[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 9 (Wednesday, January 29, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S789-S792]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TUNA-DOLPHIN BILL
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, last week, Senators Stevens and Breaux
introduced a bill S. 39, that would significantly weaken protections
for dolphins in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean by rewriting--
gutting--the ``dolphin safe'' tuna labeling law that Senator Biden and
I wrote and urged into law in 1990.
Today, the $1 billion U.S. canned tuna market is a dolphin safe
market. Consumers know that the dolphin safe label means that dolphins
were not chased, harassed, captured, or killed.
Our definition of dolphin safe became law for all the right reasons.
Those reasons are still valid today:
First, for the consumers, who were opposed to the encirclement of
dolphins with purse seine nets and wanted guarantees that the tuna they
consume did not result in harassment, capture, and killing of dolphins;
second, for the U.S. tuna companies, who wanted a uniform definition
that would not undercut their voluntary efforts to remain dolphin-safe;
third, for the dolphins, to avoid harassment, injury and deaths by
encirclement; and fourth, for truth in labeling.
Our law has been a huge success. Annual dolphin deaths have declined
from 60,000 in 1990 to under 3,000 in 1995. Why mess with success?
The Stevens-Breaux bill would permit more dolphins to be killed than
are killed now.
The bill promotes the chasing and encirclement of dolphins, a tuna
fishing practice that is very dangerous to dolphins. It does so by
gutting the meaning of dolphin safe, the label which must appear on all
tuna sold in the United States. The ``dolphin safe'' label has worked:
it doesn't need to be updated, as the bill's sponsors claim.
A number of arguments have been made in support of the Stevens-Breaux
bill which I would like refute at this time.
1. ENVIRONMENTAL SUPPORT
Bill supporters claim that it is supported by the environmental
community. In fact, only a few environmental groups support the
Stevens-Breaux bill, while over 85 environmental, consumer, animal
protection, labor, and trade groups oppose the Stevens-Breaux bill. I
ask unanimous consent to insert a list of these groups in the Record at
the conclusion of my remarks. The fact is that the vast majority of
environmental organizations in this country and around the world oppose
the Stevens-Breaux bill.
2. EMBARGO ON TUNA
The bill's supporters say that it is unreasonable for the United
States to continue to impose a unilateral embargo on other fishing
nations that wish to sell tuna in our country. I agree. It is time to
lift the embargo. That is why Senator Biden and I, and a number of our
colleagues, introduced legislation in the last session of Congress that
would lift the country by country embargo against tuna that is caught
by dolphin safe methods. Our bill would give all tuna fishermen the
opportunity to export to the U.S. market as long as they use dolphin
safe practices. In other words, we would open the U.S. market and
comply with international trade agreements without gutting U.S. dolphin
protection laws.
We have offered repeatedly over the past year to sit down and
negotiate a compromise with the administration. We have stated
repeatedly that we agree it is appropriate to lift the embargo. We want
to reach a compromise that is in the best interest of the American
consumer, dolphins, and our U.S. tuna processing industry.
[[Page S790]]
3. SCIENCE
Supporters of the Stevens-Breaux bill believe that we should return
to chasing and setting nets on dolphins because bycatch of other marine
species is minimized. I believe that in order to sustain our renewable
marine resources, we need to take a comprehensive ecosystem approach. I
also recognize that management of a single species does not always
produce benefits for the entire ecosystem. The bycatch of juvenile tuna
and other marine species including endangered turtles, is an issue of
concern that must be addressed. However, the bycatch arguments used by
supporters of this bill are not based on solid science. We need more
research before we can establish that bycatch is a problem.
4. OBSERVERS ON BOATS
Under the scheme supported by this bill, tuna fishing boats would
continue to have only one observer on each. Currently, that one
observer only has to observe whether or not a purse seine net was used
on dolphins. If a net was deployed, the tuna caught on that fishing
trip cannot be labeled ``dolphin safe''. Under the scheme in the
Stevens-Breaux bill, an observer would have to see whether there are
any dead dolphins in the nets that are used to catch tuna. These nets
are huge--1\1/2\ miles long. How can we expect one single observer to
know whether or not a dolphin died in a mile-and-a-half long net? This
observer scheme would be unworkable and unenforceable. It also ignores
all injuries to dolphin during the chase and encirclement process which
can lead to eventual death.
