Stephen Taufen - Groundswell Fisheries Movement
MSA Reauthorization Must be Postponed to Protect Alaska
11/01/06Kodiak, Alaska
Congress will reconvene on November 13, and no matter how the election turns out, fishermen run a grave risk of not being heard on Reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens fisheries act(s). It's time to get out your pens!
MSA must be stopped, not only for Alaska but for the other states, and to ensure we are good global trade partners, too. While we respect the need for a budget, and work done on conservation issues (if that's not just a trick that Ted Stevens is working to entwine you!), the bills including 'directed access privileges' and imposing taxes on you are utterly unacceptable. After all, you had no say in drafting what will bankrupt you. Hmm, maybe we'd be better off if all those bureaucrats did lose their budget until they pay more attention to the real People?
Currently, the City and Borough of Kodiak are considering letters to Congress opposing reauthorization until next year. The November 9th joint session will be a barnburner, and processor cow-pie theories will provide the fuel. We'll bring the oxygen of speaking truth to power!
State senator Gary Stevens' office shared courageous letters written in October, to Congressman Don Young and to Governor Frank Murkowski. I told Gary's staff that we could draft up some suggestions for inclusion in another letter, to 'higher ups' before Congress reconvenes. After meeting Ethan Berkowitz last week, I'm more inspired, given the fast approaching elections. No, Tony, we still don't trust you - and never will. Sorry, Ethan.
Hate to spring the ideas on Gary's office this way, but let's make sure this is a public process and that every Alaska representative gets a chance to duplicate his courage - even surpass it.
Earmarks aren't the only form of financial abuses of the Treasury that need tightening up.
Below is recommended language - for the Congressional letter, based on Senator Gary Stevens' one-pagers. It's comprehensive, but then again, try reading all the unintelligible MSA-altering bills and Amendments. Or try reading ADF&G Commissioner KY's lubricious treatise exposing the Murkowskinarchy of Alaska's position on the MSA to burst your carotids.
Sarah!, shine your Bruno Maglis, as we can't wait until you walk down the Juneau red carpet - after taking a commercial flight south, of course. With all due respect, this suggested letter might also help frame your perspective on what to do the first day you get into office.
Gary, here's Groundswell's suggestions for a letter addressed to the following:
TO: U.S. House Resources Committee, All Members
U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, All Members
Senate and House Leadership, Minority and Majority Parties
CC: Hon. Carlos Gutierrez, Secretary of Commerce
Dr. William Hogarth, Director of NOAA Fisheries
Hon. Amanda Johnson-Miller, Dept. of State Oceans Affairs (room 7820)
IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson, Dept. of the Treasury
Dear Representative,
RE: Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Reauthorization - A Complexity of Bills
As an Alaska state senator in one of the Nation's foremost fishery regions, the Gulf of Alaska (GOA), I urge you in your Congressional capacity to ask for a postponement of any Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) and related fisheries reauthorization legislation currently before the 109th Congress. I'd also ask that Congress review the Gulf of Alaska Rockfish Pilot (Demonstration) Program, halt any extension from two to five years for the RPP, and to please stop the RPP from implementation scheduled for this next year, until Congress better understands its precedent setting allocative nature.
I can guarantee Congress that these have become extremely divisive issues in communities around the GOA. Our seafood industry has become too highly concentrated and the majority of small businesses have lost their say. The key concerns are with enabling any further rationalization programs, the extreme lack of actual stakeholder participation, and how multiple bills will implement potentially devastating changes to the MSA.
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council has now exceeded 80 Amendments for Fishery Management Programs, under the MSA. That, like our Pacific fisheries, dwarfs all other regions of the Nation combined. Surely, as recently filed lawsuits demonstrate, we are not so wise as to adequately understand the massive regulatory burden and operative effects this entails. And as new stock data indicates potential reductions in allowable catches in the near future, maybe the NPFMC hasn't done as well as is often touted. Congress must remain in control of our Nation's public and precious ocean resources.
Furthermore, the MSA reauthorization, done correctly, should encompass overall management guidelines, conservation principles and national standards, not be a vehicle for unequal treatment and for language designed to further specific programs to benefit the special interests who have designed this apart from open due process. One example below outlines how upwards of $400 million per year is bled off from our national boundaries in poorly conducted global trade, by under pricing ex-vessel values for one of the Nation's largest fisheries, Pollock.
