Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Chairman, if gutting the successful conservation provisions of Magnuson were not enough, the problem also is that this bill will also weaken other bedrock environmental laws.

First, it makes Magnuson then in this reauthorization the controlling statute in the case of any kind of conflict with the Antiquities Act or the National Marine Sanctuaries Act.

If we think about this, there is no rationale for giving the councils that are authorized in Magnuson the authority to regulate fishing in marine sanctuaries or in monuments. Those areas represent just a tiny fraction of U.S. waters, and now, they are managed by scientists and other staff who consider more than just fishing interests.

We are really here to understand how do we balance fishing with the other purposes in order to protect vulnerable species and habitats. For the same reason that we don't allow State fish and game departments to make decisions about hunting in national parks or monuments on land, which we don't allow, these councils should not make decisions about fishing in our parks, our national marine sanctuaries, or in our national monuments at sea, but that is not enough.

The bill also takes a swipe at the Endangered Species Act by requiring these councils, not Federal agencies which are now responsible for the recovery of species, to implement the fishery restrictions necessary for Endangered Species compliance. These councils lack expertise, and they lack the resources to implement the Endangered Species Act.

What are we going to end up with? We are going to end up with recoveries that are going to be delayed, and the negative impacts to fishing communities are going to be prolonged, just the very thing that we wish not to happen.

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As I said before, these assaults on key conservation laws are far outside the scope of a fisheries bill. We are really talking about a fisheries bill. We should not be talking about gutting key conservation laws.

It is unfortunate that an historically bipartisan effort like the Magnuson reauthorization has now become the subject of an antienvironmental crusade.

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Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, unfortunately, the bill before us, H.R. 1335, undermines nearly two decades of progress making U.S. fisheries profitable and sustainable.

A few weeks ago, NOAA reported that overfishing has hit an all-time low, and the number of rebuilt stocks has hit an all-time high, largely because of the success of the Magnuson-Stevens Act reforms of both 1996 and 2007--the same reforms that this bill today before us would undercut.

In an attempt to add some good policy to an otherwise unproductive bill, I am offering an amendment to improve the management of one important fish stock: the Gulf of Mexico red snapper.

Last year, during a series of Natural Resources Committee hearings on fisheries policies, we heard from members and witnesses who were irate over the fact that the Interior Department was allowing offshore oil platforms and drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico to be decommissioned in a way that was killing red snapper and destroying important snapper habitat. After intense questioning, it became clear that in the current process for decommission rigs, NOAA, which is part of the Department of Commerce, is not regularly consulted by Interior agencies.

As a result, NOAA does not even conduct surveys to determine if the Department of the Interior is about to dismantle a productive artificial reef teeming with red snapper and other fish.

Mr. Chair, I agree with my colleagues from the Gulf States who feel this is ridiculous and needs to stop; but how do we do it? Then I remembered that we already have a mechanism in place for resolving exactly this kind of multistakeholder conflict at sea. It is called the National Ocean Policy.

Through the National Ocean Policy, the National Ocean Council facilitates commonsense governance of public resources. Like air traffic control for the seas, the council coordinates all of the users of our oceans and helps them determine safer, less contentious, and more efficient utilization of ocean resources.

My amendment would direct the agencies responsible for implementing the National Ocean Policy to work with the Gulf States and other stakeholders to develop a transparent process that would preserve red snapper habitat during rig decommissioning.

A vote for this amendment is a vote for more recreational fishing opportunities in the Gulf of Mexico and a vote for a bipartisan solution to promoting red snapper habitat.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the Lowenthal amendment.

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As you just heard from the other side of the aisle, Mr. Chair, they agree with me that there needs to be more coordination amongst all the stakeholders to make smart decisions about rig decommissioning in red snapper habitat; but they refuse to move forward with this proposal simply because they oppose the National Ocean Policy which incidentally, as we all know in this room, that its predecessor was the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, which was first established by President Bush.

They oppose the National Ocean Policy on the grounds that it is a program that is authorized by an executive action or an executive order of a President that they don't like. This seems to me to be pretty petty.

Why would we create now a new group to bring together the stakeholders to address just this one issue, when we already have a council and a policy that can do exactly what everyone wants to be done?

National Ocean Policy is not a failed policy like some suggest, nor is it an instance of executive overreach. It is merely a commonsense way to facilitate multistakeholder collaboration on complex ocean issues.

Mr. Chair, my amendment directs agencies and stakeholders to work together to come up with solutions to decommission rigs that work for everyone involved. This is a commonsense solution that promotes red snapper habitat and more recreational fishing opportunities.

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