For well over a year, anglers and federal legislators have been
the targets of a sophisticated and very well-funded public relations effort
designed to convince them to support the so-called “Modern Fish Act,” a bill
that would weaken key provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery
Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens) in order to
increase recreational harvest.
Modern Fish Act supporters
claim that the legislation could accomplish many of their
goals, including “allowing alternative management for recreational fishing,
reexamining fisheries allocations, smartly rebuilding fishery stocks,
establishing exemptions where annual catch limits don’t fit and improving
recreational data collection.”
The problem is that no bill
currently moving through Congress will do what the Modern Fish Act supporters
describe, although there is pending legislation that would either fall far
short of meeting those goals or damage the current federal fishery management
system far more than Modern Fish Act proponents are willing to admit.
That wasn’t always the case. When the Modern Fish Act effort was
publicly launched in 2017, it involved two similar bills, H.R. 2023, introduced by Rep.
Garret Graves (R-LA), in the House of Representatives, and S. 1520, introduced by Sen.
Roger Wicker(R-MS), in the Senate. Both bills were titled the
“Modernizing Recreational Fishery Management Act of 2017,” and both arguably
advanced the goals of Modern Fish Act supporters.
Although the language of the
bills differed somewhat, the differences were small enough that no one doubted
that they could be reconciled in a conference committee composed of House and
Senate members, with the result being a compromise that was, on balance, very
similar to the original legislation.
Today, the situation is very
different.
S. 1520, the Senate version of the Modern Fish Act, was marked up on February 28 of
this year, and formally reported out of committee on June 5.
However, the version of S. 1520 that
emerged from the committee mark-up was very different from the
bill that had originally been introduced.
According to the official committee report
on S. 1520, the bill would now
“Direct Fishery
Management Councils (Councils) to review allocations to commercial and
recreational fishing sectors every 5 years.
“Clarify that the
Councils [already] have the authority to use certain fishery management
measures in a recreational fishery in developing a management plan or proposed
regulation.
“Authorize
Councils to establish annual catch limits for multispecies complexes or annual
limits for each year in a 3-year period.
“Direct the
Secretary of Commerce to develop a report to Congress on facilitating greater
incorporation of data, analysis, stock assessments, and surveys from State
agencies and non-governmental sources…”
While the current version of
S. 1520 would require a reexamination of the allocation of fishery resources
and has a chance, depending on the conclusions reached in the proposed report
by the Secretary of Commerce, of improving fisheries data, it would no longer
materially affect the establishment of annual catch limits or the prompt
rebuilding of overfished stocks.
In fact, that version
contains a “Rule of Construction” section, making it clear that current
provisions that prohibit overfishing, hold sectors accountable if they do
overfish, and require the prompt rebuilding of overfished stocks will not be
affected by the bill.
Thus, S. 1520 has been
largely rendered harmless; its provisions are now more of a nuisance, which
place unnecessary burdens on the fishery management process, than they are a
direct threat to science-based fishery management and the conservation provisions
of Magnuson-Stevens.
Ironically, that’s exactly
what now makes S. 1520 so dangerous.
To understand why, it’s
necessary to look at what happened with the Modern Fish Act in the House.
Despite all of the hyperbole that
accompanied its introduction, H.R. 2023, the Modern Fish Act bill first
introduced in the House of Representatives, never got off the ground. It was referred to the House Natural
Resources Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans where, after
hearings were held in September 2017, the bill effectively died.
Normally, that would be good
news. But in the case of the Modern Fish Act, it’s not good news at all.
That’s because there is another fishery bill that’s active and
alive in the House. It’s a full-fledged Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization bill, H.R. 200, titled the
Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries
Management Act, which was introduced by Rep. Don Young (R-AK).
H.R. 200, as introduced, didn’t propose any ideas that Congress
hadn’t seen, and chose not to adopt, before. It is substantially the same bill
as H.R 1335, which bore
the same title when Rep. Young introduced it during the 113th Congress, and not
very different from H.R. 4742, another
identically-named piece of legislation, which was sponsored by Rep. Doc
Hastings (R-WA) in the 112th.
It is a very bad bill. In fact, it is such a bad bill that after
Rep. Young introduced the essentially identical H.R. 1335 in the previous
legislative session, he felt that he had to assure his
constituents that the bill wouldn’t harm their fisheries, writing
that
“My legislation…will not change the way the [North Pacific
Fishery Management Council] manages our fisheries. Alaska fishermen and the
communities they support will continue to reap the benefits of our well-managed
fishery resources and the [North Pacific Fishery Management Council] will
continue to use sound scientific data in their management decisions.Regardless of the changes proposed to
[Magnuson-Stevens], the [North Pacific Fishery Management Council] will
continue to utilize innovative practices to be leaders in
fisheries management… [emphasis added]”
In other words, H.R. 1335,
and thus its successor, H.R. 200, was only drafted for the rubes down in the
Lower 48 who don’t know any better, and not for Alaskans who need and value
healthy and sustainable fisheries.
When the primary sponsor of a
bill starts talking like that about his own creation, it’s not hard to figure
out that the bill is no good.
Unfortunately, H.R. 200, unlike
H.R. 2023, was marked up and favorably reported out of committee. So unlike
H.R. 2023, it remains very much alive and very much a threat to
Magnuson-Stevens and the health of fish stocks.
What makes H.R. 200 a
particular threat is that, during the markup process, it was amended to include
language from the Modern Fish Act. Given H.R. 2023’s failure to get out of
committee, H.R. 200 is now the de facto Modern Fish Act bill in the House.
And that’s where the tie to
S. 1520 comes in.
Should S. 1520 pass in the
Senate, there will be no companion bill of similarly limited scope that has
been passed by the House, and that could be referred to conference with S.
1520.
Instead, assuming that both
bills are passed, S. 1520 will be sent to conference with H.R. 200, thus
largely cutting the Senate, lately the more reasoned and deliberative body with
respect to fisheries issues, out of the Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization
debate. The entire intricate process of drafting a Senate bill, which could be
shaped by a bipartisan process, the committee discussions and markup and the
debate on the floor would all be lost. The terms of Magnuson-Stevens
reauthorization would instead be decided by a handful of Senators and
representatives meeting together and largely out of the public eye.
Thus, when anglers and Congressmen hear the blandishments of
Modern Fish Act supporters, and pleas to “Pass the Modern Fish
Act,” they must understand that they are being told only a
small part of the story, while the greater truth is concealed.
Instead of being an end in
itself, S. 1520, the only true Modern Fish Act bill still in play, is being
used as a Trojan Horse that, if passed, will open the doors wide for H.R. 200,
a full reauthorization of Magnuson-Stevens, and a rollback of many of that
law’s most important provisions.
The federal fishery
management system, America’s fish stocks and America’s fishermen would suffer
badly as a result.
S. 1520 is not a terrible
bill. But if it passes, a terrible bill could easily become law.
-----
This essay first appeared in “From the Waterfront,” the blog
of the Marine Fish Conservation Network, which may be found at
http://conservefish.org/blog/
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