A delay into the next Congress would be a wise way to allow stakeholders and fishery managers the time to fully participate and work toward compromise language. But it will also take full transparency and Congressional cooperation in coalescing language into an incorporated and understandable piece of legislation. Congress (and our Nation's fleets and fishery-dependent communities) should then have months to adequately review it. And to consider alternatives, like a national fish price to ensure our sovereign Public wealth is protected in global trade.
The language of all MSA bills should also receive thorough review by the Department of Justice regarding severe anticompetitive practices and restraints of trade. Despite Justice's testimony opposing Crab rationalization, special interest politics moved forward the bill, in alleged violation of Senate rules, through an omnibus spending package. The rider doing so contained three highly controversial fishery allocation measures, which must all be re-examined.
My constituents wholeheartedly feel that Congress must get back to the proper due course of handling departmental bills and legislation, not continue on the course of massive earmarks and a lobbyist run government. We must respect all states, and all nations that we trade with. Accordingly, the Secretaries of Commerce and State should also review the MSA bills with regard to the WTO subsidy provisions and the NAFTA.
Although this request is clear, and joins others around the Nation who are deeply concerned should Congress act on MSA during the next few months, below are further thoughts on the matter.
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Confusion, Prior Economic Harms & Lack of Public Process:
Despite a great deal of time and effort expended to date, all of the interrelated legislation, along with the conference workout and amendment process, has caused a great deal of confusion as well as a fury in our communities. We are reeling from the job and economic losses from the last ill-thought legislation, Crab rationalization: still increasingly harming our coastal economy.
Its enactment, through a Rider in the 2004 Appropriations bill, stands in disregarding contrast to the National Standards that the current MSA guaranteed as public protections. Crab rationalization also disregarded earlier Congressional instructions to first do the economic analysis to determine "whether" any rationalization programs are needed, at all, and to report those finding to the proper committees, first. We still have not quantified the devastations of the Crab rationalization Rider that ignored those instructions. Yet, Congress is being asked to embark on more unjust privatization of public resources, through the diverse DAP elements of the MSA reauthorization bills.
I believe it makes good sense to delay, especially given the occupational hardships for affected fishermen and businesses to fully participate in a public process. Why?, because in February of 2006, GAO report #06-289, Fisheries Management: Core Principles and a Strategic Approach Would Enhance Stakeholder Participation in Developing Quota-Based Programs, shed considerable light on the problem of 'dedicated access privilege (DAP) programs' by federal regional fishery management councils (RFMCs).
It would be highly advisable to first implement the GAO's recommendations, and most specifically to halt all lobbyists' written legislative language and similar non-public processes, before proceeding on legislation of such magnitude and future significance.
The GAO found that the regional fish councils it reviewed "lack key elements of an effective stakeholder participation framework and therefore may be missing opportunities for all stakeholders to participate in the DAP program development process." It criticized legislative end-runs, the very issue of greatest contention in our region because the great majority of fishermen do not have a say in conference workouts, in making amendments, nor in the drafting of harmful language that peppers the MSA bills that will steal the very salt from our regional income base. These end-runs occur because only a few greedy participants would rather use their financial power than act as good fellow citizens in a fair and open, transparent process.
Allocative Concerns, Welfare Discrimination & Certain Consolidation:
Again, as Alaska State Senator for District R, I represent the political and economic interests of numerous coastal communities and the constituents that will be impacted by proposed changes in the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Act (MSA Reauthorization bills) in the Congress. Of particular concern to our region are the DAP provisions involving 'rationalization' of Gulf of Alaska fisheries and the regulatory instruments called 'limited license privilege programs' (LAPPs) being proposed in Senate and House versions.
MSA reauthorization has become an extremely divisive issue in communities around the Gulf of Alaska, only made worse by the inclusion of major changes to MSA in H.R. 889 (Coast Guard Appropriations, now P.L. 109-241) and H.R. 1431 (MSA appointments and training changes, etc.), this year. In a discriminatory fashion, the former excluded many native villages in our region from participating in $200 million of direct loan subsidy financing for community development quota programs available to other Alaska natives whose lobbyists ensured their position, which is also not available to any non-native participant.
