Discussion · Senate
Dan Sullivan Republican
“I want the Senate to pass my bill to reduce extra fish caught by accident in the North Pacific. It does not affect Massachusetts, but I am willing to work with Senator Markey on changes to address his concerns.”
“Madam President, I am disappointed in my good friend Senator Markey of Massachusetts. He and I have worked on, actually, a lot of fisheries issues together. He is right; Massachusetts and the State of Alaska have important fisheries interests. This one, fortunately, doesn’t impact Massachusetts at all; it is solely confined to the North Pacific area. So I am a little disappointed that he is not moving forward. I want to thank all of my Republican colleagues who cleared my Bycatch Reduction Act, and we are going to keep working on it. I certainly will continue working on it with Senator Markey. Like I said, we have worked together on a number of fisheries issues over the years, and we are going to continue to work on hitting the bycatch issue with a multifaceted approach, as we have already done. One of the things we have gotten done here in the Senate, in both the Biden and Trump administrations, is to dramatically ban the importation of all Russian trawl-caught fish and now Chinese trawl-caught fish. That really helps with regard to the bycatch issue. We have been very focused on increasing the annual appropriations for the Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program that I have led on a number of times. I have even defended in court our Alaska halibut fishermen against Seattle-based Amendment 80 trawlers in a lawsuit and won that case with them. We are going to continue this work, building on the work from the legislation we passed for the roadmap to get back stronger salmon runs in Alaska and stronger fisheries with regard to salmon runs across species, across rivers, across the States, but this bill is a really important part of that, so I will continue to work this. If the Senator from Massachusetts and his staff have edits and amendments, I don’t think it is going to impact Massachusetts at all, to be honest, but we will work with them because we are very focused. My constituents are very focused to finally see action on trawl-bycatch reduction, and this bill is the bill with action and timelines, and we are going to get it over the goal line. We are going to get it over the goal line. I yield the floor.”
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Madam President, I am disappointed in my good friend Senator Markey of Massachusetts. He and I have worked on, actually, a lot of fisheries issues together. He is right; Massachusetts and the State of Alaska have important fisheries interests. This one, fortunately, doesn’t impact Massachusetts at all; it is solely confined to the North Pacific area. So I am a little disappointed that he is not moving forward. I want to thank all of my Republican colleagues who cleared my Bycatch Reduction Act, and we are going to keep working on it. I certainly will continue working on it with Senator Markey. Like I said, we have worked together on a number of fisheries issues over the years, and we are going to continue to work on hitting the bycatch issue with a multifaceted approach, as we have already done. One of the things we have gotten done here in the Senate, in both the Biden and Trump administrations, is to dramatically ban the importation of all Russian trawl-caught fish and now Chinese trawl-caught fish. That really helps with regard to the bycatch issue. We have been very focused on increasing the annual appropriations for the Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program that I have led on a number of times. I have even defended in court our Alaska halibut fishermen against Seattle-based Amendment 80 trawlers in a lawsuit and won that case with them. We are going to continue this work, building on the work from the legislation we passed for the roadmap to get back stronger salmon runs in Alaska and stronger fisheries with regard to salmon runs across species, across rivers, across the States, but this bill is a really important part of that, so I will continue to work this. If the Senator from Massachusetts and his staff have edits and amendments, I don’t think it is going to impact Massachusetts at all, to be honest, but we will work with them because we are very focused. My constituents are very focused to finally see action on trawl-bycatch reduction, and this bill is the bill with action and timelines, and we are going to get it over the goal line. We are going to get it over the goal line. I yield the floor.