December 19, 1975
42236
Mr. MUSKIE. What is the pending business?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair states the pending business is S. 961.
Mr. MUSKIE. The so-called 200-mile limit bill?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is right, Calendar No. 498.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I am delighted the Senate has before it for preliminary consideration this legislation on which so many of us have worked for so long and which we have been interested in for so long.
As I understand it, we do not expect to get to the final vote on this legislation today and that it will be made the pending business, and that it will be the pending business upon our return in January, but I thought this might be a good opportunity to at least lay down some of the initial points in this debate which, I gather, will be hotly contested when we get down to it later on.
It is my hope, Mr. President, that this will be the final and the successful debate on the Fisheries Management and Conservation Act, legislation which will extend U.S. fisheries jurisdiction over a 200-mile zone.
For too many years, Mr. President, our fishermen—
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will suspend. The Senator is entitled to be heard. The Senate will be in order.
The Senator from Maine may continue.
Mr. MUSKIE. For too many years our fishermen have been unprotected from the ravages of foreign fleets fishing off our shores and for too long the Federal Government has delayed taking action to provide relief in the vain hope that international solution would be developed. We can no longer afford to await such solutions and must enact this legislation to provide the interim protection which our fishermen so desperately need. The international agreements which are now in place represent hopeful progress but are clearly inadequate to provide the interim protection which our fish stocks need.
Maine's experience demonstrates quite clearly how serious the situation is. In 1950, Maine fishermen landed 353 million pounds of fish of all species. By 1970, that total had been cut by more than half, and in 1974, fish landings totaled only 148 million pounds.
For individual species of fish, the statistics are even more dramatic. Since 1966, Maine's whiting catch has declined by 90 percent, from 30 million pounds to 3 million pounds in 1975. The catch of sea herring has declined 75 percent; ocean perch, 61 percent; cod, 30 percent; pollock, 42 percent; and haddock, 97 percent, from 6.5 million pounds in 1950 to 220,000 pounds last year.
At present, the United States is party to 22 international fishing agreements and virtually all of the fish stocks depleted or threatened with depletion are subjects of those agreements. Obviously, further steps must be taken to prevent the depletion of our offshore stocks — for the sake of conserving the world's fisheries resources as well as preserving the U.S. fishing industry.
The key to a 200-mile limit worldwide, according to the U.S. position at the Law of the Sea Conference is a responsibility that Coastal States have to insure the highest and best use of offshore resources.
I concur. But I think the major fishing nations of the world are demonstrating no great sense of responsibility toward our offshore stocks, and no great sense of urgency toward reaching agreement at the Law of the Sea Conference.
And I think the United States has a responsibility to protect our stocks of fish from extinction pending the conclusion of a new regime for the oceans. If we ignore our responsibility, the Japanese, the Russians, or the English and the Polish, will certainly not step forward to accept it.
To meet that responsibility, I believe the United States should adopt a 200-mile fisheries management zone, on a temporary basis, until the international community can reach agreement on an enforceable regime for the world's oceans.
I believe the 200-mile limit is also important as a sign of good faith to our fishing industry. Our fishermen in Maine and nationwide are an independent group. They have not been anxious for regulation of any kind, and in fact, they suffer under various Government restrictions and tariffs which hamper their ability to compete.
They seek no relief from these restrictions. But the 200-mile limit has become a symbol — a rallying cry for fishermen who see the livelihood of generations threatened by rapacious foreign competition.
Government's failure to adopt a 200-mile limit will be nothing more than a desertion of this traditional segment of our economy.
This legislation is among the most important we will be considering this year. For the first time the way seems clear toward this legislation actually becoming law. The House has approved similar legislation and there are some hopeful indications that the President will look favorably on the measure if full implication is continued until after the next round of Conferences on the Law of the Sea.
I welcome those signs and encourage the President to sign the legislation when it reaches his desk. It is important not only for our own domestic fishery but for the preservation of the worldwide fisheries resource. The issue before us today is not who should manage the fisheries resource within 200 miles from our shore but whether in fact any efforts will be made to protect the resource and insure effective conservation management.
Opponents of this bill argue that recent international agreements have made great gains in reducing foreign fishing off U.S. shores and has diminished or removed the need for 200-mile-limit legislation. Unfortunately, this is not the case and the international agreements now in place provide only minimal protection and frequently institutionalize overfishing practices. A recent editorial by Mary Brewer in the Boothbay Register on December 4 effectively rebuts that claim by recounting the experience of New England fishermen under ICNAF regulations.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that that editorial be printed in the RECORD at the conclusion of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, at this point, I quote from her remarks only as follows :
ICNAF is certainly not successfully protecting its own fishermen, and, even if it is trying in some areas, the other participating countries are not abiding by the rules, anyway. Despite an ICNAF agreement that only two countries, the United States and Canada, can fish for herring in an area off the New England coast known formally as subarea 5Y, others continue to fish there.
