[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
*** ERRATA ***
61ST MEETING OF THE
INTERNATIONAL WHALING
COMMISSION (IWC) TO BE HELD
IN MADEIRA, PORTUGAL
JUNE 22-26, 2009
=======================================================================
OVERSIGHT HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INSULAR AFFAIRS,
OCEANS AND WILDLIFE
of the
COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
__________
Serial No. 111-20
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Natural Resources
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
or
Committee address: http://resourcescommittee.house.gov
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*** ERRATA ***
This errata corrects the inadvertent omission of a letter
submitted for the record by the Makah Indian Tribe for the
hearing held by the Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans and
Wildlife on May 20, 2009. The letter has been added to the
Table of Contents and can be found on new pages 34 and 35.
CONTENTS
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Page
Hearing held on Wednesday, May 20, 2009.......................... 1
Statement of Members:
Bordallo, Hon. Madeleine Z., a Delegate in Congress from Guam 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 2
Brown, Hon. Henry E., Jr., a Representative in Congress from
the State of South Carolina................................ 3
Prepared statement of.................................... 4
Young, Hon. Don, the Representative in Congress for the State
of Alaska.................................................. 25
Prepared statement of.................................... 26
Statement of Witnesses:
Baker, C. Scott, Associate Director, Marine Mammal Institute,
and Professor, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Oregon
State University........................................... 13
Prepared statement of.................................... 15
Block, Kitty, Vice President, Humane Society International... 9
Prepared statement of.................................... 11
Hogarth, William T., Ph.D., U.S. Commissioner, International
Whaling Commission......................................... 4
Prepared statement of.................................... 6
Additional materials supplied:
Makah Indian Tribe, Statement submitted for the record....... 34
Sutley, Nancy, Chair, Council on Environmental Quality, and
Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Administrator, National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, Statement submitted for the
record..................................................... 35
34
The hearing record will be held open for 10 days for these
responses. Again, I want to thank the members of the panel for
being here. I think we have learned a great deal, and we will
continue to investigate, and hopefully something will come of
all of this as we proceed forward. So if there is no further
business before the Subcommittee, the Chairwoman again thanks
the Members of the Subcommittee and our witnesses. The
Subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:12 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Additional material submitted for the record follows:]
Statement submitted for the record by the Makah Indian Tribe
The Makah Indian Tribe has a documented 1500-year history of
whaling in the waters adjacent to its home on the most northwestern
part of the contiguous United States in Washington State. The Tribe's
subsistence culture--both past and present--relies heavily on whales
and the other abundant resources of the marine environment. Whaling is
also fundamental to Makahs' identity and social framework and is
reflected in song, dance, art and ceremonies.
The vital importance of whaling led the Tribe to insist that it be
guaranteed the right to continue harvesting these animals in its usual
and accustomed waters when it negotiated a land cession treaty with the
United States in 1855. As a result, the Treaty of Neah Bay, 12 Stat.
939 (1855), is the only treaty between the United States and an Indian
tribe that expressly secures the right to hunt whales. That right
continues, undiminished, to the present.
Despite the treaty guarantee, the Tribe voluntarily ceased whaling
in the 1920s because of the overexploitation of gray whales by non-
Indian commercial whaling operations. This decision was a direct
consequence of both the mis-management of the resource by non-Indians
and the Tribe's conservation values. Being dependant on its natural
resources, the Tribe has always sought to live in harmony with the
marine environment and utilize these resources sustainably.
When the gray whale was successfully removed from Endangered
Species Act protection in the mid-1990s, the Tribe engaged in the
complex international and domestic legal framework that had developed
since it last harvested whales seven decades earlier. The Tribe worked
closely with the United States delegation to the IWC to obtain an
aboriginal subsistence whaling quota for the Eastern North Pacific
(ENP) stock of gray whales. In 1997, the IWC approved a joint quota for
ENP gray whales for the United States and the Russian Federation, which
had long obtained quotas for use by the Chukotkan Natives of far
northeastern Russia. Through a bilateral agreement with the Russian
Federation, the United States was allocated 20 gray whales over a five-
year period for use by the Makah.
In 1999, following authorization under domestic law, the Tribe
successfully hunted a gray whale. The hunt was immensely significant
for the Tribe as the culmination of years of effort to renew the
Makahs' ceremonial and subsistence whaling tradition. The tribal
community widely supported the hunt and participated in the community
celebration and sharing of whale meat and blubber that followed. The
rigorous training and spiritual preparation of the whaling crew also
provided a focal point and positive connection to tribal history and
cultural for these individuals and their families.
