Updated: 33 minutes ago Published: 42 minutes ago
Some folks are trying to make political hay out of the fact that Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka had a scheduling conflict that prevented her from attending the recent candidate forum on fishing issues in Kodiak. Don’t let the political chatter sway you — I can attest that Tshibaka is the candidate that fishermen should back in the upcoming election.
I’ve spoken to Tshibaka and find her knowledgeable and supportive of important fishing issues, and I also have personal experience with incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski. And let’s just say Murkowski was somewhat less than helpful.
About 12 years ago, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — the federal agency that governs halibut fishing — changed its permitting rules in a way meant to drive a large number of charter halibut companies out of business. These small businesses were thriving, the commercial operators wanted them shut down, and the federal government was helping to do it under the Charter Halibut Limited Entry Program.
Qualifying companies were awarded permits at no cost, but the permits themselves became commodities overnight. They held tremendous value because, without them, a company could no longer legally operate. Immediately, permits went up for sale or lease, with some of them displaying price tags of $100,000 or more for something they had received for free. This is a price that’s far out of the range of the many charter companies.
To save my own charter halibut business, and those of my colleagues, I helped form a non-profit organization, Charter Operators of Alaska, to fight the changes. We actually went to federal court to do battle.
Along the way, we tried to enlist Sen. Murkowski’s help, but she could not be reached. We tried phone calls to her office and a deluge of letters, but we never received any response at all. Our U.S. senator was completely unwilling to help us, to the point where she pretended we did not exist.
We lost our federal lawsuit and didn’t have the funds to appeal, and all the while, our senator did nothing to stop unelected bureaucrats in the federal government from attacking our ability to support ourselves and our families. In the end, about 200 charter companies, including my own, went under.
By contrast, Kelly Tshibaka is engaged and cares about fishing issues.
Tshibaka supports exploring a new fisheries management council to manage Alaska waters or the Bering Sea. Currently, there are eight federal fisheries management council for all of the U.S. exclusive economic zone where we have jurisdiction over our own natural resources. There are three just for the Atlantic Ocean. But none of them is as expansive as the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, so adding a new council for Alaska waters would improve our ability to consistently get our fair share of the fisheries harvest.
Tshibaka will work to address the issue of bycatch overage in a meaningful and fair way. Unlike Murkowski, she hasn’t taken dark money contributions from the large Seattle commercial trawlers. It’s time to stop simply researching the problem and start resolving it.
Tshibaka supports equal electronic observation on all commercial vessels, with significant penalties for vessels with meaningful bycatch overage. She believes we should drop the bycatch overage by a certain percentage each year, financially penalizing anyone over that amount.
And she agrees that the Magnuson Stevens Act, which governs the management of marine fisheries, must be repaired to strike the phrase “to the extent practicable” so we can truly prioritize subsistence fishing.
It’s October and we’re heading for an election, so the politics is starting to get a little chaotic. But amid all the noise, people who care about fisheries and fishermen should be armed with the facts. I’m voting for Kelly Tshibaka for U.S. Senate.
Kent Haina is a fisherman and former halibut charter operator. He lives in Homer.
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