WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), a member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, today attempted to pass the Bycatch Reduction Act on the Senate floor, but the legislation was blocked by Senate Democrats. Authored by Sen. Sullivan, the comprehensive legislation would reduce bycatch, protect seafloor habitat, and strengthen transparency and accountability in federal fisheries management. The Bycatch Reduction Act is an updated version of bycatch legislation Sen. Sullivan introduced last year that incorporates extensive input from Alaska stakeholders. The legislation is a product of recommendations from Sen. Sullivan’s Alaska Salmon Task Force Act, which was signed into law in December 2022 and created the Alaska Salmon Task Force.
Prior to trying to pass the legislation, Sen. Sullivan delivered remarks on the Senate floor. He emphasized that his legislation honors the countless Alaskans who have called for action to reduce bycatch, protect marine habitat, and safeguard the future of subsistence, commercial, and recreational fisheries.
Click here to watch Sen. Sullivan’s remarks on the Senate Floor.
“Alaska depends on healthy, sustainable fisheries—from subsistence harvests to commercial and recreational fishing. Our fisheries provide food and jobs, support families and communities, and serve as a source of deep cultural and spiritual connection for Alaskans,” said Sen. Sullivan. “I’ve met with and heard from hundreds of Alaskans over the years, working alongside them to develop and introduce the most comprehensive bycatch legislation ever brought before Congress. Alaskans have made it loud and clear to me that we need to take action to reduce mid-water and bottom trawl bycatch and gear contact with the seafloor to better protect our fisheries. This is a sad day for Alaskans, but the fight is not over. Moving bycatch legislation through the Senate and delivering meaningful reforms that protect the long-term health of America’s fisheries and the communities that depend on them has been and remains one of my top priorities. I commit to Alaskans: We’re going to keep working on this bill until we get it across the finish line.”
Sen. Sullivan’s Bycatch Reduction Act creates a robust toolkit to reduce bycatch and seafloor habitat impacts from mid-water and bottom trawl fishing vessels and strengthens reporting transparency and accountability. These tools include establishing clear standards and monitoring requirements to ensure trawl nets remain off the seafloor; mandating proven salmon excluder devices; investing in salmon tagging, faster genetic sampling, and ecosystem analyses; creating a new flume tank testing facility that simulates real ocean conditions to evaluate new gear and tools; and reauthorizing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program (BREP). Finally, the Bycatch Reduction Act would provide the public with greater access to participate in the North Pacific Fishery Management Council regulatory process and NOAA data monitoring.
FULL REMARKS BY SENATOR SULLIVAN:
Madam President, I rise today to pass my legislation, the Bycatch Reduction Act, which is the most comprehensive trawl bycatch reduction legislation ever to come before the United States Senate, ever to come before the Congress.
We’ve made good progress on this bill. We’ve been working on it for, heck, in some ways, many years. I’m going to talk about this. We had a great vote in the Commerce Committee last week, and I see my good friend Senator Markey from Massachusetts — who I’ve worked on a number of fisheries issues with, being a Massachusetts Senator and an Alaska Senator — is on the floor today. So, I’m hoping he’s going to actually speak in support of this bill and pass it with me. This bill has already passed all the Republicans in the Senate, who have approved it. So, this is really important for my constituents, Madam President.
For generations, Alaskans have depended on our oceans, our rivers, our abundant fish resources that sustain all of us, especially salmon, from subsistence harvesters in our Native villages to commercial fishermen in our coastal communities to recreational fishermen across our state. Alaskans depend on healthy fisheries.
For Alaska Native communities, Madam President, our fish, especially salmon, are deeply connected to culture, tradition, heritage, and a way of life that reaches back thousands of years. These fisheries, our salmon, provide food, food security, jobs, and culture. They support families and entire communities, and they are a source of deep spiritual connection.
My wife Julie’s family has had a fish camp on the Yukon River for generations. My daughters have all been raised in the summers on that river. Every summer. My wife, my family, my in-laws, my daughters. A deep spiritual connection.
Yet Alaska’s salmon runs in particular, Madam President, are facing enormous challenges. Our fisheries in general are facing enormous challenges. We have seen and continue to see huge fluctuations in salmon, crab, halibut, and other species that Alaskans depend on.
We know the ocean is changing. It’s an issue Senator Markey’s raised a lot. We have ocean acidification issues. We know these conditions will continue to change. We also know that fishing activity, particularly bycatch and contact between fishing gear, trawl gear, and sensitive seafloor habitats, affects the health and productivity of our marine ecosystem.
So, Madam President, what are we going to do about this? For years, Alaskans across our state, everywhere — coastal communities, Interior communities, villages — have been asking for action. Fishery managers have asked for more data to make informed decisions. Subsistence harvesters have asked for greater transparency. Communities have asked for greater accountability. And fishermen have asked for the tools and technology they need to reduce trawl bycatch. It’s a huge issue in my state.
