A seafood act to fight illegal fishing has made it one step closer to becoming law.
On Mar. 22, the Fighting Foreign Illegal Seafood Harvest or FISH Act passed the U.S. Senate.
Co-sponsored by Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, the bill targets vessels that are caught participating in IUU or illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing — blocking them from accessing U.S. ports and waters.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would be tasked with establishing the blacklist of boats. The proposed legislation would rely on enforcement by the U.S. Coast Guard.
Sullivan said in a Monday press release that Chinese and Russian trawl fleets that ignore harvest regulations pose a threat to Alaska’s fish stocks and coastal communities.
“These fleets, which literally utilize slave labor in many cases, are a cancer on fisheries throughout the world and in Alaska and undercut our fishermen, who fish sustainably,” Sullivan said in the statement.
According to Sullivan, the act would bolster the Coast Guard’s enforcement capabilities against those illegal practices, “advancing international and bilateral negotiations to achieve enforceable agreements and treaties.”
The act passed the Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation about a year ago. The House will have to pass the legislation before it goes before the president to be signed into law.
