Fisheries and Conservation News from the Pacific
Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations and the Institute
for Fisheries Resources
PLEASE REPOST TO YOUR NETWORKS
===================================================
HOUSE VICTORY ON ESA RECOVERY FUNDS:
Thanks to quick mobilization by fishermen's groups (such as PCFFA)
and by several conservation groups, most of the 53% slash in NMFS ESA
recovery plan funding voted by the House Appropriations Committee has
now been restored in the House Commerce Dept. budget after intense floor
negotiations 7/24 led by Elizabeth Furse, and with the help of a number of
Republican moderates. Congresswoman Furse proposed an amendment
restoring funds to the NMFS ESA recovery planning program as well as
full funding back to FY 1996 levels for a number of other fishery
management programs, including the Regional Council system under the
Magnuson Act. All these programs took severe budget hits in the Dept. of
Commerce budget bill as passed out of the Appropriations Committee last
week.
After tricky negotiations and back room appeals by his own Republican
moderates, and facing the prospect of a messy floor fight, Appropriations
Subcommittee Chairman Harold Roger (R-KY) himself offered a
compromise amendment restoring funds to the NMFS ESA recovery plan
program, resetting it back to its FY 1996 level of $13 million. The
Administrations request was $14.8 million. Offsets for the funds restored
were taken from the NOAA weather satellite program ($4 million) and the
Stalton-Kennedy Grants Program ($2 million).
Congresswoman Elizabeth Furse has in fact become one of commercial
fishermen's staunchest champions in Congress today on a wide variety of
resource protection issues important to our industry, so this was a natural
for her. Oregon's Governor Kitzhaber also strongly supported this effort.
However, the victory is mixed. We were unable to restore another
$13.74 million in other cuts, many of which cut deeply into the federal
governments ability to manage fisheries or to clean up fisheries damaged by
oil spills and other toxic hazards.
.
Efforts now have to be made to have these funds restored in the Senate,
which begins its own markup of the Commerce Appropriations Bill (H.R.
3814) in the Senate Commerce Appropriations Subcommittee on July 30th.
SEE BELOW FOR WHOM TO CONTACT TO ASSIST THIS EFFORT.
HOUSE VOTES EXTREME CUTS TO FISHERIES PROGRAMS
Among the cuts in NOAA's budget that Congressman Rogers' House
Commerce Appropriations Subcommittee (and then the full Committee)
pushed through in July are (as a percentage of the Administration's original
funding requests) the following:
-- ESA Recovery Planning funding = slashed 53% (now restored to
88% of Administration request)
-- Anadromous fish grants program = slashed another 53%
-- Mitchell Act hatchery funding in the Columbia River = reduced 13%,
not counting other extreme Mitchell Act funding cuts in other bills.
-- Fishery Management Council's budget = 7% cut at a time when the
Regional Fishery Management Councils are more important than ever for
proper fishery management.
The Subcommittee also COMPLETELY DEFUNDED several important
fishery research programs which may be useful to help prevent future ESA
listings of declining Hawaiian monk seals and sea turtles in the future.
These are ongoing research efforts to give us better data for better
fisheries
management.
Even more disturbing, the Appropriations Committee cut the oil spill
and toxic materials restoration portion of NOAA (referred to as the
Damage Assessment and Recovery Program or "DARP") by a whopping
big 31% from the Administration's original request of $3.2 million. At
$2.2 million, this program now is funded at roughly one-third of what the
Administration proposed as the minimum baseline funding for this program
in its 1996 proposed budget. The DARP program is now also specifically
funded for spill "assessment" activities ONLY -- there is no longer ANY
APPROPRIATION WHATSOEVER earmarked for the "restoration"
portion of this program. What this means is that any restoration funds that
must be used to actually clean up toxic waste spills must come out of
general agency funds, where they would then have to compete with every
other program as well as with core staff funding. In other words, in order
to clean up a major oil spill NOAA would have to cut back on its staffing
or other programs. The DARP program is, by the way, under constant
attack from petroleum industry interests, mining lobbyists and many others
who represent major polluters, and these attacks have been getting a
sympathetic ear in many corners of the new Congress.
The end result of these cuts in cleanup programs is that oil spill and
toxics cleanup efforts in the nation's fisheries will now get LAST CALL on
funds at a time when in coastal states all around the country there are more
oil spills and more Superfund toxic waste sites that damage fisheries than
ever before. On the west coast this means funding will likely be reduced
for already existing programs to clean up massive DDT spills which have
poisoned square miles of the Palos Verdes Shelf in Southern California,
clean up of serious DDT residues in the SF Bay Area, the clean up of
several toxic waste spills in the Puget Sound area, and efforts to restore
salmon runs poisoned by heavy metals leaching from the abandoned
Blackbird Mine in Salmon, Idaho. (For more information on the DARP
program and its importance to the nation's fisheries call the DARP
Program Coordinator (Ann Berger) at (301)713-3038 x192, or if Ms.
