Legislature(2003 - 2004)
03/23/2004 01:35 PM Senate L&C
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HJR 34-FED TRAINING AND ASSISTANCE FOR FISHERMEN
CHAIR CON BUNDE announced CSHJR 34(FSH) to be up for
consideration.
MS. MELISSA DOVER, staff to Representative Dan Ogg, sponsor,
said the HJR 34 asks Congress to make trade adjustment
assistance a better fit for commercial fishermen. Last year
commercial fishermen became eligible to receive trade adjustment
assistance through two programs. One of them is a Department of
Labor program that expends retraining benefits and the other is
a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) program that gives cash
benefits up to $10,000.
For a variety of reasons the programs have not fit very well for
commercial fishermen - mostly because they were designed for
agricultural workers. Things like receiving Exxon-Valdez
payments made fishermen ineligible for the programs. HJR 34 asks
for four specific things - the first is that USDA give price
adjustment benefits to Alaska salmon fishermen who fished five
out of six years from 1997 to 2002 and subsequent qualifying
years if they can prove lost income or market share in any one
of those five years due to imports. It also asks that the U.S.
Department of Labor extend retraining benefits to Alaskan salmon
fishermen who fished in the same years even if they did not fish
in the preceding year due to impacts from price fluctuations or
loss of market. Some people were not able to fish, especially
last year, simply because they lost their market.
Third, HJR 34 asks Congress and the USDA to make Alaska salmon a
covered commodity, which would make Alaska salmon fishermen
eligible for other disaster and price support benefits. This is
something that Senator Murkowski hopes to get passed this year.
Lastly, it asks Congress to pursue a program that is designed
specifically for commercial fishermen so that they don't have
the same problems in the future.
CHAIR BUNDE asked how fishermen prove they have lost price due
to imported fish.
MS. DOVER replied that currently the USDA is not disputing the
fact that prices have plummeted due to imports.
MR. MARK VINSEL, Executive Director, United Fishermen of Alaska
(UFA), added that UFA filed the petition that successfully
qualified all five species of Alaska salmon for the USDA trade
adjustment assistance. The Foreign Agricultural Service has
determined that increased imports were a significant factor in
the price decline according to guidelines in the program for all
five salmon species.
CHAIR BUNDE asked if the retraining program is designed to make
fishermen better fishermen or to get them to move out of the
fishing industry.
MR. VINSEL replied that part of the program includes technical
assistance training to show fishermen ways to be more efficient
and other ways to get more income by diversifying their fishing
business. The cash price adjustment helps fishermen to adjust
financially to the impact imports have already had on their
business.
CHAIR BUNDE noted that he's often thought of commercial fishing
as a way of life rather than a career choice.
As I've told Senator Stevens from time to time, I
believe in separation of church and state, so we ought
not to be putting money into fishing that's a
religion.
SENATOR RALPH SEEKINS asked Mr. Vinsel to define an Alaskan
salmon fisherman.
MR. VINSEL replied that the petition included all permit-holding
Alaska salmon fishermen throughout the state, all crew members
if they could should show a crew license, which doesn't say
which kind of fishery or species, and a letter from a captain
stating that they did have a share in a catch of salmon.
Fishermen of both crew and fishermen categories of the
Metlakatla Indian Association are included.
SENATOR SEEKINS asked, of the qualified fishermen, how many are
Alaska residents.
MR. VINSEL replied that he didn't have statistics for crew
members, but of the permit holders, about 70 to 75 percent are
residents.
CHAIR BUNDE asked if it was possible for the State of California
to have a program like this and that fishermen could possibly
double dip and apply in both states?
MR. VINSEL replied:
This is a federal USDA program and the commodity that
UFA qualified through our petition is all Alaska
salmon. The Farm Service Agency of the different
states is cast with following through with helping
with the application process so basically the
qualification of Alaska salmon is by the permit holder
fishing fishermen from other states as well. They are
included in the program. In addition, Washington State
salmon, other than their pinks and chums were
qualified.... California salmon - I don't think that
they applied. Oregon salmon applied and were not
approved. Alaska salmon - all five species were
approved and it's a commodity-based program, so it's
really based on the fish and that's where there's a
little bit of misconception and the price adjustment
is based on the poundage of fish during the year under
the petition.
SENATOR SEEKINS said the reason he asked is because language on
pages 2 and 15 talks about Alaska salmon and that led him to
think about Alaska residents who fish for the Alaska salmon. He
thought language on line 15, "whereas alternative job
opportunities are uncommon in many of the rural areas where
Alaska salmon fishermen live", is a little misleading and was
concerned about temporary people who come to Alaska from the
Lower 48 to fish for a season and then want to get benefits
because they are "Alaska salmon fishermen."