Less than 40% of Alaska's native entities qualify for the loan subsidies of H.R. 889, and given that they take from 7.5% to 20% of particular species, right off the top of allowable catches for all fishermen, the Community Development Quotas act as a direct tax specifically on non-native coastal fishermen. While a somewhat noble idea, they alone should not bear the costs of a program that alleges to alleviate poverty among all natives, yet excludes the majority of natives in Alaska. Had our City of Kodiak leaders not caught another provision in the proposed bill, it would have prevented seafood landings from rightfully coming to Kodiak docks should crab fisheries recover, as well. These problems must be fixed before further DAP programs are allowed.
Saltonstall-Kennedy Funds Reassigned Without Public Say:
The latter bill (H.R. 1431) reassigns Saltonstall-Kennedy funds, without adequate public input - and fails to designate what if any of the S-K monies would be available for regional direct marketing efforts for our fleets and seafood processing industry. Again, Congress is proceeding without proper due process and irrespective of the voices of participants in the Nation's largest fisheries. But it is clear that NOAA Fisheries has soaked up a great deal of the S-K funds as a means of funding its research budgets, aside from regular Congressional appropriations processes.
Likewise, given that S-K funds are already the subject of ongoing federal criminal investigations, concerning approximately $42 million in Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board earmarks in recent years, it might behoove the entire Congress to reconsider any other changes in how Commerce, NOAA and others determine those funds' allocations. In fact, it is time for the Congress to fully revisit the purposes of S-K funds, altogether, and not allow them to subsidize specific departments when they may be intended for other purposes.
Unequal Treatment & Direct Taxation without Representation:
One only need look at S. 2012 and H.R. 5018 and the Amendments to notice that only for the New England and Gulf of Mexico States is there a provision for a two-thirds referenda for fish harvester approval before RFMCs may proceed with DAP/LAPP programs. This is not only unconstitutional on its face, i.e. the Equality Clause, but wholly leaves out regional small businesses and others directly affected economically by fishery legislation, as well. How can such a bill pass in any Congress?
In addition, the fees enacted in H.R. 5018 or other versions, for DAP programs, carry serious implications for the direct taxation of many coastal fishermen, already struggling to make a living as industry concentration results in lower commodity pricing, ex-vessel, to our fleets. It is especially disconcerting that the Treasury Department is not involved in the determination of the measures of ex-vessel and wholesale prices discussed in the various bills.
Clearly, far greater care is also called for in designing the fee assessment aspects of MSA. There should be no taxation of our fleets without proper representation, especially when the federal government has been lax to ensure adequate 'abusive transfer pricing' enforcement by the Internal Revenue Service, for nearly two decades. It is our regional businesses who suffer.
Abusive Transfer Pricing a Grave Concern in Global Seafood Trade:
Internal Revenue code Section 482, Transfer Pricing, and related Advanced Pricing Agreement requirements, as well as other laws command that a proper evaluation be made in formula-based resource income-split situations. Historically, U.S. tax distribution laws have specified that the cost of inputs to resource industries ensure that "a fair and equitable value" protects resource providers. Otherwise, massive changes in income shifting can occur, and especially given today's global trading behavior whereby affiliates follow tax strategies that can deny a U.S. tax nexus (unlike income received directly by our regional fleets) for fish revenues, and keep hundreds of millions of both tax and net-of-tax annual dollars from circulating in our regional economy. Albeit that we are 'an island economy', the direct, indirect and induced job losses and multiplier harms are apparent; and other states suffer on the non-regional supplier side, too, when Alaskans do not receive a fair and equitable price for national resources in global trade.
Many constituents appropriately find it a striking omission that the concerns of Abusive Transfer Pricing (ATP) were not included in the work of the RFMCs on MSA Reauthorization issues, as it has been specifically included in the Congressional Research Services document on MSA issues, since 1999. Yet, the RFMC's, when outlining nearly 40 issues for MSA during the past two years, wholly disregarded ATP, despite it being the largest tax and trade issue of this Century. Congress is fully aware of the current circumstances of unbridled global corruption and of increasing levels of intergovernmental cooperation now dealing with ATP and other forms of product- and profit-laundering.
Clearly, Congress cannot rely on regional regulatory advisory bodies to comprehend nor effectively protect the Nation's sovereign rights to maximize net national benefits (a requirement of the MSA) in today's atmosphere of transnational corporations widely practicing global tax avoidance strategies. Nor can Congress rely upon the RFMCs to also successfully design economic programs that will ensure national competitiveness in the global seafood marketplace.
