The U.S. House Natural Resources Committee has approved the Fighting Illegal Seafood Harvests (FISH) Act, legislation intended to penalize foreign vessels and individuals who participate illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
“My bipartisan bill with Representative Dan Crenshaw [R-Texas] and Rep. Nick Begich [R-Alaska] to crack down on illegal international fishing that undercuts Rhode Island fishermen just passed the House Natural Resources Committee,” U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-Rhode Island) said in a social media post. “Let’s level the playing field and stand up for local fishermen.”
The FISH Act establishes several tools to discourage IUU fishing, including a blacklist of vessels that have participated in IUU fishing. Vessels on the list would be banned from U.S. waters. The bill authorizes the government to impose sanctions on individuals connected to IUU fishing. The legislation also increases support for U.S. Coast Guard inspections at sea.
“The fishermen and the fishing industry that I represent in my state isn’t asking for any special treatment; they’re just asking for a level playing feel, and we need to level the playing field by cracking down on bad actors who break the rules, who don’t abide by quotas, who don’t follow environmental regulations, who engage in slave labor and other abuse,” Magaziner said during a 21 April markup of the bill. “The FISH Act will allow us to crack down on illegal international fishing by blacklisting offending vessels from U.S. ports and waters, bolstering the Coast Guard’s enforcement capabilities and directing the president to impose sanctions on entities that participate in illegal fishing.”
The legislation has been endorsed by both the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) and conservation NGO Oceana.
“The FISH Act is the definitive statute designed to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. It offers concrete solutions that target bad actors and avoids unnecessary regulatory burdens that cost American seafood companies.
Targeting vessels and owners while building upon government-to-government relationships is a strategy that address the challenge at its core,” NFI President and CEO Lisa Wallenda Picard said in a release. “Thank you to the committee for its work and Crenshaw, Begich, and Magaziner for introducing the bill. We look forward to working with Congress to see the FISH Act become law.”
“Oceana commends the House Natural Resources Committee for advancing the FISH Act. This bill is a positive step toward holding bad actors accountable and leveling the playing field for law‑abiding fishers,” Oceana Vice President Beth Lowell said in a release. “Illegal fishing strips our oceans, exploits workers, and floods markets with illicit seafood products. The FISH Act sends a clear message: The United States will not tolerate bad actors or accept seafood tied to destructive illegal fishing or forced labor. Congress must now pass the FISH Act, which will position the United States as a leader in the fight against IUU fishing and protect domestic fishers, workers at sea, consumers, and our oceans.”
First introduced in 2022, lawmakers have made several attempts to pass the bill into law, including attaching it to must pass military spending legislation. However, the FISH Act has never been passed by both the House and Senate. U.S. senators once again passed the legislation in March, hoping that their colleagues in the House would also support the bill.
“Stay tuned, we’re going to get this over the goal line in the House,” U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), who sponsored the bill in the Senate, said.
The House Natural Resources Committee approved the legislation unanimously on 21 April. It still will need to be passed by the full House before going to the president to be signed into law.