5. INTERNATIONAL OBLIGATION
During the last session, the Panama Declaration was repeatedly
referred to as a tuna-dolphin treaty, and it was suggested that unless
the Senate passed the Stevens-Breaux bill, the United States was
somehow reneging on a binding international agreement. This is simply
untrue. It is a completely inaccurate characterization of the issue.
Mr. President, there is no tuna-dolphin treaty.
No treaty was signed by the United States or any other nation on the
subject of tuna fishing and the killing of dolphins in the eastern
tropical Pacific.
No treaty was submitted to the Senate for ratification, as required
by the Case-Zablocki Act.
No treaty was referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
None of these things happened because there is no treaty.
The agreement that the Stevens-Breaux bill relates to is neither a
treaty nor an international agreement. The so-called Panama Declaration
is only a political statement--an agreement to agree in the future on a
binding international agreement.
The declaration sets forth a series of principles which will
ultimately be contained in this yet-to-be-drafted international
agreement. But these principles are so vague and largely hortatory that
they cannot possibly be read as imposing legal obligations.
If there were any doubt that the United States did not intend to be
bound by this declaration, we need only turn to the statement issued by
the United States representative to the meeting in Panama.
The U.S. Administration supports this initiative which is
an important step on the road to a permanent, binding
instrument . . . The initiative . . . is contingent upon
changes in U.S. legislation . . . The U.S. Administration
needs to work with our Congress on this . . . We do not want
to mislead anyone here as to what the final outcome of that
process might be.
It is clear that the administration was not binding the United States
to anything, other than to work with the Congress to enact this
legislation.
That is the commitment of the United States. It is nothing more. If
we don't pass the Stevens-Breaux bill, no binding agreement will have
been broken, no international treaty obligation will have been
violated.
In summary, the arguments made by the supporters of the Stevens-
Breaux legislation--arguments of fact as well as arguments of law--are
unsupportable. The bill is not needed for any convincing scientific or
environmental purpose, and is not needed to meet any binding obligation
of the United States.
I remain committed to blocking this legislation in its current form.
I also remain committed to reaching a compromise solution.
We have stated repeatedly that we agree it is appropriate to lift the
embargo. We want to reach a compromise that is in the best interest of
the American consumer, dolphins, and our U.S. tuna processing industry.
I ask unanimous consent that the following material be printed in the
Record immediately following my statement: First a letter to Senator
Boxer from internationally renowned marine scientist Jacques-Yves
Cousteau opposing the Stevens-Breaux proposed change of the definition
of dolphin safe; second, a set of opinion pieces and a letter to the
editor from Time magazine, the Washington Post, and the Journal of
Commerce, and third, the list of bill opponents referred to earlier.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Opponents of the Stevens-Breaux Bill
Action for Animals, California; Americans for Democratic
Action, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals, American Oceans Campaign, American Humane
Association, Animal Protection Institute, Ark Trust,
Australians for Animals, Bellerive Foundation, Italy &
Switzerland; Born Free Foundation, Brigantine New Jersey
Marine Mammal Stranding Center, BREACH, UK; Cetacea Defense,
Chicago Animals Rights Coalition, Clean Water Action,
Coalition for No Whales in Captivity, Coalition Against the
United States Exporting Dolphins, Florida; Coalition for
Humane Legislation, Colorado Plateau Ecology Alliance,
Committee for Humane Legislation, Community Nutrition
Institute.
Defenders of Wildlife, Dolphin Project Interlock
International, Dolphin Connection, California; Dolphin
Freedom Foundation, Dolphin Defenders, Florida; Dolphin Data
Base, Dolphin Alliance, Inc.; Doris Day Animal League, Earth
Island Institute, EarthTrust, Education and Action for
Animals, Endangered Species Project, Inc.; European Network
for Dolphins, Federation for Industrial Retention and
Renewal, Fondation Brigitte Bardot, France; Friends of the
Earth, Friends of Animals, Friends for the Protection of
Marine Life, Friends of the Dolphins, California; Fund for
Animals, Fundacion Fauna Argentina, Hoosier Environmental
Council, Humane Society of Canada, Humane Society of the
Midlands, Humane Society International, Humane Society of the
United States.
