Political Quotes

“H.R. 531, the South Pacific Tuna Treaty Act of 2025, will help sustain American tuna fisheries and the conservation of marine resources in the South Pacific. This legislation would implement the South Pacific Tuna Treaty, a multilateral treaty between the United States Government and the Pacific Island states. This treaty authorizes the small U.S. purse seine vessel fleet to fish in specific and exclusive economic zones in the Pacific Island countries that are part of the treaty. These parties include Australia, the Cook Islands, Fiji, New Zealand, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, and many more island nations. The exclusive economic zones of these nations are very close together and not far from American Samoa. There is little international water between them. Purse seine fishing often uses fish aggregating devices, or FADs, which are large, circular nets that drift independently through the water for hundreds of miles until they catch fish. They have sonar and GPS, so the fishing boat knows where they are and when the net is full. The nature of this fishing method, combined with the proximity of these countries, means that FADs can be released in international waters but float through other countries' EEZs while catching fish along the way. Without access to these EEZs, the U.S. purse seine fleet cannot retrieve the fish that they catch.”