Perhaps you remember how, in 2007, the Bering Sea freezer longliner fleet took on a $35 million federal loan to buy out three vessels.
Well, the fleet is now proposing to shoulder an additional $2.7 million loan to retire a latent permit and its fishing history.
The fleet would pay for the permit buyout with a small landings fee collected over 30 years.
The permit isn't associated with a vessel, so an additional boat would not be removed from the fishery.
And why would freezer longliners want to retire a latent, or inactive, permit?
"All vessels ... would benefit from a permit buyback because there will be less potential competition for the harvest," says this notice published July 30 in the Federal Register.
The notice, so far as I can tell, does not identify the permit owner.
With more than 30 large vessels, the freezer longliner fleet is a major player in Alaska's groundfish industry. It targets predominantly Pacific cod.
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4 comments:
The crews on the boats will end up paying for the permit.
Just as in Bering Sea Crab Rationalization the crews pay for the vessel and quota buyback through their settlements. Illegal contracts are being used to pay crabbers but NOAA and the NPFMC will do nothing to prove the frauds because they are in on it!
I heard since the Bering Sea cod fleet was privatized through end run legislation last year with the help of Murkowski, Begich, Murry and Cantwell that the crews are received cut percentages on their contracts. As usual the delegation in DC works for corporations first before individual constituents like myself.
If you look at the FLCC web page, you'll see that the latent permit belongs to the whole cooperative. Since FCA suddenly left the fishery, I'd assume it used to belong to them. Why would they take the buy out? Maybe something to do with the 30 year interest free loan to the coop members. Thanks America!
Interest free? Plenty of interest, because the money is coming from the crews to the owners. The owners get paid for the permit.
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