Fortune Fish's CEO Sean O' Scannlain Critical of Potential Costs of Proposed Border Tax
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal Sean O' Scannlain, the CEO of Fortune Fish and Gourmet in Bensenville, IL, is critical of the Trump Administration's proposed the border adjustment tax. The plan would tax imports and exempt exports as part of a plan to encourage companies to locate or keep jobs and production in the U.S. O' Scannlain warns that industries that rely on imported raw materials, like the seafood business, will have to raise their prices on consumers in order to offset higher taxes on imports to the US market. “It’s crazy, absolutely crazy,” Mr. O’Scannlain said. “Politically, it is a bad idea for Congress to have to defend increasing the average consumer’s food costs by a couple thousand dollars a year.”
The coho and chinook salmon returns for West Coast fisheries are forecast to be poor according to state forecasts. The Klamath River fall Chinook escapements of natural spawning Chinook for 2016 are much lower than expected, some of the worst on record. Sacramento River fall Chinook returns also are down. The general consensus is that commercial salmon fishing seasons in Oregon, California and Washington will be quite limited or nonexistent.
In other news, When President Trump first announced an executive order calling for two regulations to be repealed for every one enacted, many in the commercial seafood industry feared chaos, since every regulated fishery in the US and all US IFQ quota licenses are managed with new regulations each year. However, it appears the issue is now more manageable, as several sources have confirmed that most fisheries regulations will not be impacted by the order.
Meanwhile, Alaska's Board of Fisheries passed two proposals Tuesday that relaxed some of the season restrictions on the east side set of the Upper Cook Inlet's gillnet fishery, which operates in two sections between Ninilchik and Nikiski. The result is that fishermen may get an extra week in August and a subset of fishermen in North Kalifornsky Beach may get a few extra days in July.
Finally, fishing regulators and industry representatives support a plan for a lottery system to get new fishermen into Maine’s lucrative baby eel fishery. A group of lawmakers wants to create a lottery system to allow new people to get into the fishery when other fishermen leave it. The goal of the plan is to encourage a younger generation of fishermen to enter the fishery.
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