Since 2000, two lawsuits under domestic law have prevented further
Makah whaling. These lawsuits involved challenges to the Government's
compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act and the
requirement of the Tribe and the Government to comply with the Marine
Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). Although the Tribe strongly disagrees
with the ruling that it must obtain a waiver of the MMPA's take
moratorium prior to undertaking a ceremonial and subsistence hunt, in
February 2005 the Tribe initiated the waiver process by submitting a
waiver request to NOAA. In the past four years, the Tribe has provided
NOAA with information necessary for the agency to prepare an
environmental impact statement (EIS) and to determine whether to waive
the take moratorium. A draft EIS was published and made available for
public comment in 2008.
Although the domestic and international processes necessary to
resume treaty whaling are complex and time consuming, the Tribe remains
committed to following these processes through to their completion and
has devoted substantial resources toward this end. Subsequent to the
initial five-year quota approved by the IWC in 1997, the Tribe has
coordinated with the United States IWC delegation and NOAA
?
35
to successfully secure renewals of the joint quota with the Russian
Federation in 2002 and 2007. The Tribe is also actively supporting the
preparation of the EIS and the ongoing MMPA waiver process.
The Tribe is actively engaged in the IWC process and the current
effort to evaluate the future of this organization and develop a
consensus on ``the way forward.'' The Tribe is concerned that the
increasing polarization of the IWC in recent years will adversely
impact future efforts of the United States to secure aboriginal
subsistence whaling quotas and the corresponding ability of the Tribe
to exercise its treaty-protected whaling rights. Unfortunately, it was
only a few years ago when issues at the center of the current dispute
over the future of the IWC resulted in the unjust (albeit temporary)
denial of an aboriginal whaling quota.
The Makah Indian Tribe urges the Subcommittee and Committee,
Congress and the United States to continue support for the joint gray
whale quota with the Russian Federation and for Makah treaty-reserved
whaling rights. The Tribe also urges the United States to strive to
preserve an international forum where all nations may come to resolve
whale conservation and scientific issues, including the limited,
scientifically based subsistence harvest of whales by aboriginal
peoples.
______
Statement submitted for the record by Nancy Sutley, Chair, Council on
Environmental Quality, and Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Administrator, National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
We have submitted this written statement to the Subcommittee in
order to respond to the request that the Obama Administration provide
its views on the upcoming 61st annual meeting of the International
Whaling Commission.
The Obama Administration began while the Future of the IWC process
was well underway. The Administration fully understands the
complexities of, and concerns regarding, this process and the key
issues facing the IWC. The Administration has asked the current United
States Commissioner, Dr. William Hogarth to hold over in his post
through the June annual meeting so that he can remain Chairman of the
Commission, a position that he holds as an individual. We appreciate
Dr. Hogarth's leadership as both U.S. Commissioner and IWC Chair and
his success at bringing a respectful level of discourse among the IWC
members as they discuss the difficult issues facing the IWC. We expect
the President to appoint a new U.S. Commissioner to replace Dr. Hogarth
following the end of this year's IWC meeting.
As we have stated earlier, the Administration would like to see the
International Whaling Commission (IWC) serve as the premier
international forum to resolve current and emerging whale conservation
issues and coordinate critical research. In this context, conservation
of whales is of the utmost priority to the Obama Administration. Most
importantly, the United States continues to view the commercial whaling
moratorium as a necessary conservation measure because the abundance of
most whale stocks are either too unknown, too low, or still recovering,
and there is not yet an effective, comprehensive conservation scheme
for whales that will guarantee their survival.
The Administration also strongly opposes lethal scientific whaling
and considers it unnecessary in modern whale conservation management,
and believes that the use of objections, reservations and an expansive
interpretation of Article VIII (special permit scientific whaling)
undermine the moratorium and the institution. The Administration
moreover has significant concerns over the recent resumption of
international trade of whale meat with imports by Japan, and exports by
Iceland and Norway.
Nevertheless, the Administration is committed to furthering
discussions of critical issues within the IWC because it is important
for the IWC to function effectively. The IWC should be a model for
international cooperation on the conservation and use of a shared
global resource. It is important for us now to try to find common
ground among IWC members, which are many of the same nations with whom
we need to cooperate on even more urgent international environmental
matters. However, we reserve judgment on various proposals regarding a
way forward on the IWC until discussions are completed, which, in our
view must occur before the annual meeting in 2010. The time to resolve
these issues is now. It is our view that any resolution of outstanding
issues, to be acceptable, must result in a significant improvement in
the conservation status of whales and be based on sound science.
In closing, the failure to resolve these issues is not an
acceptable outcome to the United States. We intend to use the
Administration's influence to achieve a resolution by 2010 that will
ensure the long-term functioning of the IWC, and greater protections
for the world's great whales.