Whenever these infractions take place outside the 12-mile limit, this country can only give them citations, but can take no other punitive action. It is up to the country whose vessel has been cited to hand down the punishment, and, in most cases, there is little or no punishment. In Poland and Russia, the two most flagrant violators of ICNAF rules, the vessels are government-owned, and it isn't very likely that the government is going to punish its own vessels and their captains.
Opponents also argue that this legislation will threaten national security interests by encouraging other nations to unilaterally abrogate our rights of free transit and overflight. As an official advisor to the U.S. delegation, I attended the meetings in Caracas last summer and talked with many foreign delegates. In none of my conversations was there any indication that the major nations of the world would react to our passing a 200-mile fish limit bill by immediately ending our rights of free transit and overflight. Of course, in some of these talks, foreign delegates expressed reservations about American's enacting interim 200-mile fish limit legislation. But my best guess is that their first reaction, after denouncing the legislation, would be to negotiate at the next session of the U.N. Conference with a new sense of urgency, and that is really what we need.
It is important to understand that this legislation will not prohibit other nations from fishing in the 200-mile zone. In fact it would preserve the rights of nations which have traditionally fished off our shores. But it would reserve to the United States the right to manage our offshore fish stocks to assure their best, and most prudent use.
Mr. President, I urge the Senate to consider this legislation favorably and to give it the kind of support which it gave to the same legislation a year ago, having acted then in concert with the other House. We can then put the issue before the President and, I might add, before those nations which are legislating in the Law of the Sea Conference and perhaps lend a sense of urgency to our efforts.
I close, Mr. President, with an apology to my good friend, the floor manager of the bill (Mr. MAGNUSON), for using his time. I was simply killing time until the Senator arrived.
I would like to express my appreciation to Senator MAGNUSON and to Senator STEVENS for their efforts over the pastseveral years to bring this legislation to this point.
Without their efforts, the efforts of the rest of us would have, I think, fallen far short of what was necessary to move this legislation to the point where it now is.
With that expressed appreciation to both of them — they are both on the floor now — I yield the floor so that they may take it and present the issue finally to the Senate.
EXHIBIT 1
ICNAF RULES ARE NOT BEING FOLLOWED BY FOREIGN FISHING FLEET
(By Mary Brewer)
Repeated violations of the 12-mile limit by Polish fishing vessels — and other foreign fleets — lend added support to the need for a 200-mile limit in which this country can control fishing operations off its own coast.
Two stories appearing recently in the Gloucester (Mass.) Daily Times really do a job in explaining what is happening. In one story, staff writer Tim Sullivan reports that despite the seizure of one ship already, Polish trawlers are continuing to fish inside the 12-mile limit, according to reports being received almost daily by the Coast Guard.
While it was felt that seizure of the factory ship Humbak a couple of weeks ago would act as a deterrent, officials report that violations have increased, if anything. The reason the Polish fleet continues to risk seizure and fish inside the limit is because they are chasing herring, which are migrating shoreward. Not only are these foreign vessels illegally fishing inside, but they have already caught their quotas of herring. Thus, they are breaking the rules established by ICNAF two-fold. Boarding the Polish trawler Likowal just outside the 12-mile limit last week but still inside the closed herring area, showed that 12 metric tons of a 50-ton total in the holds was herring. The most recent catch still unprocessed on board the Likowal at the time of the inspection showed 22 tons of fish, 18 tons of which was herring.
While the vessel was given a citation, it's up to the home government of the offending nation to deal with the offense whenever these vessels are boarded outside the 12-mile limit and found to be violating ICNAF regulations.
Meanwhile, as the foreign vessels continued to fish inside for herring at the risk of being caught, a Gloucester fisherman complained to officials that the ICNAF regulation of yellowtail flounder was going to put him out of business. Making his living in a 70-ft. dragger, he has been catching yellowtail flounder off New Bedford this summer. His boat, and another 100 boats of similar size, can no longer run 200 to 300 miles out onto Georges Bank due to the poor weather conditions in the fall and winter, yet, according to ICNAF regulations, they can't fish inside for yellowtails either, since it is prohibited.
He is a little bitter about the fact that the reason the inshore fishery is closed is because foreign fishing boats, much larger and more modernized, have been allowed to take all the fish, break all the rules, and still keep fishing, while this country's own boats and crews must suffer the consequences.
He complained that he now has two choices: either continue to fish illegally, or tie up his boat. In talking with National Marine Fisheries Law Enforcement Division personnel, he was quickly told that he must abide by the rules, and if that means tying up his boat, he must do so.