Berger is unavailable then Hollis Hope (301)713-3038 x 194).
On top of that, the Committee also cut funding for NOAA's Habitat
Conservation and Habitat Restoration Program from requested amounts of
$2.275 million and $1.5 million respectively to ZERO. So much for
fisheries habitat protection! Obviously proactive protection of fisheries
habitat should be one of NOAA's FIRST priorities and not its last.
What all these cutbacks mean, if they stand up against efforts by PCFFA
and other fisheries organizations to restore these funds, is that in the
future
NMFS will have a much harder time protecting fisheries habitat or
restoring habitat in fisheries already damaged by pollution, and there will
be
major delays in providing accurate and timely research on several important
fisheries management issues. ESA recovery funds may also face more cuts
in the Senate, where the Dept. of Commerce appropriations battles are just
beginning, with a Commerce Appropriations Subcommittee markup
scheduled 7/30th. If these ESA recovery funds cuts are made, this would
disable NMFS efforts to develop effective recovery plans for Pacific
salmon in a timely fashion, and result in considerable and long term
economic dislocation instead of speedy recovery.
Most of these cuts also made little or no sense, particularly defunding
salmon recovery efforts. Whatever one's philosophy on the ESA, the
worst of all possible worlds is to have species listed forever because no
effort can be made to promote their actual recovery.
NOAA FUNDING FIGHT GOES ON TO THE SENATE
From the House the budget bill (H.R.3814) now goes over to the
Senate, which is much further behind in dealing with the Department of
Commerce Budget. There is no question that fishermen are going to have
to be heard in defending these programs, particularly oil spill cleanup
programs opposed by big oil companies. There is no time like the present
to weigh in on this issue.
THE SENATE APPROPRIATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE ON
COMMERCE, JUSTICE, STATE AND JUDICIARY MARKUP ON
THE COMMERCE DEPT. BUDGET IS NOW SCHEDULED FOR
JULY 30TH. However, the full Committee will not take this issue up until
later, with a full Senate floor vote sometime after that. Your calls or
letters
now can help make a big difference in the outcome on these issues in the
Senate.
SEE BELOW FOR WHOM TO CONTACT:
===================================================
MAJOR CUTBACKS TO DEMAND BE RESTORED
These are some of the major cutbacks to the NMFS and NOAA Budgets
which PCFFA and other fisheries organizations are fighting to restore in
the overall Dept. of Commerce Budget Bill (H.R. 3814). Percentages are
expressed as a percentage of the Administration's requested amount and
number are in thousands:
Program Area: Request FY 97 House FY 97 % Cut
Fisheries Management:
*Mitchell Act hatcheries $10,300 $ 9,000 13%
*Columbia ESA studies 288 144 50%
*Regional Councils 10,200 9,500 7%
Protected Species Management:
*Driftnet Act implimentation 3,278 2,500 24%
*ESA recovery planning 14,800 now 13,000 12%
Habitat Conservation: 3,375 0 100%
Toxic Spill Cleanup/Restoration:
*Ocean Assessment 24,204 12,600 50%
*Damage Assessment 3,200 2,200 31%
*Nonpoint pollution control 2,552 0 100%
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
WHO TO CALL/WRITE TO DEMAND RESTORED FUNDING FOR
THESE IMPORTANT FISHERIES AND CLEANUP PROGRAMS:
BY JULY 30TH:
Chairman Judd Gregg
Commerce Appropriations Subcommittee
Room S-146A, US Capitol Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
(202)224-7277 FAX:(202)228-0542
Majority Staff Dir.: David Taylor at (202)224-7243
AFTER JULY 30TH:
Chairman Mark O. Hatfield
Senate Appropriations Committee
Room S-128 Capitol Building
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20510
(202)224-3471 FAX: (202)228-0542
Copies to:
Senator Ted Stevens
Senate Appropriations Committee
Room S-128 Capitol Building
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20510
(Same phone and fax as Hatfield)
Senator Robert Byrd, Ranking Member
Senate Appropriations Committee
Room S-128 Capitol Building
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20510
(Same phone and fax as Hatfield)
Send a copy of your letter to your state Governor, and by all means try to
enlist the aid of your Governor in writting a letter in support of fully
funding these items.
Send a copy of your letters to your local and regional newspapers.
Call your own Senator and urge him/her to support funding for these
programs. The Capital Switchboard for both the House and the Senate is:
202-224-3121 or 1-800-972-3524 or 1-800-962-3524.
====================================================
END OF ALERT
====================================================