Providing for Consideration of H.R. 1335, Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Here we are debating the gutting of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which both sides agree has successfully helped restore some of our counts of wild stock, including snapper. It hardly seems the time to reverse course without any scientific evidence that, somehow, we will get to a different place than we were when Congress wrote the Magnuson-Stevens Act to address the very issue, which it seems to be successfully addressing.

The gentleman from Alabama mentioned some remarks from Mr. DeFazio. I wanted to be clear that then-Ranking Member DeFazio opposed a similar bill, this similar bill, in the last Congress. I am not sure of the context of the remarks he made, but he stood here on the floor urging his colleagues to oppose the bill. He opposed it as well in committee.

He was not happy with the result last time; he is not happy with the result this time, nor is our new ranking member of either the subcommittee or the committee. I should add it passed out of committee without a single Democratic vote. To be clear, there was not a bipartisan effort in committee to talk about the best policy with regard to fisheries.

Now, before I jump into the debate about fish populations and fisheries in our oceans--something I have to admit, as representing the landlocked State of Colorado, I had to take a crash course on in the last few days--I want to talk about some of the events from the last week that I think should merit congressional attention.

One item that happened in the last week is a 16-year-old student from the Atlanta Public School system in Georgia was attacked in his courtyard just because he was gay. A crowd surrounded to watch as 15 people beat this young person into a bloody pulp while yelling derogatory slurs at him.

Again, we could be addressing that through passing the Student Non-Discrimination Act or the antibullying act from Representative Sanchez, but instead, we are talking about gutting Magnuson-Stevens' protections of our fisheries.

Also this week, a south Texas family detention facility, similar to facilities in other parts of the country for immigrants who were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, testimony came out that women and children were severely punished, abused, and neglected. We could be pursuing detention reform or immigration reform; but, again, we are not.

This last week, Los Angeles raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour. Now, in LA, that puts families closer to a living wage, but the bad news is this Congress refuses to take up any minimum wage hike. Whether it is a $12 proposal, which Democrats put forward, whether it is a $10.10 proposal, whether it is even a $9 proposal, this Congress has not, instead of bringing forward a bill to increase the minimum wage--by the way, when somebody works full time at minimum wage, they earn about $14,500 a year. I don't know what we are saying to people where you work full time and we are forcing you to rely on government programs to subsist.

Republicans are keeping people on public housing, on food stamps, on welfare, rather than helping them support their own way and regaining their dignity in the process, which is what raising the minimum wage would do; but, no, we are not talking about that here today. We are talking about gutting the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

21,000 gallons of oil spilled in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Santa Barbara County--that is probably not good for the fish there either--following the eruption of an 11-mile long underground pipeline; but, instead of talking about a renewable energy future, instead of talking about ending our reliance on fossil fuels or a national renewable energy portfolio standard, we are talking about gutting our fisheries protection and gutting the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

Tragically, we had funerals for eight people who were killed in the derailment of the Amtrak train in Pennsylvania; our House observed a moment of silence earlier on that, but rather than discussing measures that can prevent future derailment accidents--and I understand there is some technology that, when implemented, could have helped avoid this kind of accident--here we are again, discussing gutting the Magnuson-Stevens Act that has successfully protected our wild fisheries and helped restore some of the stock so that precisely the recreational and charter fishermen and the gentleman from Alabama can continue to enjoy fishing. Absent the support of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, it is likely we would not be able to support the level of recreational and commercial fishing that we can today.

Seven people were shot in Baltimore yesterday amid a recent spike in violence following the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody; but, instead of addressing nonlethal use of force or video cameras on police officers, we are discussing gutting the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

We all know that the Federal highway reauthorization is running up against the May 31 deadline. The body of this Congress chose to renew it for 60 days and just created another crisis in another 59 days; yet we are not discussing what a deal would look like, a bipartisan deal, for a longer-term reauthorization of the Federal highway trust fund.

One hundred eighty Democrats signed a discharge petition for a bill that seeks to renew the charter of the Export-Import Bank, a critical driver for job creation and American competitiveness, fully permissible under WTO rules, under proposed trade agreement rules. Other countries have these kinds of banks, and to unilaterally disarm would cost American jobs. But instead of talking about how Congress gets out of this political box on the Export-Import Bank, we are discussing gutting the Magnuson-Stevens fisheries protection legislation.

This Congress could do a lot better with regard to dealing with issues that I hear about from my constituents every day, day in and day out, whether that is fixing our broken immigration system, whether it is protecting our country from terrorism, whether it is preventing future Amtrak derailments. Those are the kinds of topics that, I think, the American people want to see us discussing here today rather than gutting an important piece of legislation which many charter fishermen, recreational fishermen, and commercial fishermen applaud in having successfully sustained their livelihoods or their passions for the last generation.

Let's talk about fish.

