ALL THE CARDS ARE NOW ON THE TABLE

Since last December, a number of anglers’ rights, tackle industry and boat industry groups have been promoting a bill designated H.R. 200, the Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act. 

There was nothing particularly notable about H.R. 200 when it was first introduced.  Like H.R. 1335 in the 114^th Congress, and H.R. 4742 in the session before that, all of which shared the same title, H.R. 200 sought to weaken the conservation and management provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act by adding exceptions and substantial ambiguity to provisions prohibiting overfishing and requiring the prompt rebuilding of overfished stocks. 

Probably the best example of that is a provision in H.R. 200 that would permit a rebuilding guideline to be extended for an undefined period if

“the Secretary [of Commerce] determines that the stock has been affected by unusual events that make rebuilding within the specified time period improbable without significant economic harm to fishing communities.”

Given that we fish in a constantly changing ocean, can you imagine any fishery where a claim couldn’t be made that “unusual events” intervened?  

And remember that nothing in the provision requires such “unusual events” to be related to a species’ biology or to its habitat or ocean conditions.  Unexpectedly high levels of overfishing, political actions or even events affecting a completely unrelated fishery that could have a spillover effect and lead to “significant economic harm to fishing communities” when combined with the short-term impacts of the rebuilding plan could all be used as excuses to invoke the section. 

And should such ambiguous language ever be referred to the courts to review, such courts would have no clear legislative guidance to use when shaping their decisions.  That’s a dangerous thing to allow, particularly at a time when many extremely commerce-friendly judges are being appointed to the federal bench.

In short, H.R. 200 is just another one of those laws that the Coastal Conservation Association contemplated a few years ago, when it wrote that

“…For most important recreational species, rebuilding has either been completed or is well underway, and little is gained by stretching out the last few years of recovery periods that are already well underway.  The exceptions are those complexes of slow-growing, generally deep-water species which support a mixed commercial/recreational fishery:  New England groundfish, southern snapper-grouper and Pacific rockfish.

“Claims that the current rebuilding deadlines don’t take biological or ecological considerations into account are false.  The current law permits the 10-year deadline to be exceeded when the biology of the fish requires it, in which case the rebuilding period is generally one mean generation (the time it takes a fish of the affected species to mature) plus 10 years.

“The extension of the rebuilding deadlines in the Flexibility Act are simply designed to drag out recovery in order to allow the highest level of fishing pressure to continue.  [emphasis added]”

 The “Flexibility Act” described by CCA at the time was H.R. 1584, the Flexibility in Rebuilding America’s Fisheries Act of 2009, which was not a broad reauthorization of Magnuson-Stevens, like H.R. 200, but narrowly limited the harm it could do to rebuilding timelines.  

H.R. 200 is far broader and far more dangerous.

Even so, CCA’s comments about “flexibility” are as true today, when applied to the rebuilding provisions of H.R. 200, as they were nearly a decade ago when applied to what were, if anything, the slightly less egregious provisions of H.R. 1584.

Despite that, CCA and the other organizations marching under the banner of the Center for Sportfishing Policy are actively supporting H.R. 200 these days.  

They’re supporting the bill because certain provisions of what they refer to as the “Modern Fish Act,” legislation that would free recreational fishermen of the responsibility of sticking to annual catch limits that prevent overfishing, and hold them accountable if overfishing occurs, has been added to the bad bill, along with other language designed to increase the recreational harvest. 

And, of course, H.R. 200 would push out rebuilding deadlines (they call that “smartly rebuilding fishery stocks”), so that CCA members and other anglers could “drag out recovery in order to allow the highest level of” recreational “fishing pressure to occur.”  

But they call that pressure “improved access,” not overfishing, and assure us that it’s OK...

Apparently, the groups aligned with the Center for Sportfishing Policy are willing to live with all of the harm that H.R. 200 could cause America’s fish stocks, so long as they can end up contributing to the damage and increasing the recreational kill.  They’re actively urging passage of the law.

