Lawmaker seeks help in tuna dispute

A San Diego-area lawmaker wants the State Department to step in to help American tuna boats that are shut out of a large area of the Pacific Ocean that yields more than half of the nation’s canned tuna.

In a letter to Secretary of State John F. Kerry, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine) wrote that the U.S. government must act fast to assist the f leet.

Administrators of the South Pacific Tuna Treaty — an international accord governing waters in the western Pacific — refused to issue this year’s licenses Jan. 1, saying American boats must first hand over millions of dollars in fees.

American operators had agreed in August to pay $67 million for 5,700 days of fishing this year, split among all 37 of the f leet’s boats. But some of the operators say a bad fishing season last year has left them unable to afford the first quarterly payment. Seven weeks ago, operators asked to reduce their 2016 total to 3,700 days.

So far, the administrators of the treaty, the Solomon Islands-based Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, insist that American boats pay what they agreed to in August. The U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service told the American fleet it needed to get out by New Year’s Day.

Hunter wrote in his letter that the American fleet catches roughly $300 million to $400 million worth of tuna in the area each year.

“An extended prohibition against the U.S.-flag tuna fleet fishing in the treaty area may well bankrupt the fleet and jeopardize the thousands of American jobs it supports,” he wrote, asking the State Department to have inter-government discussions “at the highest levels” to resolve the issue.

The dispute has a significant impact on San Diego businesses. Global Cos., a group of three Nevada firms with offices in San Diego, pulled its boats out of the water last week. San Diego-based South Pacific Tuna manages the companies’ 14 boats, the most of any single owner in the f leet.