized provisions in a Republican proposal that would exempt fisheries management planning from the National Environmental Policy Act, put fishery management councils in charge of endangered species recovery, and prohibit the use of electronic monitoring data for law enforcement.
Finally, those testifying raised concerns about a number of important components absent from the bill, including language giving increased consideration to the importance of forage fish, climate change, and ecosystem-based management.
Witness Quotes:
Zeke Grader, Executive Director, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations: “the 1996 and 2006 amendments to the MSA - on overfishing, stock rebuilding, and adherence to science - are working."
Peter Shelley, Senior Counsel, Conservation Law Foundation : “the reauthorization discussion draft proposes re-opening the regulatory door to management approaches that have repeatedly failed in New England, that have put fisheries managers in impossible positions that overweighed short term economic perspectives, and that have cost New England coastal communities jobs and economic opportunity."
Bob Rees, North Coast Chapter President, Association of Northwest Steelheaders : “The recently released discussion draft of the MSA reauthorization bill would take us back to the old days where politics, not science, drove management decisions and resulted in many of the overfishing problems that we are still trying to fix today."
BACKGROUND
The hearing was scheduled Democrats used Rule XI of the Committee rules to force an additional day of testimony on a Republican proposal to gut the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. Democrats pursued the Rule XI move earlier this month at the latest in a series of hearings Republicans have held on our nation’s primary law governing fisheries management. The Republican-led legislation, floated in December as a discussion draft with no input from Committee Democrats, would undermine protections that are critical to maintaining the healthy fish stocks and marine ecosystems vital to U.S. fishermen.
The title of the bill implies the goal is to provide greater “flexibility" in managing fisheries and rebuilding overfished stocks, but in this case, “flexibility" means a management regime that fails to serve the best interests of U.S. fishermen. The bill overrides essential conservation protections -such as NEPA and ESA-which are critical to maintaining healthy marine ecosystems and healthy coastal communities.
Magnuson-Stevens, the law that governs federal fisheries, expired at the end of Fiscal Year 2013. While Congress is working to reauthorize it, federal agencies will continue to enforce Magnuson as written and Congress will fund it. But reauthorization provides an opportunity to take a hard look at the law - figure out what is working and what’s not working - and make changes to improve implementation.
