Current Developments in U.S. Fisheries Policy

Date01 April 2018
4-2018 NEWS & ANALYSIS 48 ELR 10279
D I A L O G U E
Current Developments in
U.S. Fisheries Policy
Summary
e Trump Administration’s approach to sheries man-
agement appears to constitute a signicant policymak ing
shift. Recent NOAA decisions, such as extending the Gulf
of Mexico red snapper season or overturning an Atlantic
States Marine Fisheries Commission decision to cut New
Jersey’s recreational quota for summer ounder, seem to go
against the agency’s traditional approach of placing scien-
tic information at the center of sheries decisionmaking.
On January 25, 2018, ELI held a webinar to discuss these
and other recent developments, and to assess the direc-
tion U.S. sheries policymaking may take in the future.
Below we present a transcript of the discussion, which has
been edited for style, clarity, and space considerations.
Xiao Recio-Blanco (moderator) is Director of the Ocean
Program at the Environmental Law Institute.
Monica G oldberg is Ch ief Counsel, Oc eans, at the
Environmenta l Defense Fund.
Mike Gravitz is Director of Policy and Legislation at the
Marine Conservation Institute.
Shana Miller is Program Manager of the Global Tuna
Conservation Project at e Ocean Foundation.
Xiao Recio-Bla nco: For our rst Environmental Law
Institute (ELI) Ocean Seminar for 2018, we see this as a
fantastic opportunity for us to engage with those in ocean
resources management and for the conservation com-
munity at large to get together. I also want to thank the
Naomi and Nehemiah Cohen Foundation, which has sup-
ported the ELI Ocean Seminars from its inception. In this
Ocean Seminar series, we convene experts to engage about
current topics in a productive way.
Fisheries policy is an extremely complex issue. As a for-
mer U.S. senator said a few years ago, “[F]isheries man-
agement isn’t rocket science. It’s actually more dicult.”1
Fisheries management decisions have huge political impli-
cations. Political representatives tend to tread carefully
1. U.S. Senator Mark Begich, C-SPAN, West Coast and Pacic Fisheries
(Jan. 30, 2014), http://www.c-span.org/video/?317504-1/hearing-federal-
sheries.
around sheries policy because some of these decisions may
seal their fate when the time comes to run for reelection.
Beyond political impact, sheries policies have envi-
ronmental, economic, and social consequences. Decisions
not to impose certain catch limits can have serious conse-
quences for the overall stability of our increasingly fragile
ocean environment. Some management measures directly
aect the livelihood of thousands of workers and their
families, and indirectly impact hundreds of thousands
of inhabitants in coasta l communities across the United
States. In many regions, shifting policies around sheries
go beyond mere economic impact and, in time, redraw cul-
tural idiosyncratic concepts of life, labor, and even family
values, and the millennia-old story of this fascinating rela-
tionship between humans and the sea.
American sheries are so important that access to some
of these sheries helped shape human history itself, as we
have learned from books like Cod.2 American sheries have
been at the center of international conict and negotia-
tions, like the delimitation of the maritime boundary in
the Gulf of Maine.3 Fisheries have also been key topics of
famous criminal cases like that of the “Codfather”4 or the
Bengis case.5
Our key legal instrument for sheries management is
the Magnuson-Stevens Act,6 which, since its enactment
in 1976, establishes a preeminent role of the federa l gov-
ernment through t he National Marine Fisheries Service
(NMFS) in management of shing activities in federal
waters. Much of the decisionmaking process is left in the
hands of the eight regional shery management councils,
which recommend shery measures. Unless NMFS nds
recommended measures inconsistent with the law, the
agency must approve the management plans.
2. M K, C: A B   F T C 
W (Penguin Books 1998).
3. International Court of Justice, Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary in
the Gulf of Maine Area (Can/USA), 1984, available at http://www.icj-cij.
org/en/case/67.
4. In 2017, Carlos Raphael, known as the “Codfather,” pleaded guilty “to mis-
labeling hundreds of thousands of pounds of sh, a scheme that enabled
him to evade federal shing regulations and boost his prots.” See Milton
J. Valencia, “e Codfather,” a New Bedford Fishing Mogul, Pleads Guilty,
B G, Mar. 30, 2017, https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/
2017/03/30/the-codfather-new-bedford-shing-mogul-pleads-guilty/wu6m
0gPG7fD7EmL2AUv8dM/story.html.
5. United States v. Bengis, No. 13-2543 (2d Cir. 2015).
6. 16 U.S.C. §§1801 et seq.
Copyright © 2018 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, http://www.eli.org, 1-800-433-5120.

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT