Congresswoman Uifa’atali Amata’s South Pacific Tuna Treaty is now expected to be enacted as part of a larger must-pass bill. KHJ News Washington DC correspondent Matt Kaye reports…
Amata’s bill to codify 2016 negotiated changes to the 1988 South Pacific Tuna Treaty Act has been through some rough waters.
It passed in the House in the last Congress but stalled in the Senate as part of a larger Coast Guard bill, passed a second time in the House last year, but the Senate didn’t take it up.
But Amata didn’t give up…and this year the treaty update made it into the must-pass National Defense bill starting on page 2921 out of the bill’s more than 3,000 pages.
The Congresswoman told House colleagues this year the legislation will end years of uncertainty for South Pacific tuna fishermen…
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Amata “These changes are important to support the American fishing fleet in the South Pacific – of which many boats call American Samoa home. These changes improve the operating conditions and flexibility for the fleet – which is America’s last true distant water fishing fleet.”
The earlier treaty allowed US tuna purse-seine vessels to fish in the exclusive economic zones of 16 Pacific Island nations.
But the 2016 improvements negotiated with the signatory countries were not self-executing, thus the need for legislation.
The measure provides more flexibility for US fleets and the Pacific Island countries to negotiate access levels and keep a stable operating environment.
Separately, the defense bill calls for a feasibility study on the deployment of fast response cutters, initially in the Northern Marianas, but later, elsewhere in support of Operation Blue Pacific.
Congresswoman Amata has argued repeatedly for a fast response cutter to be homeported in American Samoa and sees the legislation as a step toward that goal.
Finally, the defense bill includes a nearly 4% pay raise for the troops.
