Senate approves 4 treaties to end illegal fishing

E&E News
By Jessica Estepa
April 4, 2014

The Senate yesterday approved four fisheries treaties aimed at ending illegal fishing around the world.

The treaties are:

The Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing, or the Port State Measures Agreement. Under this agreement, vessels with illegally caught fish would not be allowed to enter participating countries' ports, thereby keeping their products from entering markets.
The Convention on the Conservation and Management of High Seas Fishery Resources in the South Pacific Ocean, which would establish a regional fisheries management organization and require participants to use conservation principles in their fisheries management.
The Convention on the Conservation and Management of High Seas Fisheries Resources in the North Pacific Ocean, which would establish a management organization in that region and require countries to cooperate on conservation and sustainability measures.
An amendment to the Convention on Future Multilateral Cooperation in the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries, which would strengthen the 1995 agreement by bringing it in line with modern fisheries governance.

While the treaties were signed by the United States between 2007 to 2012, all have waited for Senate approval -- a move that allows the president to ratify the treaty -- for years. Considering how long the treaties have languished in this waiting period, the recent actions have been relatively quick. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on the treaties in February and approved them by voice vote last month.

Movement on the bills is the result of the work of the bipartisan Senate Oceans Caucus, Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) said. Those lawmakers began pushing for the treaties' approval in October, when they wrote to the Foreign Relations Committee and called for a hearing.

In particular, the approval of the Port State Measures Agreement has been touted as a victory by ocean conservationists. So far, it has been ratified by 10 other countries, including the European Union. In order to go into effect, it must be ratified by all 25 signatory countries.

By ratifying the agreement, the United States will show its commitment to ending illegal fishing and encouraging others to do the same, conservationists say.

"The agreement, once implemented widely, will be a cost-effective way to stop illegally caught fish from entering the market, turning this from a high-gain, low-risk activity into one in which the likelihood of being caught is a real and present danger and a major deterrent," Tony Long, director of the Pew Charitable Trusts' project to end illegal fishing, said in a statement. "We are pleased that the United States, as one of the largest seafood markets in the world, is stating emphatically that illegally caught fish are not welcome in its ports."

In the House

Separately, draft legislation that would implement the Port State Measures Agreement yesterday was reviewed by a House Natural Resources subcommittee.

Ambassador David Balton, the State Department's deputy assistant secretary for oceans and fisheries, voiced support for Rep. Peter DeFazio's (D-Ore.) "Pirate Fishing Elimination Act." He noted the importance of the Port State Measures Agreement, a treaty that he helped create.

"This is a global agreement and is in fact the first binding global agreement specifically intended to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing," he said.

Russell Smith, deputy assistant secretary for international fisheries at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, noted that the Obama administration has not yet taken a position on DeFazio's measure, because it is in draft form. NOAA would be the lead agency for the U.S. implementation of the agreement.

The administration also did not take a position on Del. Madeleine Bordallo's (D-Guam) H.R. 69, which would enhance NOAA's and the Coast Guard's capabilities to regulate illegal fishing. That measure includes language from the Antigua Convention, an international agreement that would update the convention governing the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission.

Panel ranking member Gregorio Sablan (D-Northern Mariana Islands) said he believed passage of the Bordallo bill would demonstrate U.S. commitment to sustainable fishing.

Still, subcommittee Chairman John Fleming (R-La.) expressed reservations.

"While I support U.S. efforts to stop illegal fishing, as we strive for compliance with international fishing rules, we need to make sure we are not putting an onerous burden on U.S. fishermen, processors and importers," he said.

He said there was a need to look at laws that are already in place.

His views were echoed by Bud Walsh, a lawyer with Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, who noted that there could be unintended consequences of these well-meaning measures. For example, he pointed to the United States listing Colombia as a "IUU fishing nation" in a 2013 report because three vessels illegally practiced shark finning and there were three cases of discarded salt bags and trash at sea. Colombia then protested its presence on the U.S. list, he said.

Instead of creating more situations like that one, he urged committee members to continue enforcing other laws, such as the Lacey Act, which makes it illegal to import, export, sell or acquire wildlife or plants that were obtained illegally. He also pointed to the Nicholson Act, which prohibits foreign-flag vessels from selling fish caught in the high seas to the United States unless there is a treaty.

The committee also examined H.R. 2646, sponsored by Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), which would direct the Commerce secretary to issue a fishing capacity reduction loan to refinance the existing loan funding the Pacific Coast groundfish fishing capacity reduction program. Lawmakers from California and Oregon expressed support for the bill.