DETAILS: 
Date: Tomorrow, June 30, 2020

Time: 7:00 am

Location: Moulton is hosting this availability from his Washington, DC office via Google hangouts. 

To join by video, visit this link at 10:00 am tomorrow: https://meet.google.com/buj-koyy-xwq

To join by phone dial: +1 470-242-8197 and use pin: 301793157#

RSVP: Please RSVP to Tim Biba, Tim@mail.house.gov, in case the meeting call-in info changes. Moulton is happy to answer off-topic questions about the news of the day tomorrow at the end of the availability. 

BACKGROUND:
At-Sea Monitors are people who ride commercial fishing boats to collect data in order to prevent overfishing and ensure regulatory compliance. They are hired by private-sector companies and follow the commercial fishing season from port to port across the country as the seasons change. Monitors typically ride on several different boats while they are in one location. Moulton believes NOAA has failed to lead by reinstating the monitors without a plan to do it safely.

NOAA will have a tough time making the case to fishermen that the transmission risk has decreased. According to The Washington Post, the same day that NOAA informed Moulton’s office about the end of the suspension, five members of its “Hurricane Hunter” research aircraft team tested positive for the virus. The positive tests caused several other team members at their Florida base to enter a precautionary quarantine for 14 days as the country enters hurricane season. 

On June 18, Moulton and Rep. Bill Keating wrote Under Secretary of Commerce Dr. Neil Jacobs, who is currently in charge of NOAA for the Trump Administration demanding a delay so that NOAA could build a plan to make the return of At-Sea Monitors safer.

Age is a key risk factor for contracting the coronavirus, and many commercial fishermen are in the at-risk age groups. According to a study by the University of Fairbanks, the average age of commercial fishermen is on the rise. The study, which explored Massachusetts' fishing rival Alaska’s commercial fishing industry, found that the average of commercial fishermen there has jumped from 40 to 50 in the last decade. Trends in Massachusetts are similar and have led Moulton, a Democrat, to work with Alaska Republican Don Young on legislation to get more young Americans into commercial fishing.

Some of the most severe outbreaks of coronavirus to date have occurred aboard ships, where social distancing is often impossible. Earlier this year, a coronavirus outbreak ravaged the Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Rooseveltinfecting more than 1,000 of the ship’s nearly 4,900-person crew of sailors and Marines. The Diamond Princess, a cruise ship that was the source of a major outbreak of the virus in February that killed 17 people and sickened about 20 percent of the boat’s passengers, was such a fertile breeding ground for the virus that researchers used it as a case study to predict the virus’s spread in the world’s most densely-populated cities. 

Commercial fishing has proven itself essential since the quarantine began. Consumer demand for fish skyrocketed after outbreaks at pork and poultry plants threatened the supply chain that puts food on American tables, and the cooped up country started exploring new foods to break up the monotony of staying home. A New York Times article in April reported:  

“...At supermarkets and other stores, seafood purchases have set records. Year-over-year sales of both canned and frozen seafood were around 37 percent higher for the four weeks that ended April 19, according to data from IRI, a Chicago-based market research firm.

Some large supermarket chains closed their seafood counters for a while so their regular workers could help stock shelves that were emptying nearly as quickly as new cans and boxes could be unpacked. Still, fresh seafood -sales were up by about 13 percent in the same four weeks.”