Given the United States' repeated failure to fully audit the international, cross-border trade in seafood, to ensure that illicit accounting does not bleed hundreds of millions of dollars annually out of fishermen pockets (via Abusive Transfer Pricing), fishermen have also suffered low ex-vessel prices. That lack of income, in turn, limits their ability to afford adequate representation, as well as time available to participate in the regulatory and legislative process. I believe that Congress must note this extreme disadvantage, and proceed with great caution for the sake of fishery-dependent communities, instead of rushing headlong into further consolidation for the sake of a few transnational corporations.
As President Reagan found out when he asked Harvard economist Michael Porter to analyze the non-competitiveness of U.S. firms in global trade, it is industry-specific factors which determine the success, because they determine the economic structure of an industry. Old theories of comparative factors, alone, do not suffice to explain the winners and losers. The MSA is one of the most important bills in this regard, as seafood is often third - behind autos and oil - in the rank of balance of trade deficits held by the Nation.
Past Time for Alaska to Join Voices from Other Fishery States:
Also, incumbent Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski unreservedly lost during the recent gubernatorial primary elections, in part because he's lost favor from Alaskans on resource development issues. And in fisheries, according to a recent State of Alaska position paper on MSA issues, his office continues to defy the common coastal community concerns against any further 'rationalization' and supports other MSA changes not favored by the People.
I join the efforts of a July 31, 2006 letter by the director of California's Department of Fish and Game, Mr. L. Ryan Broddrick,, a member of the Pacific Fishery Management Council which also rejected explicit rationalization (for the whiting fishery). The CDF&G director's letter was addressed to U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell, appropriate committees, and the leaders of Congress. It outlined opposition to "mandatory 'two-pie' quota" programs being pushed by special interests, "namely west coast processors." S. 1549, the Cooperative Hake Improvement and Conservation Act, "generated substantial opposition within the fishing industry and among the fishery managers along the west coast" (including Broddrick's letter).
Similar to consolidation problems in the North Pacific with current bills, Broddrick opposes such 'two-pie' ownership allocations of public resources. However, he encourages reauthorization, this year. On the other hand, given the implications for Alaska's far more abundant and contentious fisheries, I feel that MSA reauthorization must be delayed for all the above reasons.
Changing Definitions Not In Line with National Interests:
I am also concerned about any redefinition of Optimum Yield, or other requirements that currently protect rights to proper regional economic and social analysis before the regional fishery councils design and implement new fishery management plans. When the original Fishery Conservation and Management Act (1977) was enacted, the expanded definition of OY was paramount to guaranteeing full sovereign rights inside the 200-mile limits.
In accordance with international agreements, the United States does not "own" these global fisheries, and we should not be privatizing them for the sake of specific transnational corporations. But the MSA Amendments contain vast changes capable of doing exactly that, for which there is not space to address here; yet few if any fishermen have ever seen a copy of this language that would altogether affect their and the Nation's future.
Need for a Consolidated MSA Reauthorization Act & Time to Evaluate:
H.R. 5018, the American Fisheries Management and Marine Life Enhancement Act [Richard Pombo's bill]; and S. 2012, Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act of 2005, Pacific Whiting Act of 2005 etc. (Official name: A bill to authorize appropriations to the Secretary of Commerce for the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act for fiscal years 2006 through 2012, and for other purposes.); along with H.R. 5051 [Wayne Gilchrest's bill]; versions of H.R. 5946 Stevens-Inouye International Fisheries Monitoring and Compliance Legacy Act of 2006; and the related fisheries bills present a considerable burden for working men and women to encompass.
Congress could start by ensuring that all MSA changes and related appropriations are enacted under a set consisting of one bill each in the Senate and House, not a half-dozen, and should be coalesced under combined efforts of the full Congress and making it available for full prior Public review. This is 2006! Let's please put the Commerce Department's website to full use and make all of the bills, committee documents, amendments, as well as NOAA, Justice, and other related correspondence regarding MSA fully available, and easily accessible.
Even a gain of a one year would allow the stakeholders and fisheries managers the opportunity to address differences and work toward compromise language on these issues. However, the only way to accomplish this is to ensure that all Amendment language and ongoing changes are made known publicly, on a timely basis, to all United States fishermen, communities and affected businesses.
