Controversial Fishery Rider Drifting Toward Final Passage

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, November 19, 2003 (ENS) - Alaska commercial fishermen and conservationists warn that a four part rider added to the 2004 Commerce Department spending bill by Alaska Republican Senator Ted Stevens will cause far reaching economic and environmental harm. And with Congress keen to adjourn for the year, the provisions could be slotted into an omnibus appropriations bill without any debate on the floor of the Senate.

The rider was tacked onto the Senate version of the fiscal year 2004 appropriations bill for the departments of Commerce, Justice and State in September by Stevens, who is chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The full Senate has not yet considered the bill, but with Congress ready to recess, House-Senate conferees have moved to include the legislation within an omnibus spending bill.

The omnibus is expected to hit the House floor Friday, with the Senate likely to consider the bill over the weekend.

Critics say the battle to remove the rider is not over - they note that House conferees could still reject or modify the provisions and either the full House or Senate could try to strip the language.

Senator Ted Stevens is seeking changes to the management of Alaska's fisheries by adding riders to an appropriations bill. (Photo Office of the Senator)

But if the rider is included in an omnibus bill that covers appropriations for some six or more departments, it is unlikely to be cut out of the legislation.

And critics warn the four provisions of the Stevens rider would have clear and damaging consequences.

"These riders set terrifically bad precedents for fish conservation and fishery management," said Leape.

Perhaps the most controversial provision would force Bering Sea crab fishermen to sell 90 percent of their catch to specified processors, who would be allocated a set share of the total allowable catch.

Supporters, including the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, say the plan would provide the processing industry with needed guarantees and predictability.

The quota plan "recognizes and preserves the roles of Alaska fishermen and Alaska fishing communities," Stevens said.

Alan Parks, an Alaska commercial fisherman, says the plan would do nothing of the sort.

The plan would give the industry unfair leverage and control over the market to the detriment of fishermen, Parks said, and is widely opposed by virtually all Alaskans - bar the processing industry

Fishermen should not be mandated by law to deliver their catch to only a select few processors, said Parks.

"This does not happen in any other industry," he said. "It is a flat out unAmerican way to manage our fisheries."

There are too many boats chasing too few crabs in Alaska waters. (Photo courtesy Alaska Department of Fish and Game )

The controversial plan is an attempt to solve an increasingly difficult problem - the "race to fish" nature of the current Alaska crab harvest. Stock declines have forced fishery managers to set total allowable catches of crabs in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Island fisheries.

There are currently no individual quotas for individual fishermen. When the fisheries are open - usually only for a few days at a time - there is a free for all that encourages the fishers to get as many crabs as possible. They are free to sell their crabs to whichever processor offers the best price.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council's proposal would instill individual catch quotas to license crab fishers, a policy that that many believe could reduce the "race to fish." and help sustain Alaska crab fishing.

Parks says many fishermen support the council's plan - except for the processor quotas. The reason Stevens is trying to ram it through Congress, Parks said, is because processor quotas are "illegal."

The Department of Justice appears to agree. It studied the North Pacific Fishery Management Council plan and in an August letter determined the processor quotas would "likely will reduce competition among processors, which could discourage efficient investments, limit new product development, and undercut competition in selling processed crab products."

The council has refused to release its analysis of the effects of the crab rationalization plan, Parks said. What the plan will do, however, is allow only 24 processors to be eligible for the Bering Sea crab catch - some 80 companies processed crab between 1991 to 2000. And some 90 percent of the quota would go to 12 corporations, five of which are controlled by foreign owned companies.

Conservationists warn that the second provision in the Stevens rider would have far reaching impacts on the future of U.S. fisheries - it would prohibit the National Marine Fisheries Service from spending money to identify and protect essential fish habitat in the North Pacific.

The 1996 Sustainable Fisheries Act calls on the agency to identify and protect essential fish habitat to ensure that fishing does not harm the long term integrity of habitat considered vital to sustainable fisheries.

The rider threatens the future of deepsea coral ecosystems, conservationists say. (Photo courtesy National Environmental Trust)

Removing this obligation in the North Pacific will put at risk some of the "most spectacular sea floor life in the plant," said Dr. Michael Hirshfield, chief scientist with the conservation group Oceana.

"New deep sea, cold water coral and sponge gardens are being discovered [in the North Pacific] virtually every time scientists dive and look for them," he said. "Many species are new to science and some of these corals are likely the oldest animals in the oceans, hundreds of years old."

The third provision allocates a portion of the Aleutian Islands pollock fishery to the Aleut Corporation, which is one of thirteen regional native corporations that was established in 1972 under the terms of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

The fishery has been closed since 1998 to due species depletion. Federal fish managers and conservationists believe the fishery has not yet recovered - part of the decision close it was to provide prey species for endangered Steller sea lions.

Stevens said the provision does not order the reopening of the fishery, but critics are far from convinced and note that the Alaska Senator's son is on the board of the company set to receive the allocation.

"These riders are random - they are responsive to companies and organizations that can afford to send lobbyists to Washington DC on a regular basis to pitch their desires," said Dorothy Childers, executive director of the Alaska Marine Conservation Council, a community based organization. "It is creating chaos in the management system in the North Pacific."

The fourth provision of the Stevens rider would set up a pilot program that would reopen a rockfish fishery - a program that has been twice been rejected by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.

Critics say Stevens' support for the project illustrative of the Alaska senator's willingness to pick and choose which council decisions to support, while consistently pledging his support for the council.

"Senator Stevens is saying he wants that program for rockfish because the Council voted against it," said Childers. "The irony is that he said he wants to authorize the Bering Sea crab plan because the Council voted for it."