Oceans and Marine Life
January 25, 2023
Sen. Cantwell and Commerce Committee Democrats secured historic investments in marine conservation and restoration, including a $2.855 billion investment in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law - the single largest investment in salmon recovery in history. Democrats also secured the passage of important legislation for ocean research, fishery disasters and marine mammal and shark conservation in the 117th Congress.
Removing Fish Passage Barriers:
“Barriers like obsolete dams and impassable culverts block salmon from migrating to their spawning grounds across the state...These projects help recover salmon stocks important to Southern resident orcas, coastal ecosystems and our economy by supporting commercial, recreational, and Tribal fishing communities.” - Sen. Cantwell
Sen. Cantwell created the first-ever National Culvert Removal, Replacement and Restoration grant program in the Department of Transportation focused on removing obsolete or poorly constructed culverts. Replacing these culverts will help more salmon reach their spawning grounds. This new program passed the Commerce Committee with overwhelming bipartisan support and was signed into law as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
In October 2022, Sen. Cantwell took Transportation Sec. Buttigieg to see a culvert site in Issaquah, Washington, to announce that communities could now apply for the new $1 billion program, providing the resources they need to remove and replace culverts under roads and save salmon and other migratory fish species.
Sen. Cantwell also secured funding for fish passage through the NOAA’s Restoring Fish Passage Through Barrier Removal Program in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to create a new community-based fish habitat restoration program focused on removing fish passage barriers. These grants aim to help support underserved communities plan and execute fish passage projects and support the sustainability of commercial, recreational and Tribal fisheries.
IN ACTION: In December 2022, NOAA announced nearly $105 million for 36 fish passage projects across the country.
Economic Relief for Fishery Disasters:
“This funding will support direct payments to fishing families, habitat restoration and the science needed to understand crab and salmon stock declines to help protect fishing jobs, and our oceans, in the future.” - Sen. Cantwell
For fisheries, the cancellations of fishing seasons and harvests harm fishing families and coastal economies in the Pacific Northwest and across the nation.
Most recently, fishery disasters for Alaskan crab harvests, such as the Bering Sea snow crab and the Bristol Bay red king crab, have caused an estimated $287.7 million in economic losses so far. In the State of Washington, poor salmon returns for the 2019 Columbia River, Willapa Bay, and Puget Sound fisheries resulted in a 37 percent decrease in the commercial catch. In certain areas, salmon returns declined by more than 65 percent compared to the five-year average.
In March 2021, Sen. Cantwell and Sen. Wicker reintroduced the Fishery Resource Disasters Improvement Act, which provides fishermen with disaster relief more quickly and expands eligible uses of disaster funding, such as hatchery infrastructure, job training and habitat restoration. This Act became law as part of the 2022 omnibus appropriations legislation, which also included funding for fishing families and their businesses that have recently experienced fishery disasters.
Now hundreds of commercial, charter and Tribal fishermen in the State of Washington are eligible for the $300 million in appropriated funds.
Read More About Disaster Legislation
Restoring Salmon Populations:
“The PCSRF is the most critical federal program addressing major threats to Pacific salmon and ensures that these fish can continue to sustain economies, cultural values, recreation and ecosystem health.” - Sen. Cantwell
In addition to the $1 billion culvert restoration and NOAA fish passage programs, Sen. Cantwell is a longtime champion of the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund (PCSRF) and leads an annual letter in support of the program and conducts oversight as Chair. With the declining West Coast salmon populations, Congress created the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund in 2000 to help restore endangered and threatened salmon populations in the West. While some stocks are showing improvement, climate change and other factors continue to threaten a number of salmon stocks. The PCSRF grant program provides funding to states and Tribes to reverse the decline of threatened and endangered Pacific salmon. Sen. Cantwell secured an additional $172 million in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for the grant program to protect, conserve and restore threatened and endangered salmon. Every $1 million invested through PCSRF supports more than 16 jobs and generates about $2.3 million in economic activity.
IN ACTION: In September 2022, the Salmon Recovery Funding board awarded $76 million in PCSRF funding to the State of Washington aimed at increasing Chinook salmon populations, the prey preferred by endangered orcas. One of ten projects funded in the State of Washington was awarded to the Stillaguamish Tribe of Indians to move a dike and excavate river channels to allow water to flow more freely in 230 acres of estuary in Snohomish County.
Sustainable Oceans and Coastal Conservation:
“Sharks are critical to ocean health, and yet shark finning is putting some shark populations on the brink of extinction.” - Sen. Cantwell
While shark finning, the brutal practice of slicing fins off of live sharks, is banned in U.S. waters, there is no federal ban for removing a fin from a shark that was caught whole. There also is no ban on the interstate trade of those fins, which makes it difficult for law enforcement to identify and track which fins were taken illegally. Sen. Booker and Sen. Capito passed a provision that bans the buying and selling of shark fins in the U.S. and protects sharks from finning. Sen. Cantwell and Sen. Schatz worked to include the legislation in the National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed into law in December 2022.
Sen. Schatz authored the Restoring Resilient Reefs Act that protects coral reefs and advances coral reef stewardship. The law increases funding for NOAA’s Coral Reef Program from $16 million to $45 million annually. This landmark legislation also creates a state block grant program for $12 million annually to support state efforts to manage and restore coral reefs and $4.5 million annually for Pacific and Atlantic coral reef cooperative institutes. Together, these provisions are a major step forward for coral reef stewardship. The legislation passed the Commerce Committee in December 2021 and was included in the National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed into law in December 2022.
“Our coral reefs have been pushed to the brink of extinction, and we need to act now to save them. Our bill…puts federal funding in the hands of states and territories to manage and restore the coral reefs that our communities, oceans, and coasts depend on.” - Sen. Schatz
Protecting Marine Mammals:
Sen. Cantwell has led efforts to strengthen the recovery of endangered Southern resident orcas. The three main threats to orca recovery are salmon declines, pollution and vessel impacts such as noise and ship strikes. Sen. Cantwell authored a new pilot program to establish a whale desk within the Coast Guard Puget Sound Vessel Traffic Center to expand and improve near real-time monitoring of whales to bolster the conservation and management of orcas. This was included in the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2022, which was signed into law in December 2022 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.
Sen. Cantwell and Sen. Markey also worked to increase the protection of marine mammals, including the critically endangered North Atlantic right whales and orcas. These amendments afford better opportunities for research and near real-time monitoring efforts, a new grant program to improve mitigation of vessel impacts on whales, and innovation and data sharing to develop new vessel quieting technologies. This was included in the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2022, which was signed into law in December 2022 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act
Sen. Cantwell and Sen. Sullivan worked to reauthorize the NOAA John H. Prescott Marine Mammal Rescue and Response grant program that provides competitive grants to nonprofit organizations and universities to support marine mammals that are sick or injured in U.S. waters. This provision was passed in the National Defense Authorization Act which was signed into law in December 2022.
Sen. Cantwell worked to pass Sen. Feinstein’s Driftnet Modernization and Bycatch Reduction Act which prohibits the use of large mesh driftnets in all U.S. waters and requires the NOAA to help fishermen shift to different fishing methods to reduce marine mammal, turtle and seabird bycatch. The Act was signed into law as part of the 2022 omnibus appropriations legislation.