The Mythology of Halting the Race to Fish:
The excuse of "a race to fish" is often used to encourage Congress to act fast, but in a slipshod fashion. We have time to get it right, and to ensure that what is not really going on is "a race for greed." In large part, in the Gulf of Alaska, it is also "a race to allocate prohibited species catch" and avoid proper observer coverage and full bycatch mitigation enforcement. The MSA already contains adequate standards and measures, and the RFMCs already have access to an entire "toolbox" of measures to slow down fisheries, reduce bycatch, and deal with all of the alleged problems hastening the Congress to act in accordance with the mythology professed by corporate lobbyists clamoring at your doors.
Fish know no arbitrary ocean boundaries. It should not go without note that as a state senator, in the region with the Nation's most valuable fisheries, only when the federal process is open and performed with full regional review and input, can we enact the matching state legislation, should any be required for waters within 3-miles.
Alaska has awakened to the fact that rationalization programs have proven inadequate, even greatly harmful to our coastal communities; and that they also violate the State constitutional protections afforded Alaskans. This is causing rationalization to take an increasingly large role in the upcoming election of a new governor, and the polls indicate that constituents favor greater accountability and transparency in our resource policy-making.
Both major party gubernatorial candidates have expressed strong concerns with Crab rationalization and asked for a slowing down of more privatization schemes. Congress should note this clear message, as it came about from the deep economic concerns of our constituents.
Alaska's 'Resource Curse' Commands Better Governance:
In the resource abundant state of Alaska, we suffer from the predictable 'resource curse' where such global trading states often become plagued by two problems, 1) self-allowed excessive regulation designed to award the profits to special friends of particular politicians, and 2) rampant corruption.
Given the recent Public Integrity raids on our Legislature, led by the FBI and IRS, Alaskans can no longer deny that we have some real problems, centered on the value of these resources and the ethical conduct of enacting legislation to protect the People, first and foremost.
The only way to address such problems is to enhance the quality of governance, as the policies that we enact will determine the resulting economic structures. And those economic structures will forever influence the future economic results. As economist Porter points out, it is imperative to fully understand that "national attributes (such resource abundance) can become overshadowed by industry-specific circumstances, choices and outcomes," and other nations may thereby win in the competitive trade encounter among nations. I can assure you that my constituents are constantly and deeply concerned about how we, the United States, are miserably failing to reap the greater rewards from our bounty of national resources.
In addition, Alaska has Canadian companies participating in our fisheries, who need review to ensure their NAFTA rights are upheld. But, more importantly, the North Pacific fishing industry is dominated by Japanese corporate ownership and investment which is also in need of deeper GAO examination: before proceeding with any MSA allocative language.
An Example of Misplaced Greed - the Pollock Trawl Catchers:
An attached letter (to an unknown client) of September 3, 2002 from Dayton L. Alverson, of Natural Resource Consultants, Inc. (NRC) of Seattle, Washington, concerns the subject of "Prices paid to fishermen for fresh Pollock, in the round" for the years 1996 to 2001, for both 'US Fishermen' and 'Japanese Fishermen'. While it notes that some of the Japanese catch sells into the fresh markets, there is a remarkable discrepancy between prices paid in the two nations. Alaska Pollock has been described as a superior quality fish, but let's just look straight across the board. While this needs further study, Japanese fleets clearly got from 2.3 to over 3.8 times the prices paid (often by the same transnational corporations, who have affiliate operations in both locations) in the USA. In fact, Dutch Harbor/Unalaska - arguably the Nation's most important fish processing site - is dominated by Japanese corporate ownership, such that it entirely operates as a branch economy of Japan.
Consider that in light of the State Department disclosures of a correspondence from the American consulate of the U.S. Embassy in Sapporo (DOC_NBR: 1994SAPPORO0007, Case Number: 199902247) to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, in January of 1994, discussing salmon, to get an idea of the foreign attitude toward our 200-mile EEZ rights. And why foreign interests would care to influence our MSA reauthorization. The document outlined "LINGERING RESENTMENT TOWARDS U.S. REGULATIONS EXCLUDING JAPAN FROM U.S. WATERS" and "EXCLUSION OF HOKKAIDO'S VESSELS FROM ALASKAN 200 MILE WATERS DURING THE 1980S HAS LEFT RESENTMENTS THAT LEAD TO A WILLINGNESS TO SEEK OTHER FISH CATCH SOURCES. A KUSHIRO FISH COOPERATIVE MANAGER SAID THAT THE ALASKA FISHERIES LEADERS WERE SHORT SIGHTED IN TRYING TO CLAIM THE ENTIRE ALASKA FISHERY FOR AMERICAN BOATS."
