Editor’s note: The following was submitted to New England senators and coastal district representatives by six New England commercial fishing industry associations on September 8:
As you know, the Inflation Reduction Act is a landmark piece of legislation that represents a turning point in the United States’ commitment to confronting the greatest challenge of our lives: climate change.
Our industry forms the backbone of the New England coast, providing healthy protein to our neighbors and the world. We are writing to you now to ensure that the investments permitted by the Inflation Reduction Act are favorable to fisheries. It will take hard work to make sure that happens, and we ask for your help in this regard.
Commercial fishers and seafood companies are no strangers to the impacts of climate change. We are directly affected by warming waters, acidifying oceans, shifting fish stocks, changing seasons, changing predator-prey relationships, behavioral changes in protected species, species invasions facilitated by climate, increased storms, rising sea levels, etc.
Our businesses and communities are committed to ensuring that the threat of climate change does not compromise fishing ecosystems, fishing and seafood jobs and businesses, coastal lifestyles and, most importantly, our ability to provide nutritious seafood to the American public. In fact, no one is more invested in the future of the oceans than commercial fishermen. That’s why fishermen have spent decades defending the marine environment against ocean-based energy development, beginning with decades of passionate opposition to oil and gas development on Georges Bank led by Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association. It is also why we are now united under the leadership of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) to express our deep concern that the seafood industry and fishing communities will be enormously disrupted by the myriad and the unprecedented magnitude of the impacts of offshore wind energy. development. You and your staff are no doubt very familiar with these concerns.
More recently, the country’s fishers began endorsing a pro-fisheries climate action agenda that calls on elected officials to prioritize support for pro-fisheries climate solutions that:
Reducesequester or avoid greenhouse gas emissions.
Avoid collateral impacts on physical, chemical and ecological properties and processes of ocean, coastal, estuarine and watershed environments.
Avoid interference with the harvesting and supply of wild seafood.
To contributewhere possible, conservation co-benefits that enhance the resilience of ocean, coastal, estuarine and watershed ecosystems.
To help the fishing industry is addressing its own carbon footprint by supporting the transition to low carbon fishing vessels.
To contribute to put the United States on track to reduce its share of greenhouse gas emissions to a level that will keep warming well below 2C while continuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5C.
The Cut Inflation Act will galvanize investment and innovation in many fisheries-friendly climate solutions, including small-scale clean energy generation; energy efficiency in homes, buildings, cities and ports; on-farm renewable energy generation; carbon sequestration in forests and soils; and more. Many of these solutions put money back into local communities, save taxpayers money, use the built environment and working lands, and increase equitable access to the benefits of the green economy. Agriculture and forestry measures even provide co-benefits to landscapes and watersheds, such as reduced runoff and improved wildlife habitat. These are things the fishing industry can wholeheartedly celebrate and encourage.
Unfortunately, the act can also step up the already astounding ambition of offshore wind development along America’s coasts, through its tax credits, funds for power transmission planning, guidelines to expand the rentals in the South Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and island territories, and more. . Industrial wind energy will directly conflict with fishing and food production, while imposing significant impacts on marine habitats, biodiversity and physical oceanography. The current goal of developing 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity in US waters by 2030, set last year by President Biden, the Department of the Interior and the Department of Energy, is short-sighted and careless. It will be impossible for government agencies to plan, authorize and continue development at the planned rate and scale without abandoning all the hallmarks of modern environmental protection, including sound science, thorough environmental review and management. preventive and adaptive.
In sum, as transformational as the Cut Inflation Act is, it fails to address or minimize the impacts of climate solutions on our nation’s precious marine environments and resources in several key ways. It’s a glaring gap, but it’s a gap we’re determined to fill.
In the years to come, fishers and other stewards of the nation’s lands and seas will wage a sustained campaign to ensure that the law’s implementation is successful in both meeting U.S. emissions reduction goals while protecting the lands, waters and people who depend on them. In doing so, we will continue to illustrate these words from the report “Conserving and Restoring America the Beautiful”:
Decades of land and water stewardship by ranchers, farmers, fishers, hunters, private landowners, conservation organizations, tribal nations, territories, state and local governments, and others have demonstrated that the most effective and sustainable conservation strategies are those that reflect the priorities, needs and perspectives of the families and communities who know, live, work and care for the lands and waters.
Along with millions of Americans – from individual households to states, cities, tribes and businesses – anglers have a clear role to play in a long overdue energy transition. We pledge to engage as working partners in this transition by:
Advocacy for rapid expansion of fisheries-friendly climate solutions, such as rooftop solar, agricultural solutions, low-carbon mobility, energy efficiency and forest conservation.
Work together to deploy technologies that reduce the contribution of our fleets and businesses to climate change while reducing operating costs.
Continue advocating extreme caution in the face of climate solutions, such as offshore wind, which endanger ocean ecosystems and fisheries.
America should never have to choose between addressing the root causes of climate change and preserving the health of fish ecosystems and the people who depend on them. By taking fish-friendly climate action, we can do both.
Massachusetts Anglers Partnership,
Executive Director Angela Sanfilippo
Gloucester Fisherwomen’s Association,
President Angela Sanfilippo
Massachusetts Seafood Collaborative,
Executive Director Mark DeCristoforo.
Rhode Island Commercial Fisheries Center,
Executive Director Fred Mattera.
New Hampshire Commercial Fishermen’s Association,
President, Erik Anderson.
New England Young Fishermen’s Alliance,
Executive Director Andrea Tomlinson.
