Grijalva, Huffman Joint Statement on NOAA's Decision to Shelve Seafood Import Monitoring Program Updates Despite Recent Reporting of Flagrant Human Rights Abuses in International Fishing Industry

Press Release

"There's no reason SIMP can't be expanded while it's strengthened--we can walk and chew gum at the same time. The improvements to SIMP in the proposed rule would have made several steps in the right direction; adding squid to SIMP, for example, has been widely recognized as critical to advancing the risk-based approach to tracking high-risk seafood imports.

But even then, the recent reporting of forced labor and IUU practices proves we need to do even more. As the world's largest importer of seafood, the U.S. has a responsibility to set the global standard for ensuring our seafood is sourced legally and ethically. After years of talking about this problem and doing very little about it, NOAA is skirting its responsibility once again. The past several years should have been a "listening session' for NOAA, including listening to Congress when we told them to get moving on expanding and enforcing SIMP. Delaying action and starting over with a nebulous new "listening session' is unacceptable."

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