The process for distributing fishery disaster relief will get some needed relief of its own. That’s after former President Joe Biden signed a bill earlier this month that aims to speed up the time it takes to get disaster money into fishermen’s hands.
The new law is called the Fishery Improvement to Streamline Untimely Regulatory Hurdles Post Emergency-Situation Act, or simply the FISHES Act. It requires that the disaster monies be distributed to the grantees no longer than 90 days after the U.S. Secretary of Commerce receives a complete spend plan from the state.
Currently, it can take years from when a fishery disaster is declared to when the money is dispersed to fishermen, processors and affected communities. The drawn out timeline in part is due to the numerous state and federal entities that are involved in the process for submitting, approving and distributing fishery disaster funding, which includes the Alaska Department of Fish & Game, NOAA Fisheries, the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission and others.
The bill was co-sponsored by both of Alaska’s senators, and introduced by former Rep. Mary Peltola in the House of Representatives May, 2024.
Sen. Dan Sullivan said in a statement, “Alaska’s fishing industry has been through a very difficult few years, heightened by an unprecedented number of fishery disasters affecting all parts of our state. While relief dollars have been crucial to providing relief to our fishermen, in too many instances, the relief has taken far too long to get approved and reach impacted Alaskans.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski told state legislators during a recent meeting of Alaska’s Seafood Task Force that the current timeline is unacceptable.
“And every Secretary has said ‘Oh, we promise to do better,'" Murkowski stated. "Well what we do with the Fishes Act is we have a timeline within [the bill], that disaster relief needs to move through the process back in Washington D.C. It’s still not the best that it could be. But hopefully it’s going to be a little bit more efficient."
Senators Murkowski and Sullivan also refilled the U.S. Department of Commerce’s fishery disaster assistance account with $300 million.
Fishery disasters have happened all over the state in recent years, more recently the Bering Sea snow crab fishery 2023/2024, Kuskokwim and Yukon River salmon fisheries over the past several years, along with the 2020 Pacific cod fishery in the Gulf of Alaska. While more are likely to continue happening in Alaska year after year, especially with changing ocean conditions in places like the Gulf of Alaska, Murkowski blamed the hold up in distributing disaster funding on the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
“OMB is the place that every request goes to die," she said. "It’s part of a black box there. It’s been our big challenge with getting fisheries disaster money out.”
According to Murkowski, the new law requires that the Office of Management and Budget make a decision within 30 days to either approve or deny a state’s spending plan once it is awarded the fishery disaster funds.
Rebecca Skinner, the executive director of the Alaska Whitefish Trawlers Association told KMXT via email that the FISHES Act is very important as some fishermen in the Kodiak area are still waiting for disaster funding from the 2020 Gulf of Alaska Pacific cod fishery. “In particular, the FISHES Act requires the Secretary to respond to draft spend plans within 10 days, and provides that OMB review of spend plans shall occur concurrently and cannot slow down the process," Skinner said.
