[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 12 (Wednesday, February 9, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 9, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
  ON THE RETIREMENT OF WAYNE C. LEWIS, SPECIAL AGENT FOR THE NATIONAL 
                        MARINE FISHERIES SERVICE

                                 ______


                          HON. JOLENE UNSOELD

                             of washington

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 9, 1994

  Mrs. UNSOELD. Mr. Speaker, those of us in this Chamber who fought a 
long war against the use of large-scale driftnet fishing on the high 
seas are about to lose a valuable partner and an unsung hero in the 
battle.
  Wayne C. Lewis, the special agent in Charge of Enforcement for the 
Northwest Region of the National Marine Fisheries Service, is retiring 
this month. He is leaving behind a 23-year legacy as a Special Agent 
with NMFS, the last several of which saw the agency document the 
enormous--and illegal--profits that were being reaped by driftnet 
pirate fleets in the North Pacific Ocean.
  I'll never forget the first contact that members of my staff and I 
made with Wayne Lewis. In 1989, shortly after I had been elected to 
Congress, fisheries groups in my district told me about the devastation 
being wrought by large-scale driftnets, those 30- to 40-mile-long 
curtains of death that were wantonly killing all the non-target fish, 
seabirds and marine mammals unlucky enough to cross their path. I 
initiated legislation to ban large-scale driftnet fishing, only to be 
told by the Bush administration that this wasn't really a big problem 
and that they opposed my legislation. But Wayne Lewis knew better.
  By then, he and his fellow special agents were a couple of years into 
a series of investigations and sting operations that helped the United 
States understand just how enormous, just how damaging, and just how 
profitable Asian driftnet fleets really were. In a 6-year period, NMFS 
special agents seized over one million pounds of salmon illegally 
imported into the United States from Singapore, Hong Kong and other Far 
Eastern ports. Subsequently they amassed evidence showing that U.S.-
origin salmon and steelhead were a part of the illegal shipments. NMFS 
documented that nearly 10 million pounds of salmon illegally caught by 
large-scale driftnets was smuggled through the United States and later 
sold in Japan. Millions more pounds were stored and brokered in 
Singapore and Hong Kong, millions more canned in Thailand and sold in 
Europe, and millions more laundered through the People's Republic of 
China for later sale on the world market.
  Mr. Speaker, without Wayne Lewis we might never have been able to 
overcome the opposition and get legislation through Congress banning 
large-scale driftnets. We might never have been able to lobby for--and 
achieve--a U.N.-imposed global ban on large-scale driftnetting. And we 
might never have been able to pass legislation providing for sanctions 
and other measures against those who violated the worldwide ban.
  To give all of you an idea of what efficient killing machines these 
driftnets were, I would ask you to envision a monofilament mesh net 
stretching from Washington, DC almost to Baltimore. The North Pacific 
used to be a haven for these nets. Now--though we need more 
international cooperation to enforce the driftnet ban--the waters of 
the North Pacific are largely free of these killing machines. And we 
have people like Wayne Lewis and the people who worked with him to 
thank.
  Mr. Speaker, let us wish the happy retirement that he so richly 
deserves. I hope he will have a chance to fish for some of the salmon 
and steelhead that are still left in our waters.

                          ____________________