The United States has done little to stave off the harmful effects of Japanese poachers in Russian waters on migratory U.S. anadromous fish stocks, which also costs Alaskan fishermen tens of millions of dollars harm in fisheries such as Bristol Bay salmon. Owners and fishermen aboard many smaller boats in the GOA also rely upon other fisheries, like salmon, to be economically healthy and properly protected, as well. They make an annual income from the variety of species they fish, and the prices obtained for each.
So it particularly bewilders Gulf of Alaska longline, jig and pot fishermen - the gear groups that take greater care in their catch, and generally deliver better quality product - that the catcher vessels for Pollock, the catcher dragger or trawl fleet, is one of the proponents of greater corporate ownership under the two-pie, linked cooperative system that makes little sense to anyone else. The Alaska Groundfish Data Bank, Inc. (AGDB) and Alaska Draggers have repeatedly lobbied Congressmen Richard Pombo and Don Young, to ensure that Gulf of Alaska rationalization is grandfathered into MSA reauthorization. Yet there is no transparency concerning the full ownership, financing arrangements and related product commitments for both the GOA and Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands trawl catcher vessel fleets.
This is important because price-mechanism logic would have the trawl fleet joining the greater fleets and local businesses in expressing grave concerns for how rationalization has encouraged, even institutionalized the ability to conduct price-fixing. Low ex-vessel prices hurt all fishermen. Based on a generalized conclusion from the NRC report, and estimated landings of Pollock to inshore plants in Alaska (both foreign and domestically owned), we can make certain estimates for the losses due to the non-harmonization of Pollock harvest prices the report outlines.
Given only the inshore component, for Pollock delivered to regional fish plants in the GOA and Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands (BSAI), it is clear from the NRC report that upwards of $260,000,000 is taken annually by ATP and price-making measures, at least an average of $150 million. Were that extended as an ex-vessel price to the offshore segment, catching its own production, nearly an additional $250 million in lost regional economic income could be estimated. Since 1996, at a difference of 15 cents/pound, that would amount to over $3.1 billion in direct losses to the U.S. economy, which would exceed $10 billion given full impact of economic multiplier effects.
This species alone, the Nation's largest valued catch, presents an incredibly strong argument in favor of a National Fish Price (NFP) mechanism - not for irrational privatization of such resources as political gifts, to a few transnational corporations (TNCs) as special favors clearly in violation of WTO tenets, as well. A clearly affordable 5 cents per pound NFP assessment would bring back to the Treasury an estimated $130,000,000 annually. That's how the costs of the RFMCs and NOAA can be covered! It should not be that the TNCs escape taxation altogether through ATP and other profit laundering, so that the burden is left solely upon the backs of fishermen suffering structural economic, de facto price-fixing under the TNCs' hands. U.S. taxpayers deserve equal respect.
So, this adds to the reason why the GAO should examine foreign ownership and financing not only of shoreside plants, but catcher vessels and other assets, as well. And to the reasons why the Treasury Department should be intimately involved in MSA reauthorization.
Attempts for Exemption from the Data Quality Act (OMB) Requirements:
The AGDB repeatedly states on the federal record that it represents both trawlers and processors, by which it means only the largest, closed-class processors who participate courtesy of the Pollock rationalization of the 1990's, known at the American Fisheries Act. Together, these trawlers and their specific processors prosecute the fishery not only on target species, but allocate the bycatch among them.
Bycatch is technically called "prohibited species catch" (PSC) and the other fleets believe the MSA's National Standards prohibit such conduct, and call for reduction of bycatch, not targeting. There is ample reason why the trawlers want the Rockfish Demonstration Program, as a precedent setting allocative program (it's not merely 'a pilot' program), because the value of incidental or targeted PSC often far exceeds the value of target species allowable catches.
In addition, the AGDB and dragger fleet generally self reports its catch, as Observer coverage in the Gulf of Alaska is under 8% of tows, while upwards of 92% in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Pollock fishery. There are recent complaints regarding the integrity of reported, or logged catches, and questions about compliance with the requirements of the Data or Information Quality Act under the Commerce Department agreement with the Office of Management and Budgets (OMB), Office of the President. More concerning is the recent discovery that our RFMC, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and an industry-developed "quasi conservation group" (the Marine Conservation Alliance) have written letters asking for exemption from the Information Quality Act.
