Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act of 2019

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, this legislation is a bumper sticker bill that purports to save the sharks, but in reality would damage shark fisheries, destroy American jobs, and increase the threats to endangered species.

Let's first define what we agree on. Killing a shark solely to take its fins is contemptible. It is immoral. Herman Melville called such wanton waste blasphemous.

But let us be clear: This practice is already illegal under Federal law. It has been that way since 1993. American fishermen are not the villains in this story, they are the heroes who are adhering to rigorous regulations that require them to account for the full use of their catches.

So what does this bill do? It does exactly what it purports to abhor. Proponents rightly denounce taking the fins and then throwing away the carcass, so they have come up with a bill that would take the carcass but throw away the fins. This bill makes it illegal to possess or purchase a shark fin. The fins are 50 percent of the value of the catch.

If you force shark fishermen to waste literally 50 percent of the value of their catch, you remove their margin and destroy their enterprise. And this does little to stop the illegal trade of shark fins, since almost all of the demand is in east and Southeast Asia, and that market will simply apply upward pressure on the illegal taking of shark fins.

The responsible management of our U.S. fisheries and the exemplary conduct of U.S. fishermen has resulted in a great success story. Since 2000, the domestic shark population has been growing. The index of shark abundance in 2015 was the highest in its 29-year history.

Now, if you force fishermen to throw away 50 percent of the value of each shark they catch, one of two things are going to happen. To stay in business, they will have to take more and more sharks to make up for their loss, or more likely for American fishermen, they will simply go out of business.

If it is the latter, we can expect an out-of-control explosion in shark populations with devastating consequences for endangered marine species, like the right whale. And in either case, American fishermen will suffer to the advantage of the unregulated illegal foreign fishing fleets.

This is an example of two developments that we have had to watch on the Natural Resources Committee since the Democrats took control.

The first is their tendency to cater to emotional pressure groups who have been successful at raising large sums of money by tugging at the heartstrings of gullible donors, but whose bromides end up doing enormous harm to the very populations they purport to protect. Indeed, the Wildlife Conservation Society recently submitted a letter warning of this signed by 60 of our Nation's leading scientific experts in shark science and fisheries.

The second is the tendency to blame Americans first for the excesses and predations of bad foreign actors.

Time and again, American fishermen, American growers, and American consumers have proven to be the law-abiding, conservation-minded, responsible practitioners of a sustainable practice. But the Democrats continue to impose punitive and destructive measures on them to atone for the irresponsible actions of foreign nations.

Mr. Speaker, I urge rejection of the measure, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, my friend from California says that, well, California's ban hasn't resulted in any calamities. What he forgets is that virtually all shark fisheries in the United States are found in Florida, Louisiana, and North Carolina. Banning shark finning in California is like banning buffalo hunting in Rhode Island; there just isn't any.

My friend from the Marianas tells us that there are 73 million shark fins in the global market annually. That is a very misleading statement. It comes from a report published by Shelley Clarke. That report gives a range of between 26 and 73 million and makes no differentiation between legally and illegally obtained fins, which, unfortunately, is a defect in this bill itself.

Mr. Speaker, for a different opinion, however, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. McCaul).

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, my friend from Texas compared banning shark fins to banning ivory. Of course, the difference is that the U.S. was a major consumer of ivory. It is 1 percent of the entire global shark fin market.
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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, we hear a lot about the letter signed by 150 scientists in support of this bill. We ought to point out that only 10 of those 150 scientists actually are scientists with expertise in shark fisheries. But every one of the scientists who signed the Wildlife Conservation Society letter in opposition to this bill is recognized as an active professional shark researcher and expert in the field.

Mr. Speaker, let's be very clear: Killing a shark for its fin while throwing away the rest of the carcass is contemptible; it is immoral; it is wrong; and it has been illegal and banned in the United States since 1993. American fishermen don't do this. American fishermen are the good guys in this story.

This bill does something very different. It requires American fishermen to throw away the fins when they kill a shark. That is just as wasteful, just as despicable, and it is not going to stop foreign bad actors. It will kill American fishing. It will destroy the livelihoods of Americans who have followed the law and who are responsibly accounting for their entire catch. It is not going to help our domestic shark populations. They are doing quite fine.

NOAA currently manages 42 shark species, along with the commercial and recreational shark fisheries. None of these 42 species in the Atlantic are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. As I pointed out earlier, the most recent results of the NOAA fisheries' longest running shark survey show our domestic populations increasing, with scientists capturing and tagging more than ever before.

It is a shame that we are here to blame American fishermen, who are following all of the laws and doing everything right.

And remember this: Under H.R. 737, sharks can still be legally caught in U.S. waters; however, they will be forced to cut off the fins and throw them into the garbage. Ask yourself: Is this right?

Congress has long supported the full utilization of landed seafood in order to obtain the maximum economic value of our limited marine resources, all consistent with the Magnuson-Stevens Act. This legislation will result in little more than wasted resources.

The administration opposes this legislation. It writes:

We cannot support the Shark Fin Sale Elimination Act because of the bill's negative impact on U.S. fishermen that would outweigh its minimal benefit to shark conservation. This would hurt U.S. fishermen who currently harvest and sell sharks and shark fins in a sustainable manner under strict Federal management.

Industry opposes this legislation. They write:

H.R. 737 would effectively put an end to all shark fishing. The revenue realized from fin sales can comprise up to 50 percent of a large coastal shark's value. Requiring the discard or destruction of shark fins is also wasteful, both as a food resource and an economic resource that helps sustain rural coastal fishing communities here in America. It has long been the policy of Congress to encourage full utilization of land and catch in order to obtain the maximum economic value of our limited marine resources.

And, finally, scientists oppose this legislation. Two of the leading scientists in the field write:

If the shark fin trade in the United States were completely eliminated, the direct impact on reducing global shark mortality would likely be insignificant. The elimination of United States-supplied fins in world markets would open the door to increased market share for illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing nations not practicing sustainable shark fishing, including those that have not yet prohibited finning.

This legislation follows a familiar theme we hear from the other side: Blame Americans first for the world's problems. This legislation is the definition of a solution in search of a problem.

I am sorry that some of my Republican colleagues have been convinced to support this legislation, but I hope that today's debate has shined a bit of truth on the issue.

Let me just quote from the humane society quickly. Their reasoning for this legislation is that: ``The United States has a robust market for shark fins, many of which likely were obtained through finning.''

Let me state again, ``likely were obtained.'' This is the science and data that we are using to support this legislation, ``likely were obtained.'' Mind you, we make up less than 1 percent of the global market.

Shark finning will continue across the rest of the globe, and it will continue to focus on the market in South and Southeast Asia. We will have lost our ability to have managed our resources and support our local fishing industries.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to oppose this misguided and misconceived legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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