House moves to make fishing a safer job

A major overhaul of commercial-fishing safety rules is tucked inside a bill that this week sailed through the U.S. House of Representatives.

"It's still going to remain a very dangerous job," said Peter Kovar, spokesman for Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., of commercial fishing. "We are just trying to make changes that will make it less so."

Commercial fishing has the nation's highest occupational-fatality rate, more than 20 times the average fatality rate for all U.S. occupations. The provisions would be the biggest changes in federal regulation of the industry since 1988, when Congress required survival suits in cold water, life rafts, firefighting equipment and other gear.

The new provisions were inserted into a Coast Guard Reauthorization Bill that overwhelmingly passed the House by a 395-7 vote on Thursday. But the provisions are not in a companion Coast Guard bill in the Senate, so their final fate is uncertain.

The bill's provisions include:

• Required dockside safety examinations for vessels that operate more than three miles offshore, which include most of the Pacific Coast and Alaska fleets. Two of those inspections would be required in a five-year period.

Currently, such inspections are voluntary and fewer than 10 percent of the U.S. fleet has these safety checks each year, though Alaska last year had 20 percent of the fleet inspected, according to Coast Guard officials.

• The bill would require new fishing boats, if they are at least 50 feet long, to meet tougher construction standards to improve seaworthiness. Older vessels would have to meet an alternate set of Coast Guard safety standards by 2018.

Some fishermen say the provisions impose too much expensive and cumbersome regulations that the Coast Guard, already struggling to shoulder its current responsibilities, would be hard-pressed to carry out.

"While some of these amendments are worthwhile, others are extremely costly with no net benefit in increased safety to the commercial-fishing industry," wrote Mark Vinsel, executive director of United Fishermen of Alaska, in a Nov. 5, 2007, letter to Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska.

The group is an umbrella organization for 38 fishing groups, including eight based in Washington, and represents some 5,000 fishermen.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., is chairwoman of a Senate subcommittee that oversees Coast Guard reauthorization legislation, and thus would help to forge final legislation that would emerge from a joint Senate and House conference.

She wants fishing-vessel safety improved in a way that makes sense and is still reviewing the House provisions, said spokeswoman Katie Rothenberger.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., is supportive of new safety provisions, but says there needs to be a focus on how the new standards can be met, according to spokeswoman Alex Glass.

Since the passage of the 1988 legislation, U.S. commercial-fishing death rates have declined, especially off Alaska. But the 2007 fatality rate — 1.15 per 10,000 — was still more than 20 times the average fatality rate for all U.S. occupations.

The risks in commercial fishing were highlighted in March, when the Alaska Ranger went down in the Bering Sea, and five of the 47-member crew died.

A story published on April 26, 2008 was corrected on April 29, 2008. In a previous version the first name of Katie Rothenberger, a spokeswoman for Sen. Maria Cantwell, was misspelled.