However, the fisherman said that in 30 years of fishing he has never ever thought it better to collect welfare than to fish. He has five children, and says that counting his crew members and their families, if he ties up his boat, there will be 23 people in all added to the welfare load in Gloucester. This, he said, can be multiplied by 100 other similar size boats and crews who are in the same situation — now that the inshore fishery has been cleaned out by foreign fishing fleets, they are about to be put out of business, because they just can't compete with the huge, modern, fishing vessels of other countries, which are capable of fishing far offshore. Despite this ability, however, these foreign fishing vessels continue to come in as close to shore as they feel they can, to scoop up the fish before scurrying back across the 12-mile line to safety.
ICNAF is certainly not successfully protecting its own fishermen, and, even if it is trying in some areas, the other participating countries are not abiding by the rules, anyway. Despite an ICNAF agreement that only two countries, the United States and Canada, can fish for herring in an area off the New England coast known formally as subarea 5Y, others continue to fish there.
Whenever these infractions take place outside the 12-mile limit, this country can only give them citations, but can take no other punitive action. It is up to the country whose vessel has been cited to hand down the punishment, and, in most cases, there is little or no punishment. In Poland and Russia, the two most flagrant violators of ICNAF rules, the vessels are government-owned, and it isn't very likely that the government is going to punish its own vessels and their captains.
No wonder it's a bit discouraging to draggers, seiners, and other American fishermen, who can't help but feel that they are being sold out by their own country. No wonder they find it extremely difficult to understand why their own country permits foreign fishing vessels to catch inshore fish which are their very livelihood, leaving them little choice but to either break the rules, as they see the foreign fishing boats doing, or reluctantly leave the fishing industry for a job ashore. Most fishermen don't feel that they are asking their country for an unreasonable request when they stress the need for a 200-mile limit. All they really want is a chance to earn a reasonable living without having to try to compete against government-subsidized foreign fishing fleets.
Mr. MAGNUSON. Mr. President, I am glad that the Senator from Maine led off this debate. I did not hear all he had to say, but I know he made some pertinent remarks as to why this bill should be approved by the Senate.
He did point out, and I repeat, that we passed this bill last year in the Senate, a bill almost word-for-word to this bill, with the exception of the time limitation.
The vote, I think, was 68 to 27. The House did not take it up last year, but they did this year, and the vote over in the House in favor of the bill was over two to one. We have it back now and I can see no difference between the situation last year than the situation now.
As a matter of fact, if we got 68 votes for it in the Senate last year, we ought to get about 78 now, because the situation has grown worse.
We were sympathetic to having a meeting in Caracas and Geneva and found out from many of the people of the Senate that went there that just nothing was going to happen.
No one argues the point that probably the best way to do it would be to have a Law of the Sea Conference and a treaty — which we thought was feasible and workable. That would be a better way to do it, of course. But we have waited and waited and waited and waited. I have listened to testimony from the State Department and the rest of them. It is just like a broken record over and over. Wait, give us another chance, and all they have done is move from one place to another.
They were going to Vienna. That is a great seaport and they know all about fishing in Vienna. It is a different kind of fishing, I guess, that goes on.
But we have just waited and waited.
I attended my first Law of the Sea Conference, Mr. President, 17 years ago in Geneva and our navy was over there lobbying against the 12-mile limit at that time. I objected to them doing that.
It has just gone on and on and on. In the meantime, the fish stocks are going down and down.
This is a conservation measure and all we are suggesting is that, in the meantime, while we wait for a treaty to come out of Law of the Sea Conference, we are going to protect our own fish stocks.
I mentioned the Navy. The bill only deals with fishing. It has nothing to do with navigation. It has nothing to do with mineral rights in the bed of the sea or oil rights, at all. It is just fishing.
The oil will be there when they can arrive at some agreement, and so will the minerals, but the fish will not. They cannot wait.
There has been so much misinformation about this thing in the first place.
Mr. MUSKIE. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. MAGNUSON. Yes.
Mr. MUSKIE. I think this is an important point to emphasize and I rise only for that purpose.
There are so many people who confuse this 200-mile management zone as a territorial sea zone, as a territorial power that compares with the old 3-mile limit.
There is just no comparison. We do not touch any of those values.
The notion we cannot protect our fish stocks without changing the territorial boundaries is just as unrealistic as can be.
Some of these other questions the Senator mentions are not touched by this bill. What we are talking about is managing and conserving the depleting fish stocks off our shores.
If we do not do it, there is no other power on Earth moving in to do it. So when we talk about protecting them, we talk about protecting them not only for our own fishermen and for our own population's food requirements, but we are talking about protecting them for the world's food requirements. I believe that is a very important point to make. The Senator has made that so well that I wanted to emphasize it.