In Defense of Animals, Institute for Agriculture and Trade
Policy, Interhemispheric Resource Center, International
Brotherhood of Teamsters, International Dolphin Project,
International Wildlife Coalition, International Union of
Electronic Workers, Irish Whale and Dolphin Society,
Lifeforce Foundation, Maine Green Party, Marine Mammal Fund,
Massachusetts Audubon Society, Midwest Center for Labor
Research, National Consumers League, National Family Farm
Coalition, Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers International,
Pacific Orca Society, Canada; People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals, Performing Animal Welfare Society,
Progressive Animal Welfare Society.
Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, Pure Food Campaign,
Reearth, Reseau-Cetaces, France; San Diego Animal Advocates,
Sierra Club, Society for Animal Protective Legislation, South
Carolina Association for Marine Mammal Protection, South
Carolina Humane Society of Columbia, The Free Corky Project,
UNITE, Vier Pfoten, Austria and Germany; Whale Tales Press,
Whale Rescue Team, Whale and Dolphin Welfare Committee of
Ireland, Whale and Dolphin Society of Canada, Working Group
for the Protection of Marine Mammals, Switzerland; Zoocheck,
Canada.
The Cousteau Society,
Chesapeake, VA, July 12, 1996.
Hon. Barbara Boxer,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Boxer: Thank you for your letter about the
Panama Declaration. Here at The Cousteau Society/Equipe
Cousteau, my staff has been following the heated discussions
among environmental organizations about the Declaration and
pertinent legislation in the United States.
We agree with the proponents of the Panama Declaration that
it is time to move away from trade sanctions and toward
engaging all tuna-fishing nations in a commitment to
techniques that are truly dolphin-safe. At the same time, we
cannot accept a compromise that approves of catching tuna by
chasing and encircling dolphins. We have faith that the
nations involved can find a better solution.
Our best wishes to you in your work.
Sincerely,
Jacques-Yves Cousteau.
____
[From the Monitor, Mar. 4, 1996]
Chicken of the Sea?--A ``Dolphin-Safe'' Tuna Flap Makes the U.S. Squirm
(By Eugene Linden)
Call it the flipper flip-flop. A squabble over attempt to
amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act is forging some
strange alliances even as it opens up a bitter rift in the
environmental movement. In the end, it may be business
interests--once the villains in the
[[Page S791]]
piece but now terrified of a boycott by dolphin-loving
consumers--that decide the matter.
At issue are amendments to the 1972 act, which forbade
imports of tuna caught using nets to encircle dolphins that
for unexplained reasons swim together with tuna in parts of
the Pacific. Before the act, this method suffocated as many
as 500,000 of the marine mammals each year. After 1972,
American fishermen drastically reduced their dolphin kill,
but in the 1980s the number of dolphins killed by foreign
boats rose dramatically.
Then in 1989, environmental activist Sam LaBudde galvanized
public opinion by releasing dramatic videos of drowning
dolphins. In 1990, StarKist, the world's largest tuna canner,
responding to consumer sentiment, announced that it would buy
only tuna caught by other methods. That same year, LaBudde's
group, Earth Island Institute, successfully sued the Bush
Administration to bar tuna imports from Mexico and other
Latin American countries that failed to protect dolphins.
European nations followed suit, which extended the embargo to
an estimated 80% of the canned-tuna consumer market.
Mexico promptly filed an international trade complaint. But
it also took steps to reduce dolphin deaths, and by 1995 the
number of dolphins killed by tuna fishermen annually had
dropped below 5,000 worldwide--demonstrating, Mexicans
assert, that fishing boats can encircle dolphins without
killing the animals. The U.S. and a coalition of green groups
met with Latin nations in Panama last October to hammer out
new guidelines for environmentally sound tuna fishing. Their
declaration permits encirclement so long as onboard observers
certify that no dolphin drowned during the netting operation,
and its provisions became the basis for a bill introduced by
Alaska Senator Ted Stevens that would, among other things,
lift the U.S. embargo. California Senator Barbara Boxer, a
Democrat, has introduced a competing bill that would also
lift the sanctions on the Latin nations but maintain them on
individual vessels that catch tuna by encirclement of
dolphins.
