Since being elected to the Senate in 2015, Sen. Dan Sullivan has championed the priorities and interests of Alaska’s fishermen and coastal communities in Congress, and relentlessly pressed the highest-ranking officials in both Democrat and Republican administrations to do the same. As a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, Sen. Sullivan has been able to pass legislation or secure federal actions that:
– Empower fishing-industry experts to oversee and help direct federal fisheries grants;
– Lessen barriers preventing new fishermen from entering the fleet;
– Dramatically build up Coast Guard vessels, personnel and infrastructure in Alaska;
– Work to identify the causes of the dramatic decline among some fish species
– Make fisheries a principal negotiating objective in all future trade agreements;
– Relieve vessel owners from the burdensome incidental discharge regulations;
– Prohibit foreign-caught fish from being served the National School Lunch Program;
– Provide fishermen with billions of dollars’ worth of federal fishery disaster and COVID-19-related relief
Sen. Sullivan has also authored and is currently working to pass legislation that would:
– Provide fishermen with access to the same federal programs and support as America’s farmers to de-risk their operations
– Crack down on foreign illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing;
– Develop more effective responses to harmful algal blooms and hypoxic events;
Sen. Sullivan has long been the Senate leader on addressing the global marine debris crisis, authoring the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act, the most comprehensive ocean clean-up legislation ever to become law. He also fought alongside Southeast Alaska troll fishermen against a radical environmental group seeking to shut down their fishery, authoring numerous amicus briefs throughout the successful legal process. Finally, Sen. Sullivan has been fighting for years against Russia’s seafood price war, successfully banning the import of Russian-origin seafood and closing a regulatory loophole that allowed Russian seafood to access the American market when funneled through China.
Going forward, Senator Sullivan will continue to focus on keeping Alaska’s fisheries strong and sustainable, fighting burdensome and unnecessary regulations, expanding markets for Alaska seafood, protecting Alaska’s marine ecosystem, and ensuring commercial fishing remains a viable career path well into the future.