What is needed, instead, is a new third-party participant to ensure the integrity of independent and accurate fisheries data collection. Self-policing seldom works! And the Congress should seriously question the process of lobbyist inserted language into the myriad of MSA reauthorization bills before you. Again, delay is the wise course.
In Conclusion:
Only a fully aware and actively involved Congress can protect America's fisheries. Earlier this decade, when the President's Ocean Policy Commission attempted to also take testimony on the issues of the sovereignty and commercial wealth of our fisheries, it stumbled on that topic, and generally dealt with the biology, conservation, and related coastal issues. Yet, testimony about ATP was given to the Commission, though not incorporated in its final report. Similarly overwhelming to the RFMCs and Congress, the second-tier legislation needed to move the MSA beyond biological and conservation management has also proven difficult to envision and enact. But the Congress must not fail in this national duty, especially in the globalized world of trade, generally across borders between related affiliates of TNCs, today.
Congress should also ensure that the WTO's subsidy restricting tenets on industries are met by any MSA language, and that the U.S. balance of trade is deferential to the approaching ratification of the Laws of the Sea. After all, we do not "own" fisheries outside of territorial waters. It is important to Alaskans that the federal government gets this correct, so that our Legislature does not also impede international cooperation.
Only through due process, equality, and with full accountability and transparency can a federal fisheries bill benefit the Nation and its regions, and ensure sovereign commercial rights to full value from our fisheries, in accordance with Optimum Yield, while also respecting our State of Alaska constitutional requirements for maximizing economic and social returns. That's how we'll work together to keep Alaska and the Nation in the position of being good partners in the Conduct of Global Trade.
Thank you for consideration of this letter. Please contact me with any questions you may have. Sincerely, (our representative).
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Time for a New Tune-up in Juneau, too:
Well, that ought to set the stage for a little discussion. The dirty rotten scoundrels of the AGDB, MCA, UFA and other quislings have had their rule of the roost for far too long. And their friends in Juneau are due for head-rolling, too.
But you'll have to act firm and write fast. No greater example exists of how crooked the process still is than the recent appointment of Gerry Merrigan to the NPFMC. Now, we think the world of his experience in salmon fishing, and this isn't personal - just business, but just maybe he's the ringer they've long prepared and desperately need to legitimize salmon rationalization next. Merrigan can always prove us wrong, as actions speak loud, so he could still become fishermen's champion (but he'll need a lot of help). Double dog dare ya, Gerry! You can start by understanding Abusive Transfer Pricing and getting determined to get to the bottom of the problem in salmon, starting with Bristol Bay.
But things don't look good. It was never a fair process of selection, as within mere hours of hearing last August that a RFMC position was available in the North Pacific, we heard that Merrigan was a shoe-in. The argument was, "that's Petersburg's seat", then it was that "It's Icicle's seat", then "No, that's Prowler Fisheries, and thus Trident's means to controlling a third council seat."
Well, after the months' long charade of apparent fair selection, Dictator Murkowski has finally revealed - to great surprise - that Merrigan is his leading choice. Just on the tight end of the time wire, so that Secretary Gutierrez falls into Frank's trap before the elections, under the argument that we must have a new councilman before the December meeting! At least one of his alternate choices is "business as usual" too. Murkowski passed on obviously wiser choices. With industry-specific service-at-the-door policy manipulations like this, who needs enemies? Mrs. Palin, that choice should have belonged to you. So, we suggest you borrow the books on executive orders, and see if there isn't some way to correct it, and restore public rights. They could use a little shoe polish too, as the former administration has scuffed us long enough. Prediction: welcome to office, Sarah. It's long past time to end this economic terrorism, even if the current governor's plane has to go down.
Let's roll!
Respectfully, from Kodiak.
Stephen Taufen - Groundswell Fisheries Movement
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A public watchdog and advocate for fishermen and their coastal communities. Taufen is an "insider" who blew the whistle on the international profit laundering between global affiliates of North Pacific seafood companies, who use illicit accounting to deny the USA the proper taxes on seafood trade. The same practices are used to lower ex-vessel prices to the fleets, and to bleed monies from our regional economy. Contact Stephen Taufen