SENATOR SEEKINS wanted to know how many members of the United
Fishermen of Alaska actually live in Alaska and don't just fish
here. He is not sympathetic to transients who come up here to
take advantage of Alaska's disaster.
CHAIR BUNDE said he would get an update of those numbers for
him.
SENATOR GARY STEVENS commented that Senator Seekins' concern has
troubled all people in the fishing industry. Often permits are
held by people who are not Alaska residents, but he hesitated to
call them transients, because many had been fishing in Alaska
for 20, 30 or 40 years. Charging non-residents more for their
permits was found to be unconstitutional. Much of the industry
has been created by people from outside Alaska and it's an issue
that he didn't want to tackle. He asked Mr. Vinsel if there was
any element of the retraining that would take fishermen out of
the fishing industry.
MR. VINSEL answered that the technical training part of it is
specific to fishing and helping people be better fishermen, but
the Department of Labor program, which a fisherman automatically
qualifies for if he qualifies for the USDA program, previously
required that a fisherman had to be part of an employee worker
group. Employees of processors qualified for that, but not
fishermen. That program is a retraining program to offer
alternative work and new career paths. It includes other jobs
that could go hand in hand with seasonal fishing.
SENATOR GARY STEVENS stated that the salmon industry is in a
crisis because of farming and hopefully it will come back, but
it would take a while. Fishermen can train for fishing in
undersubscribed fisheries - specifically the pollock jig
fishery.
CHAIR BUNDE asked if a person who lives in Seattle and fished in
Kodiak for the last 20 years could take advantage of this
program. That person could retrain and go from an oversubscribed
to an undersubscribed fishery and thereby compete with an Alaska
resident. "There could be a downside to this as well. Is that
not possible?"
SENATOR GARY STEVENS responded, "I would think that in a jig
fishery, which is a year-round fishery...that person would
probably become an Alaska resident, I would think...."
SENATOR SEEKINS asked why those particular dates were selected.
MR. VINSEL answered that 2001/2002 is the specific year of price
decline for which UFA applied and a full year of data was needed
for the application; 2003 was still in progress at the time. The
concept should be carried forward into the 2003/2004 petition
cycle, for which the salmon species will still probably be
qualified.
SENATOR HOLLIS FRENCH said language on page 2 was confusing,
because it first states that fishermen experience reduced
earnings due to a decline in price, but went on to say they
couldn't show that.
MR. VINSEL replied that is the crux of the problem with the
specific net fishing income decline requirement for benefits.
Salmon prices went down over the whole five-year
period. It was a slam-dunk in getting the salmon
qualified based on the numbers. And if somebody had $1
less fishing income in 2001, then they made $1 more
than that in 2002, even though it's pretty much
understood that both years were pretty poor, they
wouldn't qualify for this program. So, the net fishing
income decline is really the crux of the resolution,
in my opinion. It's the main reason why many salmon
fishermen weren't able to qualify for the benefits in
the program. It's what we expect to have some
possibility to work on with the USDA in fine-tuning
the program.
SENATOR FRENCH asked if the net decline was different than the
annual decline.
MR. VINSEL answered:
The requirement for benefits in the program is a net
decline in all fishing income. In my opinion, more or
less rightly so, taking into effect that if you were a
farmer or a fisherman and were already diversified and
you made up on other species from the poor fishing in
salmon - or say you grew another crop, because you
knew the price would be low on your corn and so you
grew potatoes or something like that.... Things like
Melissa mentioned, like the Exxon Valdez payments and
any other things that are ultimately in your tax
returns in the fishing income category - that kept
other people from qualifying. We believe these are not
necessarily in the statutes; they were interpreted by
the USDA as this was the first year of this program.
Partly in their haste in the challenge of processing
the potential large number of fishermen that may
apply, which is a little beyond what the program was
designed to do when it was started with farmers in
mind. When they added fishermen, it made some
procedural challenges - especially in Alaska where we
didn't have a large infrastructure of Farm Service
Agency offices....
SENATOR FRENCH said he heard him saying that net decline in
fishing earnings is just a different measure than simply fishing
earnings by themselves.
MR. VINSEL sought to clarify further that the net fishing income
on tax returns includes Exxon Valdez payments and other work a
fisherman does with his boat. The original program started out
with net farming income, which might not be as complicated as
fishing income.
SENATOR SEEKINS moved to pass CSHJR 34(FSH) from committee with
individual recommendations.
CHAIR BUNDE asked for a roll call vote. Senators Hollis French,
Bettye Davis, Gary Stevens, Ralph Seekins and Chair Bunde voted
yea: and CSHJR 34(FSH) moved from committee.
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