Aumua and Rep. Young Introduce Bill to Ensure Fishing Access in the Pacific
Washington, D.C. –Friday, Congresswoman Aumua Amata, and Alaska Representative Don Young co-introduced the Ensuring Access to Pacific Fisheries Act today, which will help to ensure access to Pacific fisheries for the U.S. fishing fleet that operate in both the North and South Pacific.
Congresswoman Aumua and Congressman Don Young outside of the House Natural Resources Hearing Room
“It is essential that we make sure our fishermen are able to provide a reliable and continuous supply of fish to the island’s canneries,” said Amata. “This legislation will help to ensure that the U.S. fleet is well represented when it comes to decisions regarding the management of the fisheries in the Pacific, and that the island’s canneries are supplied with fish,” continued Amata.
Titles I and II of the Ensuring Access to Pacific Fisheries Act implement two international fishery management agreements which the United States helped to negotiate: the Convention on the Conservation and Management of High Seas Fisheries Resources in the North Pacific Ocean (Title I), and the Convention on the Conservation and Management of High Seas Fishery Resources in the South Pacific Ocean(Title II). Implementing these conventions will enable the U.S. to participate in high seas fishery resource management decisions made outside of preexisting fisheries management instruments such as other international fishery treaties or the Magnuson-Stevens Act.
The bill also makes critical amendments to the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Convention (WCPFC) Implementation Act (Title III), to minimize disadvantage and maximize opportunities for U.S. fleets… especially to those targeting migratory tuna stocks in the Pacific, which are essential to the American Samoa economy. Title III also aims to ensure access to traditional fishing grounds by requiring such grounds be considered in any formal stance taken by U.S. Commissioners at the WCPFC.
“I want to thank Representative Young for his work on this legislation, which is so critical to the nation’s fishing fleet, and I look forward to continuing to work with him to see it passed through Congress and signed into law,” concluded Amata.
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