Oregon and Washington to Commence Dungeness Fishing January 4; No Word on California Yet  Washington and Oregon Dungeness crab fishermen will be permitted to set their traps on January 1 ending a month-long delay to the season. This means crab landings and deliveries to processors will start on January 4, past the lucrative holiday season sales period. State-supervised price negotiations between fishermen and processors are set for Dec. 22 and possibly Dec. 23. California crabbers, though, will remain tied up with no clear date for when fishing in the state’s central and northern waters will get underway. Congress's successful push to change Country-of-origin-labeling (COOL) laws for imported beef and pork products in the US market will have no impact on the laws for seafood products. The COOL repeal was included in the 2016 Omnibus Budget bill and lifted the labeling laws for beef, pork, ground beef and ground pork. The repeal was passed after the WTO upheld $1 billion in proposed tariffs on US goods by Canada and Mexico as part of retaliation against the laws. However, the Omnibus repeal only targeted the mandatory provision for beef and pork, not for seafood. In other news Canadian Minister of Fisheries Hunter Tootoo reversed a decision by his predecessor Gail Shea to increase TAC levels of surf clams off Atlantic Canada and open access to the fishery. The decision means the quota will be reversed to 38,756 metric tons and shuts out an opportunity for Ocean Choice International to apply for a quota permit. Meanwhile, it has been difficult to gauge just how much, if at all, a two day strike among Chile's airport workers last week disrupted the country's fresh salmon trade to the US and other overseas markets. Some traders said the December 17-18 stoppage forced them to turn their trucks around, delays that could result in product getting carried past the holiday season. However, others said their shipments were already delayed for seasonal factors and the work strike did little to make the problem worse. Finally, John Sackton writes about how US importers were largely asleep at the switch over the presence of labor abuse in Thai shrimp peeling sheds. Jeff Sedecca, President of National Fish Shrimp Division,  says the Associated Press investigation showed the industry’s existing audits and certifications to be inadequate, which is why National undertook its own initiative in 2010 to protect its supply chain from slave-peeled shrimp.