Proving once again that politics makes strange bedfellows,
the Clinton Administration has sided with Stevens--a leader
of Republican efforts to roll back environmental
regulations--as have the Environmental Defense Fund, the
World Wildlife Federation and the Center for Marine
Conservation. They argue that unless the Latin nations are
given credit for their efforts, they will simply resume their
bad old ways. Meanwhile, Earth Island Institute, the Sierra
Club, the Humane Society and Friends of the Earth vehemently
oppose the Stevens bill and support Boxer's charging that the
delegation in Panama sold out the dolphins to free trade.
Proponents of the Boxer bill say complicated enforcement
procedures and the potential for corruption under the Stevens
bill will mean that dolphin deaths will rise again.
Proponents of the Stevens bill argue that the alternatives to
encircling dolphins have proved destructive to both tuna
populations and other species, such as sea turtles and
sharks. All that leaves Anthony O'Reilly, chairman of H.J.
Heinz Co., which owns StarKist, loath to make any change that
might be misinterpreted by dolphin-loving consumers. ``I
believe the definition should not be changed in the absence
of consensus of scientists and public opinion,'' he says. And
he's the one who has to move the goods.
____
[From the Washington Post, July 23, 1996]
``Dolphin-Safe'' Claim is in Danger
(By Colman McCarthy)
On the label of every can of tuna sold in the United States
is the phrase ``dolphin safe.'' This means that tuna were not
caught by intentionally setting encircling nets on dolphins.
In the Eastern Pacific Ocean, fleets locate the deeper-
swimming tuna by tracking dolphins.
The story of how ``dolphin safe'' came to be imprinted on
labels is proof that environmentally harmful practices can be
turned around when enough well-organized citizens demand it.
Credit is shared by schoolchildren, their parents and
teachers who threatened to boycott tuna because dolphins were
also killed in the catch, and by such groups as the Humane
Society of the United States, which has been toiling on this
marine issue for more than 20 years.
Legislatively, the Dolphin Consumer Information Act was
passed in 1990. Then came the International Dolphin
Conservation Act, which bans the import and sale of tuna
caught in nets that encircle dolphins. Both laws represent
years of work by progressive politicians to ensure that
dolphins are nearly as safe as they were before tuna fleets
took to the high seas in 1959 with deadly mile-long purse
seine nets. Over three decades, more than 7 million died in
the nets. Under the laws, dolphin mortality has been reduced
by 96 percent.
In politics, success in one thing, defending it another.
The integrity of the legislation, as well as the safety of
dolphins, is at serious risk. The problem is not with the
domestic tuna fleet. California-based, it amounts to only a
half-dozen boats and with the owner eschewing settings nets
on dolphins. It is the fleets of a few foreign nations--
Mexico mainly, which has nearly 40 factory boats in the
eastern Pacific--that want to market dolphin-unsafe tuna in
the United States.
Mexico's fishers and their lobbyists in Washington are
taking comfort in legislation offered by Sens. Ted Stevens
(R-Alaska) and John Breaux (D-La.). Their bill, which
recently was approved by a Republican controlled committee,
would redefine ``dolphin safe'' to something like ``Well,
pretty safe.'' Dolphins would be fair game for nets, along
with the practice of helicopters and speedboats chasing the
traumatized creatures into them.
To ward off troublesome school kids who like dolphins and
might take to boycotting again, the Stevens-Breaux bill
requires the fishers to ``back down''--release dolphins from
the nets while still tightening them around tuna. If no
dolphins were ``observed'' dead in the nets, the dolphin-safe
claim could be made.
Now the waters murk up. Even if an independent-minded
observer can be found and be given the run of the factory
boat by the Mexican captain, how precisely can one person
monitor a mile's worth of nets in a waving sea? What about
when they are sleeping or down below eating? What if the
captain who isn't likely to be a dues-paying member of the
Humane Society, disputes the observer's count of dead
dolphins? Whose word is to be believed?