What makes that all the more remarkable is that while the Center for Sportfishing Policy folks, who claim to be the “first conservationists” in their public relations blitz, are supporting this harmful bill, the commercial industry, which the Center often casts as the villains, are split on the issue.

The seafood business publication Undercurrent News noted that

“HR 200 is opposed by…several fishing groups, including The Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders’ Alliance and the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association.  They say it would set fisheries policies back in time, further endangering stocks.

“Share the Gulf, a coalition of fishermen, restaurants and other businesses that serve the fishing industry, has also expressed its opposition.

“However, several fishing industry groups are squarely behind the measure, including the West Coast Seafood Processors’ Association, the Southeastern Fisheries Association and the Garden State Seafood Association…

“The Seafood Harvesters of America favors some parts of the bill and opposes others…”

It’s pretty notable when recreational fishermen, who like to cast themselves as the “good guys,” are more unified in their support of a bill that would weaken conservation measures than is the commercial fishing industry, who is often stigmatized as caring for nothing but short-term profits—something that commercial fishermen in many areas, including the Gulf of Mexico and Alaskan coast, are demonstrating is clearly untrue.

And unlike the recreational groups, who continue, beyond all reason, to sell H.R. 200 as a conservation bill, Undercurrent News clearly notes that the legislation will

“Give regional fishery management councils the flexibility to consider other factors when setting catch limits beyond the [annual catch limits] recommended by their scientific advisory panels, including, for example, environmental conditions, changes in the ecosystem and species with unique biological characteristics.  Under current law, the [fishery management councils] are required to follow the [annual catch limits] their scientific panels request regardless of other factors;”

and

“Replace the 10-year deadline on stock-rebuilding programs, giving the councils more freedom to use the biology and life cycle of each species…”

So no one on the commercial side is trying to blow any smoke about what’s going on here.  H.R. 200 is clearly about weakening prohibitions against exceeding science-based catch limits and delaying the recovery of overfished stocks.  Unlike the recreational proponents of the Modern Fish Act, they’re willing to put their cards on the table and say, right up front, what H.R. 200 will do.

However, the Modern Fish Act supporters should be given credit for at least one thing.  They’ve finally admitted, without any hedging, that H.R. 2023, the original “Modern Fish Act” legislation, is dead, and that H.R. 200, as bad as it is, is being fully embraced as the House Modern Fish Act bill.  In an article appearing on June 21 in Boating Industry, the National Marine Manufacturers Association, a key member of the Center for Sportfishing Policy, announced that

“Next Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on the Modern Fish Act (MFA)—which modernizes outdated regulations that govern recreational fishing in saltwater.  In addition, the U.S. Senate is moving forward with similar legislation.”

As it turned out, neither sentence was true.

The House never voted on H.R. 200, pushing that vote to some time after the 4^th of July recess—although it was H.R. 200, the Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act, and not the much narrowly-drafted H.R. 2023, Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act, or “Modern Fish Act,” that folks  believed, for a while, would come up for a vote.  That makes it very clear what sort of bill the Modern Fish Act supporters are willing to back in order to put a few more fish in their coolers.

And anyone who says that H.R. 200 is “similar legislation” to the far less comprehensive and nearly harmless S. 1520, which is pending in the Senate, has either never read the two bills or has, at best, a very casual and distant relationship with the truth. 

Although such statement does reveal a mindset to get them both passed and bring them together in conference, where the many bad provisions of H.R. 200 can easily emerge in the resulting bill.

But at least, now, the cards are all on the table. 

Modern Fish Act supporters aren’t just pushing a modest little bill that will tweak Magnuson-Stevens and make it a bit friendlier to anglers.  They are full-out in support of H.R. 200, legislation that will badly cripple the current saltwater fishery management system by allowing regional fishery management councils to sidestep science-based catch limits and stock rebuilding plans. 

To them, H.R. 200 is the Modern Fish Act.

Which clearly explains, without need for further words, why the Modern Fish Act, in all of its current forms, should never, under any circumstances, become law.