Legislative task force has a lot of ideas to help Alaska's commercial fisheries

Alaska lawmakers from fishing-dependent communities say they have ideas for ways to rescue the state's beleaguered seafood industry, with a series of proposed legislation likely to follow.

Members of a legislative task force created last spring now have draft recommendations that range from the international level, where they say marketing of Alaska fish can be much more robust, to the hyper-local level, where projects like shared community cold-storage facilities can cut costs.

The draft was reviewed at a two-day hearing in Anchorage on Jan. 9-10 of the Joint Legislative Task Force Evaluating Alaska's Seafood Industry. It will be refined in the coming days and submitted to the full Legislature, members said. Lawmakers start a new session Jan. 21 in Juneau.

The draft is a good start to what is expected to be a session-long process, said Kodiak Rep. Louise Stutes, a task force member.

Another task force member, Nikiski Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, urged his colleagues to focus on the big picture and the main goals. "We need to take a look at how we can increase market share for Alaska seafood and how we can increase value. Those two things aren't easy, but those are the only two things that are going to matter long term. Everything else is just throwing deck chairs off the Titanic," he said Jan. 10.

Many of the recommended actions on subjects like insurance and allocations, if carried out, are important but incremental, Bjorkman said. "If the ship's going down, that stuff isn't going to matter," he said.

Alaska's seafood industry is beset by crises in nearly all fishing regions of the state and affecting nearly all species.

Economic forces, heavily influenced by international turmoil and a glut of competing Russian fish dumped on world markets, have depressed prices. Meanwhile, operating costs have risen sharply. Climate change and other environmental factors have triggered crashes in stocks that usually support economically important fisheries.

In all, the Alaska seafood industry lost $1.8 billion from 2022 to 2023, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Those problems inspired the creation of the task force last spring. The group has been meeting regularly since the summer.

The draft recommendations that have emerged from the task force's work address marketing, product development, workforce shortages, financing, operating costs, insurance and other aspects of seafood harvesting, processing and sales.

One set of recommendations focuses on fisheries research. These call for more state and federal funding and an easy system for fisheries and environmental scientists from the state, federal government and other entities to share data quickly.

The draft recommends several steps to encourage development of new products and markets for them, including non-traditional products like protein powder, nutritional supplements and fish oil. Mariculture should be expanded, with permitting and financing made easier, according to the draft.

The draft recommendations also propose some changes in the structure of seafood taxes levied on harvesters and processors, along with new tax incentives for companies to invest in modernization, product diversification and sustainability.

The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, the state agency that promotes Alaska seafood domestically and internationally, figures large in the draft recommendations.

The draft calls for more emphasis on the quality and sustainability of Alaska fish and, in general, more responsibilities for ASMI. An example is the recommended expansion of ASMI's duties to include promotion of Alaska mariculture. That would require legislation. It would also require mariculture operators' willingness to pay into the program.

But ASMI, as it is currently configured, is not equipped to tackle such expanded operations, lawmakers said. Even obtaining modest increases in funding for ASMI has proved to be a challenge. A $10 million increase approved by the Legislature last year was vetoed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who cited a failure by ASMI to develop a plan to spend the money.

The governor's proposed budget released in December includes an increase in state money for ASMI, but his suggestion that $10 million in new funding be spread over three years falls far short of what the organization needs, Stevens has said.

Incoming House Speaker and task force member Dillingham Rep. Bryce Edgmon said there will probably be a need to reorganize or restructure ASMI to make it more autonomous. But for now, ASMI and plans for its operations have been constricted by political concerns. "People are afraid of how it's going to go back to the governor's office," Edgmon said.

Seafood can be an afterthought in federal trade policy, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski told the task force on Jan. 9. Tariffs that President-elect Donald Trump has said he intends to impose on U.S. trade partners pose a serious concern to Alaska's seafood industry, she said.

"The president-elect has made very, very, very, very clear that this is going to be a new administration and we're going to use tariffs to our advantage. I don't know what exactly to expect from that," she said.

In the past, tariffs imposed by the U.S. government have been answered with retaliatory tariffs that cause problems for seafood and other export-dependent industries.

Jeremy Woodrow, ASMI's executive director, has similar warnings about tariffs, noting that about 70% of the Alaska seafood, as measured by value, is sold to markets outside of the U.S.

"We tend to be, as an industry, collateral damage in a lot of trade relationships. We're not the main issue. And that usually is a bad outcome for seafood," he told the committee on Jan. 9.

"If we raise tariffs on another country, won't they simply turn around and raise tariffs on us?" asked Kodiak Sen. Stevens.

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