US Congress wants to keep shark fins out of restaurant soups

Tag : Shark Fin

WASHINGTON - The US House of Representatives took steps Tuesday tokeep shark fins out of soups served in pricey Asian restaurants.
In a voice vote, the House tightened a 2000 law that bans thepractice of shark finning, whereby mainly Pacific Ocean fishermencut off a shark's fin and throw the dying fish back into the sea.Shark fin soup is a delicacy in some Asian countries.
Also on Tuesday, the House approved by voice and sent to thepresident legislation to implement a 1997 international treaty thatlimits sulphur oxide and other emissions from oceangoing vessels, amajor source of pollution around the world.
The bill on sharks, whose populations are declining worldwide,prohibits vessels from having custody, control or possession ofshark fins without the carcass. It closes a loophole in the 2000act under which vessels were sailing into international waters topurchase shark fins from fishermen engaged in finning and thenbringing them back into US waters.
The provision was in part a response to a March federal appealscourt ruling in favour of a vessel engaged in transshipping sharkfins from foreign finning ships. The court said the ship, stoppedwith 65,000 pounds (29,480 kilograms) of shark fins worth more than$600,000, did not violate the law because it was not a fishingvessel.
The bill, which now goes to the Senate, also makes clear that sharkfins aboard fishing and other vessels and those landed at a U.Sport be naturally attached to the carcass. Current law makes it aviolation when the total weight of shark fins on board exceeds 5per cent of the total weight of carcasses.
"Sharks are vital to the health of marine ecosystems, but thepractice of shark finning is driving their decline worldwide,"said the bill's sponsor, Del. Madeleine Bordallo, who representsthe US territory of Guam in the Pacific.
The National Coalition for Marine Conservation, in a letter tolawmakers urging support of the bill, said that since the 1970sshark populations around the world, including many species in USwaters, have declined by 80 per cent or more.
"Driven by the lucrative shark fin soup market, the greatestthreat facing sharks is a cruel and wasteful practice calledfinning," it said.
The air pollution legislation directs the Environmental ProtectionAgency and the Coast Guard to establish and enforce standards fornitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides and other air pollutants emitted byship exhausts. It also bans deliberate emissions of ozone-depletingsubstances.
The measure aligns US law with an International MaritimeOrganization convention adopted in 1997, known as Annex VI, toprevent pollution from ships.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Democrat and chairman of the HouseTransportation Committee panel on maritime transportation, saidships are a growing threat to the world's air quality. "Infact, some estimates suggest that the emissions of sulphur oxidefrom ships may now exceed the combined output from all the cars,trucks and buses in the world."
Rep. Lois Capps, a Democrat, said more than 45 per cent of all theemissions of nitrogen oxide in Santa Barbara County, California,which she represents, come from oceangoing transits along thecoastline.
The Senate acceded to the Annex VI convention in 2006. The Housepassed the bill implementing the treaty - aligning it with US law -more than a year ago, but the Senate waited until two weeks ago toact on that bill.
House Transportation Committee Chairman James Oberstar said thatdelay could cause repercussions. The International MaritimeOrganization is to meet in October to adopt more stringent airpollution standards, and failure of Congress to act swiftly on themeasure could deprive US negotiators of a vote.
- AP