American Fisheries Advisory Committee Act will identify the needs of the industry

Well, it’s all about pots of money. 

The United States imposes tariffs on imported fish products. These tariffs are on imported “… fish, shellfish, mollusks, crustaceans, aquatic plants and animals, and any products thereof ...” Interestingly, most of these products are not destined for the dinner table. In 2017, approximately 77% of revenues from these tariffs were from duties collected on imports of non-edible marine products, including jewelry, ink, various chemicals, and skins. The remaining 23% of revenues were from duties on imports of edible seafood products. 

The Saltonstall-Kennedy Act of 1954 requires the secretary of agriculture to transfer 30% of the money from these tariffs into NOAA’s Promote and Develop American Fisheries Products and Research Pertaining to American Fisheries Fund, also known as the P&D account. This account is what is known in government-ese as a “pot” of money. This is how public entities keep track of the public’s money to be sure it is used as intended. Every different pot of money has its own rules limiting and specifying the use of the money that goes into it. So, for instance when your local government has tax dollars going into the road maintenance account, it has to be used to fill potholes, not to fix pilings in the harbor. 

This particular pot of money is in the hands of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to hand out as they see fit, under the authority of the Secretary of Commerce. The money transferred every year to the P&D account has grown steadily from $26.7 million in 1980 to $182.8 million in 2020. By law, the funds must be used to support United States fisheries development and research. This rather vague mandate has been subject to varying interpretations over the years. At first the emphasis was the “Americanization” of our fisheries. Before the Magnuson Stevens Act pushed them out to two hundred miles from shore’ the continental shelf surrounding the United States was dominated by foreign fishermen. The emphasis back then was to promote and enable the domestic fishing industry. As the fisheries began to be fully utilized (and sometimes over-utilized) by American fishermen, the funds began to be used for research and management costs. 

Inside the P&D are two more pots of money: the Operations, Research, and Facilities account, or ORF, and the Saltonstall-Kennedy Grant Program account. The ORF is where NMFS gets the money to conduct stock assessments, coordinate the efforts of researchers, and the other nuts-and-bolts jobs necessary to manage United States fisheries. The S-K Grant Program is meant to fund competitive grants to help industry develop new gear types, new processing methods, conduct marketing campaigns, and other projects meant to help the them be successful.

Technically the S-K Act requires that no less than sixty percent of S-K funds go to direct industry assistance grants. But since the early eighties most or all of the money has been poured directly from the P&D pot into the ORF pot. The NOAA website posts the particulars for applying for S-K grants, but there has been scant help available for applicants to navigate the process, and little or no funding left for grants after the ORF gobbles it up, anyway. In recent years most of the money left over from the ORF transfer has gone not to competitive grants for industry, but to Congressionally identified regional projects.

Critics, especially industry advocates, have argued that using P&D funds for NMFS operating costs, leaving little to no funding for the S-K Grant Program, is counter to the intent of the S-K Act. Over the past decade Congress has considered bills that would require most of the P&D funds to be directed not to the ORF, but to a regional fisheries grant program, that would be administered through the regional management councils. None of them managed to get off the launching pad. 

But on March 10 Congress passed the American Fisheries Advisory Committee Act. The committee it will create will take over the S-K grant process from NMFS. The Secretary of Commerce will appoint three members from each management region, including someone with experience as a seafood harvester or processor, someone with experience in recreational or commercial fishing or growing seafood, and someone who represents the fisheries science community or the relevant regional fishery management council. The Secretary also will appoint four at-large members, including someone who has experience in food distribution, marketing, retail, or service, someone with experience in the recreational fishing industry supply chain, someone with experience in the commercial fishing industry supply chain, and someone who is an employee of NMFS with expertise in fisheries research. 

The committee’s job will be to identify the needs of the seafood industry, develop requests for proposals, review grant applications, and select grant applications for approval. In other words, to guide applicants to, and lead applicants through, the grant process. The selected grants will be presented to the Secretary of Commerce for approval. If selected grants are not funded, the Secretary of Commerce must provide written justification to the committee.

All this seems to be a giant step forward in connecting grant funding with the industry the grants are meant to serve. And it seems to signal a desire by Congress to pour more of the P&D funds into the S-K grant pot. But that means less money for the ORF pot. What effect will that have on research funding? Will stock assessments and ecosystem wide management lose funding at a time when rapid climate change makes them all the more vital? Only time, and Congress, will tell.

Terry Haines was a commercial fisherman in Kodiak for more than 30 years. He now produces the Alaska Fisheries Report for KMXT and is a member of the Kodiak City Council. He can be reached at thaines@city.kodiak.ak.us