And then there is the effectiveness of enforcement. Jeffrey
Pike of the Dolphin Safe Fair Trade Campaign, a group opposed
to Stevens-Breaux, testified before Congress on the lack of
enforcement powers by the Inter-American Tropical Tuna
Commission, a regulatory group. When observers have cited the
deaths of dolphins, ``the reports are not acted on'' by the
commission. ``To date, despite the fact that hundreds of
violations have been reported, no monetary fines have been
collected or penalties assessed. . . . In 1994, during four
trips IATTC observers reported that they were prohibited by
the vessel captain from carrying out their duties, an offense
for which . . . a penalty of $50,000 each for the captain and
vessel owners [is recommended]. In no case was the penalty
collected.''
Congress and U.S. courts are powerless to regulate Mexican
and other Latin fleets in international waters. They do have
power--and are exerting it through legislation--to ban the
import and sale of dolphin-unsafe tuna. Legislation offered
by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) does not lower dolphin
protection standards. Stevens-Breaux supporters argue that if
U.S. laws aren't modified, Mexico will drop its economic
anchor in countries that lack dolphin-safe requirements.
This argument drowns in a deep sea of facts. The United
Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reports that 90
percent of the world's consumers of tuna live in the United
States, Canada and Europe, which impose dolphin-safe
requirements. Mexico, like the U.S. tuna fleet before it, had
better face economic reality, even as it may find the
environmental kind unpalatable.
It comes down to language on labels. The public wants the
factual words ``dolphin safe'' on the cans. It doesn't want
dolphin deadly.
____
[From the Journal of Commerce, Jan. 2, 1997]
Dolphins, Tuna and Trade
(By Rodger Schlickeisen)
A Dec. 16 editorial endorsed the Stevens-Breaux bill as the
best approach for continuing the decline in dolphin
mortalities and implementing the Panama Agreement for an
enforceable fishery management policy in the eastern Pacific
Ocean. As members of Congress long involved with this issue,
we take exception to this statement of support.
Despite popular sentiment behind the current ``dolphin
safe'' label--which means what it says--the Stevens-Breaux
bill would allow tuna caught using deadly netting and
encirclement techniques to be sold as ``dolphin safe'' as
long as no one saw any dolphins die. Supporters of the
Stevens-Breaux bill argue that because an international
observer will be on each tuna boat in the eastern Pacific
Ocean, dolphin mortality will be easily monitored and
controlled. That argument just doesn't hold water. One
observer cannot possibly monitor the entire catch of a 100-
foot vessel or investigate the contents of a mile-long purse
seine net, particularly when the deadly dolphin chase is
being carried out by speedboats traveling ahead of the mother
ship with no observers on board.
Another assertion by the bill's proponents--that unless we
weaken our laws substantially, international fishing
operations will soon abandon the U.S. market and its dolphin-
safe fishing techniques in favor of the lucrative and
permissive Asian and Latin American markets--also lacks any
credibility. The fact is that the U.S. market remains the
world's largest, accounting for more than 60 percent of
global tuna sales. And the European Community, the second-
largest market, has dolphin-safe tuna practices that
practically mirror the Boxer-Biden bill. Together, the United
States and European Community dominate the world's tuna
market.
Ultimately, the victim of this extreme effort to gut
dolphin protection laws would be not only the dolphins, but
also American consumers. By changing the definition of
``dolphin safe,'' as the Stevens-Breaux bill proposes, even
tuna caught by killing hundreds or thousands of dolphins
could conceivably receive this label.
[[Page S792]]
There is a better way: The Boxer-Biden International
Dolphin Protection and Consumer Information Act of 1995. This
bill maintains every word of the current dolphin-safe
definition, while continuing the existing ban on selling all
other types of tuna. Our bill also makes the necessary
changes in current law to incorporate the Panama Agreement (a
broad management plan for the eastern Pacific Ocean recently
signed by the United States and 11 other countries).
Most significantly, our bill provides an important
incentive for foreign and domestic tuna fishermen to fish in
a dolphin-safe manner: access to the U.S. market. Under our
bill, the ban on all tuna imports from countries that don't
exclusively follow dolphin-safe practices will be amended to
allow fishermen who use these methods to sell that tuna in
the vast $1 billion U.S. market. This important modification
will reward those who have altered their fishing methods and
encourage the rest to follow suit.
