[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 793 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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115th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                 S. 793

        To prohibit sale of shark fins, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             March 30, 2017

  Mr. Booker (for himself, Mrs. Capito, Ms. Cantwell, Mr. McCain, Mr. 
  Peters, Mr. Inhofe, Mr. Whitehouse, Mr. Wicker, Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. 
Portman, and Mr. Schatz) introduced the following bill; which was read 
     twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and 
                             Transportation

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
        To prohibit sale of shark fins, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act of 
2017''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) Sharks are critically important species for their 
        economic, cultural, and ecosystem value.
            (2) Many shark populations are in peril worldwide and are 
        on the decline.
            (3) One of the greatest threats to sharks is the global 
        trade in shark fins. It is estimated that fins from as many as 
        73,000,000 sharks end up in the global shark fin trade every 
        year.
            (4) Shark fins have no medicinal or nutritional value.
            (5) The trade in shark fins is primarily focused on large 
        coastal and pelagic species that grow slowly, mature late, and 
        have low reproduction rates.
            (6) Shark fins are often removed and retained while the 
        remainder of a shark is discarded due to the high market value 
        of shark fins relative to other parts of a shark.
            (7) Shark fins are removed primarily to be commercialized 
        as a fungible commodity.
            (8) Shark finning is the cruel practice in which the fins 
        of a shark are cut off on board a fishing vessel at sea. The 
        remainder of the animal is then thrown back into the water to 
        drown, starve, or die a slow death.
            (9) Although the United States has banned the practice of 
        shark finning aboard vessels in waters controlled by the United 
        States, there is no Federal ban on the removal and sale of 
        shark fins once the fin is brought ashore.
            (10) Once a shark fin is detached from the body, it becomes 
        impossible to determine whether the shark was legally caught or 
        the fin lawfully removed.
            (11) It is difficult to determine which species of shark a 
        fin was removed from, which is problematic because some species 
        are threatened with extinction.
            (12) The States of Texas, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, 
        Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, 
        California, and Washington and American Samoa, Guam, and the 
        North Mariana Islands have implemented bans on the sale of 
        shark fins.
            (13) Shark fins possessed, transported, offered for sale, 
        sold, or purchased anywhere in the United States are part of a 
        large international market, having a substantial and direct 
        effect on interstate commerce.
            (14) Abolition of the shark fin trade in the United States 
        will remove the United States from the global shark fin market 
        and will put the United States in a stronger position to 
        advocate internationally for abolishing the shark fin trade in 
        other countries.

SEC. 3. PROHIBITION ON SALE OF SHARK FINS.

    (a) Prohibition.--Except as provided in section 4, no person shall 
possess, transport, offer for sale, sell, or purchase shark fins or 
products containing shark fins.
    (b) Penalty.--A violation of subsection (a) shall be treated as an 
act prohibited by section 307 of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery 
Conservation and Management Act (16 U.S.C. 1857) and shall be penalized 
pursuant to section 308(a) of that Act (16 U.S.C. 1858(a)), except that 
the maximum civil penalty for each violation shall be $100,000, or the 
fair market value of the shark fins involved, whichever is greater.

SEC. 4. EXCEPTIONS.

    A person may possess a shark fin that was taken lawfully under a 
State, territorial, or Federal license or permit to take or land 
sharks, if the shark fin is separated from the shark in a manner 
consistent with the license or permit and is--
            (1) destroyed or discarded upon separation;
            (2) used for noncommercial subsistence purposes in 
        accordance with State or territorial law; or
            (3) used solely for display or research purposes by a 
        museum, college, or university, or other person under a State 
        or Federal permit to conduct noncommercial scientific research.

SEC. 5. DEFINITION OF SHARK FIN.

    In this Act, the term ``shark fin'' means--
            (1) the raw or dried or otherwise processed detached fin of 
        a shark; or
            (2) the raw or dried or otherwise processed detached tail 
        of a shark.

SEC. 6. STATE AUTHORITY.

    Nothing in this Act may be construed to preclude, deny, or limit 
any right of a State or territory to adopt or enforce any regulation or 
standard that is more stringent than a regulation or standard in effect 
under this Act.

SEC. 7. SEVERABILITY.

    If any provision of this Act or its application to any person or 
circumstance is held invalid, the invalidity does not affect other 
provisions or applications of this Act which can be given effect 
without the invalid provision or application, and to this end the 
provisions of this Act are severable.
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