Alaska Cong. Begich Seeks More Balanced Protections For Marine Mammals

Republican Nick Begich, the main challenger trying to unseat U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, wears an “I Voted Today” button after casting an early ballot Monday, Nov. 4, 2024, in Eagle River, Alaska. Begich ultimately prevailed in a close election result (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

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The House Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee held a July 22 hearing on a draft bill sponsored by Rep. Nick Begich (R-AK) which would amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Begich and other supporters of reform of the MMPA believe the law needs to be modernized to better reflect current science, eliminate conflicts and duplication of bureaucratic processes, and provide for more consistent and certain application of the law.

The effort to amend the MMPA is in line with the Trump administration’s goal of streamlining federal permitting processes to speed development of domestic energy resources needed to meet rising demand. “The MMPA has been in place for over 50 years and during that time, it’s served an important role in conserving marine mammals and protecting our oceans,” Begich said. “As the decades have passed, we’ve seen how its implementation, particularly in the use of vague or overly precautionary standards, has led to confusion, delay and unintended harm.”

He also stated: “My goal is simple. I want a bill that protects marine mammals and also works for the people who live and work alongside them, especially in Alaska.”

An Array Of Competing Stakeholders

As will always be the case with an effort to amend one of the major federal statutes related to environmental or wildlife protections, the proposed bill has attracted strong views both pro and con.

Wyoming Republican Harriet Hageman, who Chairs the subcommittee, said the discussion draft “will make vital reforms to the MMPA,” and would advance “the goals of House Republicans and the Trump Administration to streamline the permitting process and provide clear direction to federal regulatory agencies.”

But the bill’s opponents had different views, often becoming emotional in their statements. Kathleen Collins, Senior Marine Campaign Manager, International Fund for Animal Welfare, said the notion of the proposed reforms making their way into law “is heartbreaking.” She went onto warn members that, if the bill is ultimately passed and signed by President Trump, “The blood of thousands of marine mammals will be on the hands of Congress, and the entire well-being of the ocean ecosystem could very well be altered.”

Along the same lines, Alaska Director at the Center for Biological Diversity Cooper Freeman warned, “If Begich’s bill passes, it would needlessly make our marine mammal species far more vulnerable to injury and death than they already are and could change Alaska’s oceans forever. We can’t let his bill become law.”

EnerGeo Wants To Eliminate Redundancies

Certainly, it is not in any stakeholder’s or policymaker’s best long-term interests to amend the MMPA in a way that would produce the fright scenario outcomes laid out by the bill’s opponents. Any short-term gains which might be made would quickly be washed away by an inevitable backlash should changes to the law be tied to major harms to protected species.

By the same token, it is not in the public’s best interest to allow identified inefficiencies and duplications of bureaucratic processes to needlessly impede commercial fishing, energy, and other offshore industrial activities. The bill’s proponents believe there is a middle ground to be struck to properly balance all the competing stakeholder interests.

One such proponent, Forrest Burkholder, President and CEO of SAExploration, who testified on behalf of EnerGeo Alliance, told the hearing that fixing these issues would “increase permitting efficiency, decrease uncertainty, and ultimately benefit all stakeholders, the implementing agencies, and most importantly, marine mammals.”

EnerGeo Alliance is a trade association representing the geoscience industry which conducts most geological and seismic surveys for wind, oil and gas, and other industries seeking to mount offshore developments. In a recent interview, Dustin Van Liew, senior vice president, global policy & government affairs, told me that EnerGeo’s main goal for legislation is reforms that promote “the objective application of the best available scientific and commercially available data and information.”

A lack of objectivity and an inconsistent application of the law is a common complaint from the business world, since uncertainty in the regulatory process only serves to make project planning and execution more difficult and costly. Van Liew says that, too often, permitting decisions are based on non-objective assumptions and computer models that are loaded up with findings from non-peer-reviewed study drafts rather than sound science.

EnerGeo has also compiled a list of examples of time-wasting duplications of efforts stemming from competing requirements between the MMPA and the Endangered Species Act (ESA). One of the main drivers of this longstanding problem is that the two laws are, generally, administered by different agencies: The MMPA by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) inside the Department of Commerce, and the ESA by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) at the Interior Department – with additional overlaps depending on the species being managed.

“There are varying layers of requirements that the two different departments and the agencies within those departments are all trying to analyze,” Van Liew says, adding, “And then of course NEPA overlays all of this as well,” a reference to time-consuming environmental impact statements required under the National Environmental Policy Act.

One Piece Of A Much Larger Energy Permitting Puzzle

Last month’s hearing on Begich’s discussion draft is an early step in the long, complicated process of turning a bill into law. But the testimony taken serves to highlight tensions between the myriad stakeholder interests at play. It also helps to highlight the larger drama that makes getting to a bigger, comprehensive approach to streamlining federal permitting processes such a gargantuan goal to attain.

When one realizes that modernizing the MMPA to allow human offshore activities while preserving marine mammal protections is just one piece in a puzzle made up of a thousand equally challenging parts, the task seems overwhelming. Yet, if America is to be able to meet its future energy demands, getting there is less a goal than it is an imperative.