____
[From the Journal of Commerce, Aug. 2, 1996]
Dolphins, Tuna and Trade
(By Rodger Schlickeisen)
The debate over tuna-dolphin legislation, which reached the
floor of the House of Representatives this week, has become
as tangled as an old fishing net. But it unravels to one
basic reality: The Clinton administration and a few
environmental groups are pushing legislation that would
weaken the ``dolphin-safe'' program and allow the slaughter
of thousands of dolphins annually. While this harmful
legislation passed the House this week, there is still time
to stop it when a companion bill reaches the Senate floor
after the August congressional recess.
Thanks to the efforts of millions of schoolchildren and a
coalition of conservation groups, since 1990 U.S. law has
provided labels on cans to let consumers know whether tuna
was caught by dolphin-safe methods.
Tuna in the eastern tropical Pacific tend to school beneath
dolphins, so historically fishermen set nets on the dolphins
to catch the tuna below, killing at least 7 million dolphins
since the 1950s. Dolphin mortality has dropped dramatically,
however, since the U.S. embargo of dolphin-unsafe tuna
imports.
After its string of environmental victories against a
hostile Congress, why would the administration seek to weaken
such a popular environmental program and hand opponents an
opportunity to regain ground on the environment? Considering
that the majority of environmental organizations support the
current dolphin-safe standard, why would a few support
regression to a discredited method of fishing?
The answer is that Flipper has become entangled in deadly
trade politics. Latin American countries are pressuring the
administration to lift the embargo, which Mexico has
challenged successfully before the World Trade Organization.
They not only want to settle this longstanding dispute, but
help boost the Mexican economy before the November election,
in which Nafta will be an issue. Some want to appease
Mexico's demands because they fear foreign tuna boat
operators otherwise will abandon any safeguards.
Mexican lobbyists have convinced the administration that
only changing the definition of dolphin-safe can ensure them
access to the U.S. market, despite the fact that roughly a
dozen Mexican tuna boats already fish dolphin-safe. The bill
promoted by the administration would change the current
definition to allow a dolphin-safe label on tuna caught by
encircling, harassing and chasing dolphins--as long as no
``observed'' dolphin deaths occurred.
The assumptions of bill proponents are based on misleading
industry information. For example, although they say 10
million dolphins exist in the eastern tropical Pacific, the
tuna mostly follow two imperilled populations--spotted and
spinner dolphins--which represent only a tiny fraction of the
claimed millions. Although these two populations were
recently listed as ``depleted'' under the Marine Mammal
Protection Act, the administration proposal would allow
setting nets on them.
Bill proponents claim that dolphin-safe fishing methods
cause by-catch of other marine life such as sea turtles and
sharks. They also claim that ``new'' techniques have been
developed that make netting dolphins safer.
Marine biologist and tuna boat owner John Hall scoffs at
those claims. He says the method of releasing dolphins from
nets was developed by U.S. fishermen three decades ago and
their recent adoption by some foreign fishermen has brought
about no measurable protection for spotted and spinner
dolphins. Moreover, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture
Organization states that this fishery's by-catch under the
present dolphin-safe definition is among the lowest in the
world.
Furthermore, ``observed'' dolphin deaths under the new
definition would not account for all deaths, according to
Albert Myrick, who has coordinated U.S. research on dolphin
stress. Current data strongly suggest that dolphins
experience physiological damage and death after release from
nets.
We lack viable means of ensuring that dolphins will not be
killed when fishing nets are set on them. This year Mexican
fishermen are known to have thrown observers off their boats.
Many involved in the fishery are unconvinced that the present
observer system can handle the intensive monitoring that
enforcement of the new definition would require.
A grass-roots coalition of more than 80 environmental,
consumer and animal welfare groups oppose weakening the
present dolphin-safe standard.
U.S. tuna canneries, which six years ago went dolphin-safe
in the face of unprecedented public pressure, also are
concerned.
They rightly fear that they not only could lose their hard-
won competitive advantage over foreign dolphin-unsafe
canneries, but also again face boycotts over the misleading
new label.
Ironically, if the president would abandon his attempt to
change the definition of dolphin-safe, improvements could be
made.
All agree that the present practice of embargoing all tuna
from a country like Mexico for the behavior of a few bad
fishermen is counterproductive.
We could allow the dolphin-safe tuna from Mexican fishermen
to gain access immediately to the U.S. market.
This politically smart move also would be the right one.
____________________