Congresswoman Aumua Amata and Alaska Representative Don Young co-introduced a bill to help ensure that US vessels have access to fishing grounds in both the north and South Pacific.
Aumua says their bill, the Ensuring Access to Pacific Fisheries Act will help to ensure that the U.S. fleet is well represented when it comes to decisions regarding the management of fisheries in the Pacific, and that the island’s canneries are supplied with fish.
Titles I and II of the bill implement two international fishery management agreements which the United States helped to negotiate: the Convention on the Conservation and Management of High Seas Fisheries Resources in the North Pacific Ocean (Title I), and the Convention on the Conservation and Management of High Seas Fishery Resources in the South Pacific Ocean (Title II).
According to the congresswoman, implementing these conventions will enable the U.S. to participate in high seas fishery resource management decisions made outside of pre-existing fisheries management instruments such as other international fishery treaties or the Magnuson-Stevens Act.
The bill also makes critical amendments to the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Convention (WCPFC) Implementation Act , to minimize disadvantages and maximize opportunities for U.S. fleets… especially to those targeting migratory tuna stocks in the Pacific, which are essential to the American Samoa economy.
Congresswoman Aumua thanked Representative Young for his work on this legislation, which she said is so critical to the nation’s fishing fleet.
