SJR 3: Urging the President of the United States and the United States Congress to mitigate the harm done to the state's seafood industry because of the withdrawal of the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement; and urging the President of the United States and the United States Congress to work to benefit and protect the state's seafood industry.
00 SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 3 01 Urging the President of the United States and the United States Congress to mitigate the 02 harm done to the state's seafood industry because of the withdrawal of the United States 03 from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement; and urging the President of the United 04 States and the United States Congress to work to benefit and protect the state's seafood 05 industry. 06 BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF ALASKA: 07 WHEREAS the seafood industry directly employs an estimated 26,700 state 08 residents, more workers than any other private sector industry, and is the second largest basic 09 sector source of employment in the state; and 10 WHEREAS seafood is the state's largest foreign export and, compared with seafood- 11 producing nations, the state's seafood exports rank sixth in value; and 12 WHEREAS, in 2014, the state's seafood industry created an estimated 111,800 13 national full-time equivalent jobs, $5,800,000,000 in annual labor income, and 14 $14,600,000,000 in economic output; and 15 WHEREAS Alaska commercial fisheries exported over $1,000,000,000 worth of
01 pollock, over $1,000,000,000 worth of salmon, $322,000,000 worth of cod, nearly 02 $200,000,000 worth of flat fish, and $141,000,000 worth of crab in 2015; and 03 WHEREAS, in 2015, certain groundfish species, including pollock, Pacific cod, 04 rockfish, sablefish, and Atka mackerel, accounted for 59 percent of the state's export tonnage 05 and 54 percent of the export value of the state's commercial fisheries; and 06 WHEREAS, in 2015, each of a dozen different species of fish from the state had 07 commercial export values in excess of $50,000,000, and each of five more species posted 08 export values between $10,000,000 and $50,000,000; and 09 WHEREAS the state's commercial fishermen rely on strong global markets for high 10 wages; and 11 WHEREAS the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement would have benefitted the 12 state's seafood industry by removing the import tariffs of certain foreign nations and by 13 strengthening protections for the state's seafood industry against illegal, unreported, and 14 unregulated fishing, fish fraud, and the intentional mislabeling of competing inferior seafood 15 products; and 16 WHEREAS the abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement will likely 17 result in foreign markets looking for cheaper farmed salmon alternatives produced in Canada, 18 Chile, Norway, and other markets in place of the more expensive wild Alaska salmon; and 19 WHEREAS provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement include measures 20 originating from the Presidential Task Force on Combating Illegal, Unreported, and 21 Unregulated Commercial Fishing and Seafood Fraud, which would protect the state's seafood 22 from misrepresented inferior seafood products; and 23 WHEREAS the state produces more wild salmon than any other nation in the world, 24 Alaska salmon is the best salmon in the world, and inferior farmed salmon from other parts of 25 the world is commonly and intentionally mislabeled as "Alaska wild salmon"; and 26 WHEREAS sales of Russian pollock mislabeled as Alaska pollock harm the 27 international reputation of Alaska pollock; and 28 WHEREAS, without a deal negotiated by the President of the United States, without 29 bilateral trade agreements, and without an internationally enforced legal regime against 30 seafood fraud, Alaska seafood products will likely be less competitive in world markets; and 31 WHEREAS negotiating international trade agreements is the responsibility of the
01 President of the United States; and 02 WHEREAS international trade agreements negotiated by the President of the United 03 States are approved by the United States Senate; 04 BE IT RESOLVED that the Alaska State Legislature urges the President of the 05 United States and the United States Congress to mitigate the harm done to the state's seafood 06 industry because of the withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement; and be it 07 FURTHER RESOLVED that the Alaska State Legislature urges the President of the 08 United States and the United States Congress to work to establish bilateral relations and 09 enforceable agreements with other nations that will benefit and protect the state's seafood 10 industry from illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing and the fraudulent mislabeled 11 inferior products. 12 COPIES of this resolution shall be sent to the Honorable Donald J. Trump, President 13 of the United States; the Honorable Lisa Murkowski and the Honorable Dan Sullivan, U.S. 14 Senators, and the Honorable Don Young, U.S. Representative, members of the Alaska 15 delegation in Congress; all other members of the 115th United States Congress; and the 16 presiding officers of the legislatures of each of the other 49 states.