Huffman, Grijalva Joint Statement on NOAA’s Decision to Shelve Seafood Import Monitoring Program Updates Despite Recent Reporting of Flagrant Human Rights Abuses in International Fishing Industry

November 14, 2023

Washington, D.C. – Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) and House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) today issued the following joint statement on the announcement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to withdraw its December 2022 proposed rule to expand the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP).

“There’s no reason SIMP can’t be expanded while it’s strengthened—we can walk and chew gum at the same time. The improvements to SIMP in the proposed rule would have made several steps in the right direction; adding squid to SIMP, for example, has been widely recognized as critical to advancing the risk-based approach to tracking high-risk seafood imports.

“But even then, the recent reporting of forced labor and IUU practices proves we need to do even more. As the world’s largest importer of seafood, the U.S. has a responsibility to set the global standard for ensuring our seafood is sourced legally and ethically. After years of talking about this problem and doing very little about it, NOAA is skirting its responsibility once again. The past several years should have been a ‘listening session’ for NOAA, including listening to Congress when we told them to get moving on expanding and enforcing SIMP. Delaying action and starting over with a nebulous new ‘listening session’ is unacceptable.”

BACKGROUND

Just last month, Ranking Members Grijalva and Huffman sent a letter to NOAA highlighting congressional appropriations to strengthen and expand SIMP and the need for the agency to use all authorities to do so.

The lawmakers’ letter responded in part to recent investigative reporting by Ian Urbina in The New Yorker (HERE and HERE), which documented major human rights abuses perpetrated by illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing practices by the People’s Republic of China’s fishing fleet and seafood processing centers.

These human rights abuses and other IUU fishing practices pose major national security risks, geopolitical challenges, and environmental harm. The recent reporting focuses specifically on China’s seafood industry, but NOAA’s 2023 report on IUU fishing identified additional nations engaging in IUU fishing practices and forced labor in the seafood industry, underscoring the need for robust seafood monitoring program.