Sullivan tells AFN he won't give up on bycatch bill blocked on Senate floor

Sen. Dan Sullivan told the Alaska Federation of Natives convention in Anchorage on Thursday that he will keep pushing his Bycatch Reduction Act, a month after his attempt to pass it on the U.S. Senate floor was blocked.

"But you have my word that I will not give up on this bill. I will work hard to get this bill done," Sullivan said.

He tied the bill to the salmon crisis on the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, which he called one of his top priorities in the Senate. He told the convention the bill "gives Alaska Natives oversight of NOAA's Bycatch Observer Program."

The bill as introduced would require trawl gear in the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska to meet new standards, including seafloor contact detection systems and salmon excluders, according to the bill text. It would authorize $10 million a year in fiscal years 2027 through 2031 for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's program to develop fishing gear that catches fewer unwanted fish.

Sullivan introduced the bill June 24. On Sept. 16, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee sent it to the full Senate by voice vote with a Sullivan substitute that replaced the bill's text. Sullivan called that a "strong bipartisan" vote.

On Sept. 23, Sullivan asked the Senate to pass the bill by unanimous consent, which skips a recorded vote but lets any one senator stop it. As Alaska News reported Sept. 28, Massachusetts Democrat Ed Markey objected. Sullivan's office said Democrats blocked the request.

Markey said fishermen and fishing organizations in his state needed time to consider the bill's implications, according to the Congressional Record. He said he supports the bill's bycatch mitigation fund and its reauthorization of NOAA's Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program.

The bill is part of Sullivan's reelection race against former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola. When he introduced it in June, her campaign said in a statement that "Alaskans will see through his election-year tricks." Peltola's fisheries plan proposes banning factory trawling and adding tribal seats to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.