Madam President, I’ve talked about this bill on the Senate floor a lot. This was an issue, a bill inspired by my wife, Julie, as I already mentioned her. It was part of my Alaska Salmon Task Force Act. What does this focus on? It’s focused on bringing the best minds together — bill that I got over the goal line, passed into law in 2022 — to say, “What is going on with our salmon runs? Why do we have really strong salmon runs in places like Bristol Bay with their sockeye runs and very weak king salmon runs on the Yukon River and the Kuskokwim River?”
So what we did, Madam President, in this bill is we brought the best minds in Alaska — state, federal, tribal, indigenous, university, fishermen, community members — to come together and say, “What’s happening, why is it happening, and what is the pathway to get to what every Alaskan wants: stronger, healthy salmon runs on all our rivers across all species?”
So, we did this. Alaskans coming together, this body coming together, produced this very important report, the Alaska Salmon Task Force Act. NOAA Fisheries helped, Alaska Department of Fish and Game helped. Most importantly, Madam President, we set up task forces with regard to tribal members on the Yukon, on the Kuskokwim, to make sure we had their input.
This was Alaskans coming together. It’s not easy to get consensus on issues such as fisheries and salmon. But we did that. And this laid out several different recommendations on moving forward to get to the goal we all want, a roadmap back to strong, healthy salmon runs. This is an issue I’ve been working on, Madam President, for years. One of the recommendations was to reduce trawl bycatch. There were other recommendations, Madam President, that we’re working on, ocean acidification, many others, but this was a big one. So, we worked on this bill, again, with dozens and dozens of Alaskans. And this legislation honors the call for action that so many Alaskans have, and our Alaska Salmon Task Force Act has as well.
The Bycatch Reduction Act is designed to do that. It is a robust toolkit with several clear objectives. First, it establishes for the North Pacific Fishery Management Council standards and monitoring requirements and action and timelines to take action to reduce trawl gear contact with the seafloor and protect important marine habitats. Essential.
It requires proven tools, such as mandating certain technologies, like salmon excluders on trawl vessels, to, again, reduce salmon bycatch. It invests in science and technology to continue to work on better understanding ocean conditions. It creates new gear testing facilities. [It] reauthorizes NOAA’s Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program, [which] I’ve been focused on my whole time here in the Senate.
It reconstitutes the Alaska Salmon Task Force with Alaskans and our Indigenous experts, with tribal and traditional knowledge, as a Bycatch Task Force overseeing NOAA’s activities as it relates to trawl bycatch. Alaskans overseeing NOAA. Very important for our stakeholders.
This legislation also strengthens transparency and accountability for trawling on the North Pacific Fishery Council. It requires NOAA to make observer coverage requirements and bycatch information more accessible to the public and easier to understand. It expands opportunities for Alaskans, fishermen, and other stakeholders to participate in the council process. It raises the issue and starts looking again at the issue of conflicts of interest on the council. These provisions are not ideas that came out of a Washington, DC office, Madam President. They came from Alaskans.
As I mentioned, this bill, the most comprehensive bycatch reduction bill ever, builds on the work that Alaskans, hundreds of Alaskans, did on our salmon task force, to get to the goal we all want: stronger, healthy salmon runs across our state, across rivers, across species, especially given that we’re seeing the devastating declines in salmon on the Yukon River and across western and Interior Alaska that has led to fishery closures, subsistence shortages, and families not being able to fish.
As I mentioned, Madam President, my wife’s family keeps a fish camp on the Yukon River. We have watched those smokehouses, including ours, sit idle for years. It is heartbreaking. It is really heartbreaking to witness these families, their culture, the people who live along our great rivers, not able to put up fish every year, and they’ve been doing so for thousands of years.
So, this is an important first step, Madam President. It’s because of the task force and hundreds of conversations with Alaskans for years now that we need to take action, and the Bycatch Reduction Act does that. It puts the recommendations here into action.
Again, we had a very strong vote last week in the Commerce Committee. I think every senator but four voted for my bill. I explained it. We saw how important it was because the bill uses science, technology, innovation, accountability, and action to help support reducing trawl bycatch and strengthen subsistence traditions, sport fishing in Alaska. It’s about giving fishermen the tools to reduce bycatch. And it protects fisheries and fish stocks that depend on them. It’s about making sure Alaskans have access to [the] data and transparency they need to participate meaningfully in the management of our fisheries, and it safeguards the long-term sustainability, particularly of our salmon, that so many Alaskans depend on.
So, Madam President, I want to thank countless Alaskans who’ve been working with me and my team for years now on these issues. We’ve sought and fought to reduce bycatch in many, many other ways, but this bill is a really, really important step. So, I’m hopeful that my colleagues are going to now pass it with me. We’ll move it over to the House, get it passed and signed into law.
So, Madam President, notwithstanding Rule 22, I ask unanimous consent that the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 4938 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the Sullivan substitute, which is at the desk, be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
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