The bill we are looking at today would devastate our wild fisheries. It would make our waters much more of a ``free for all.'' Under the guise of flexibility, it would allow for the overfishing of critical species, risking not only their sustainability and the future enjoyment of recreational fishermen but also the health of entire ecosystems that rely on the fish stocks that we are debating.

It would set an alarming precedent for the circumvention of our bedrock environmental laws by allowing fishery management councils to supersede NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act; the Endangered Species Act; the Antiquities Act; and the National Marine Sanctuaries Act.

The Fishery Conservation and Management Act was introduced in 1976 to stop unregulated fishing that had demonstrably led to the depletion across a number of wild fisheries. In both 1996 and 2007, the legislation was reauthorized--bipartisan bills again. This bill passed committee without a single Democratic vote. Each time, through a comprehensive drafting process, good ideas from both sides of the aisle were put to paper.

Ironically, the one thing that, I think, the gentleman from Alabama and I can agree on is that the 2007 authorization has been successful. We have shown the increased health of our wild fish stocks. So the question is: Do we want to reverse course and jeopardize that, or do we want to move forward with scientific-backed evidence?

Unfortunately, the Republicans are trying to make sweeping changes to gut the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Protection Act. This iteration of the bill was drafted with almost no Democratic input, and it passed out of committee without a single Democratic vote.

Look, if we want to go through this kind of exercise with a bill that the President has said he would veto--a bill that breaks with the proud bipartisan tradition of fisheries protection--why aren't we spending time on some of the issues I mentioned earlier, like immigration reform, like protecting LGBT students from discrimination, like socioeconomic disparities in our country, how we can deal with mental health among returning veterans who fought overseas, or the risk of terrorism here at home? Let's do that.

If we are going to talk fish, Mr. Speaker, let's at least bring up a bill that has been drafted by all stakeholders. Let's at least bring up a bill that ensures that the fishing community will have an industry in 10 years, in 20 years, in 50 years--a bill that protects the interests of our recreational fishermen and that preserves the health of our oceans for the enjoyment of all Americans and for the health of our planet now into the future.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I invite the gentleman from Alabama to come to Colorado to fish our wonderful mountain trout, which we have in our streams and rivers. Obviously, he is no stranger to a different kind of fisheries management policy where, of course, our economy in Colorado relies on fishing and sportsmen as well, and I certainly understand that driver of jobs locally.

I think the disconnect here is that the gentleman talks about what the 2007 Magnuson-Stevens bill has accomplished in that it has reduced the number of days that people can fish. That was the action that was taken. The effect of that is that the wild stocks are up, so there are more snapper. I think both sides agree on that. I believe there is a direct causal link to the fact that there are more snapper because there have been fewer that have been taken out of the water. If we manage our fisheries for the short term, if we throw caution to the wind, people might have a good season or two, but it simply won't be there either for the future generation of recreationists or for those whose livelihoods depend on a viable commercial fishing stock.

Now, this bill is about fish. If this rule allowed for the discussion of some of the other bills I mentioned, I could support it. If this bill allowed a debate of #raisethewage, either to our Democratic proposal of a $12 an hour minimum wage or to whatever number the gentleman from Alabama would like--if he would like to propose $9 an hour, $8.50--I would be willing to support this rule, or if it even allowed 2 minutes of debate for raising the minimum wage.

Mr. Speaker, I would support this bill if it allowed for us to consider our bipartisan immigration reform measure. If we allowed that debate under this bill, I would do that. I would support this rule if it allowed debate about the Student Nondiscrimination Act to make sure that LGBT students don't face bullying in our schools and so that it is a safe learning environment for all students. I would support this rule if it addressed what we have learned from the Amtrak derailment and prevented future derailments and saved lives.

None of those items, along with countless others, are included under this rule. In fact, all of the amendments under this rule, as well as the underlying bill, are related to fish.

No, I don't know deny that fish are important. We might be discussing our mountain trout someday here on the floor of the House and defending the President's efforts around clean water or on protecting some of our watersheds in Colorado. We have a lot of interest in protecting our fishing stock as well. But I would be proud to be able to bring forth some of the priorities that I hear from my constituents that are so critical.

Rather than continually bringing up bills that attack the integrity of our environment--in this case, a bill that would gut the fisheries protections that have been afforded under the Magnuson-Stevens Act and that both sides have acknowledged have successfully helped restore the red snapper population--I would hope that perhaps our next rule will allow us to raise the minimum wage, that perhaps our next rule will allow us to consider immigration reform, that perhaps our next rule will help us deal with the bullying in schools, that perhaps our next rule will save lives and prevent future derailments, and so many other issues.

I say to my colleagues that this particular bill needs to go back to the drawing board. It needs to go back to the drawing board to have a bipartisan effort in a committee I serve on, the Natural Resources Committee, to include priorities from both sides and good science and continue to build upon the legacy of success that the 2007 bipartisan reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act has had in increasing the health of our wild fishing stocks. I encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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