[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 23 (Monday, February 8, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S574-S576]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTION
By Mrs. FEINSTEIN (for herself and Mrs. Capito):
S. 273. A bill to improve the management of driftnet fishing; to the
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce the
``Driftnet Modernization and Bycatch Reduction Act.'' I thank Senator
Capito for her cosponsorship as well as continued partnership on this
important legislation.
This bipartisan bill passed the Senate last Congress by unanimous
consent and then passed the House of Representatives in December 2020.
Unfortunately, then President Trump chose to veto the bill based on
misguided policy and inaccurate data.
I urge my colleagues to once again support this bill, which solely
affects California fishery management, but has far-reaching beneficial
impacts for a wide range of marine animals, including endangered
species. This legislation modernizes a commercial fishery to promote
sustainable fishery management and creates a win-win for conservation
goals and commercial fishing profitability.
The Issue
Large mesh drift gillnets, as defined in this legislation, have a
mesh hole size of 14 inches or greater and are used to target swordfish
and thresher shark off the California coast. However, alarmingly, these
nets utilized by this one fishery in Federal waters, according to NOAA,
are responsible for 90% of porpoise and dolphin deaths in all west
coast fisheries combined.
These substantially sized nets are between 1 and 1.5 miles long and
extend more than 100 feet below the ocean's surface. This creates a
``net wall'' that ensnares approximately 60 non-target species, known
as bycatch, leading to severe harm or drowning of endangered marine
turtles, whales, dolphin, and numerous fish species.
In addition to being banned everywhere else in the United States and
in
[[Page S575]]
some international waters, these specific nets were also banned in
California's state waters in 2018. This bill would bring much needed
parity to state and federal laws on the west coast.
After the State ban, a large majority of the remaining commercial
fishery using drift gillnet gear voluntarily turned in their permits to
the State and received compensation to transition to alternative,
sustainable gear, such as deep set buoy gear.
This bill is critically needed to complete the transition of the
fishery and provide Federal partnership to the successful State
program. The Federal waters off the California coast are the last place
in the United States where these dangerous nets are still used.
How our bill would help
This bill is identical to the legislation that passed in the 116th
Congress. It provides a common-sense solution by phasing out drift
gillnets over a five-year period from enactment in favor of more
sustainable alternatives, such as deep-set buoy gear. This sustainable
gear has already been proven to yield higher market prices for
fishermen and considerably reduces the amount of bycatch.
In fact, 2020 landings data from the PacFIN database for swordfish
shows that drift gillnet gear caught only 19.8 metric tons of swordfish
at an average of $3.62 per pound yielding a total of $157,728. In the
same fishing season, deep set buoy gear caught 79.4 metric tons of
swordfish at an average of $5.88 per pound for a total value of
$1,028,932. Important to note, deep set buoy gear also had an extremely
low bycatch rate--less than 2 percent--illustrating how this fishery
can be both more sustainable and profitable.
The transition program includes a grant authorization for Federal
funding to match State funds for local fishermen to exchange their
current permits and purchase new, sustainable gear.
This bill has broad support at the State and Federal level, as well
as national groups such as American Sportfishing Association and
Oceana.
In addition, this bill includes a provision important to the Pacific
halibut fishery in Alaska that I have worked with Senator Sullivan and
the Commerce Committee to include.
The provision would enable the Secretary of Commerce to approve
certain charter vessel operators who guide recreational anglers and
harvest Pacific halibut in certain federal waters to collect fees that
would fund the Recreational Quota Entity Program for the purposes of
halibut conservation and research.
I look forward to working with my colleagues to once again pass the
``Driftnet Modernization and Bycatch Reduction Act'', and I urge them
to support the swift passage of this bipartisan bill.
Thank you once again to Senator Capito and to Commerce Committee
leadership, Senator Cantwell and Senator Wicker for their assistance on
this important legislation.
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the Floor.
______
By Mr. REED (for himself, Mr. Burr, Ms. Smith, and Mr. Scott of
South Carolina):
S. 288. A bill to reauthorize the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research
Act of 2005, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Health,
Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce the Timely
Reauthorization of Necessary Stem Cell Programs Lends Access to Needed
Therapies (TRANSPLANT) Act of 2021 with Senators Richard Burr, Tina
Smith, and Tim Scott. This bill offers promise to the tens of thousands
of individuals diagnosed with leukemia and lymphomas, sickle cell
anemia, and rare genetic blood disorders.
Our bipartisan legislation renews the C. W. Bill Young Cell
Transplantation Program and the National Cord Blood Inventory (NCBI),
the only programs in the Country that maintain donor registries for
individuals in need of a bone marrow and umbilical cord blood
transplantation. Over twenty-two million Americans are registered bone
marrow donors resulting in nearly 6,500 transplants just last year. In
the years since NCBI was established, more than 300,000 cord blood
units have been collected, facilitating more than 100,000 blood stem
cell transplants. The TRANSPLANT Act would reaffirm the commitment to
these life-saving programs, which have been helping to connect
individuals in need of bone marrow or umbilical cord blood transplants
with donors for more than two decades.
The public registries, made up of donors from all over the country,
have been a true lifeline for the Americans who have found an unrelated
match. By strengthening and enhancing the important programs operating
these registries, many more Americans will be afforded the opportunity
to find a match if they are ever in need. I look forward to swift
consideration of this legislation in the Senate Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions Committee and working toward passage in the full
Senate.
______
By Mr. WARNER (for himself, Ms. Hirono, Ms. Klobuchar, and Mr.
Kaine):
S. 299. A bill to amend section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934
to reaffirm civil rights, victims' rights, and consumer protections; to
the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Safeguarding
Against Fraud, Exploitation, Threats, Extremism and Consumer Harms Act,
also known as the SAFE TECH Act. I thank my colleagues, Senator Warner
and Senator Klobuchar, for working with me on this important piece of
legislation, which fulfills the promise of Section 230 of the
Communications Decency Act by forcing internet companies to finally
address the serious harms their platforms cause--harms like civil
rights and human rights violations, stalking and harassment, and
wrongful death.
Section 230--often called the law that created the internet--was
passed in 1996. For some context, in 1996, Google was two years from
being founded. Mark Zuckerberg was in middle school. And, the internet
effectively shut down for nineteen hours when a technical glitch took
American Online offline.
The law was passed with a noble goal in mind: to encourage operators
of then-nascent internet message boards to act as ``Good Samaritans''
and voluntarily police illegal and harmful content posted by third
parties. Section 230 accomplished this goal by declaring that ``[n]o
provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as
the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another
information content provider.'' These twenty-six words have effectively
shielded internet platforms from liability for any harm caused by
content posted by third parties for the past twenty-five years.
Unfortunately, whatever incentive Section 230 was meant to provide to
encourage internet platforms to police content has proven to be no
incentive at all. The statute's broad immunity applies whether a
platform carefully reviews each piece of content posted by a user or
performs no content moderation whatsoever. It immunizes platforms that
have actual knowledge illegal content has been posted. It even applies
if the platform itself encouraged the user to post the content. The
result has been internet platforms large and small turning a blind eye
to the real-world harms they cause.
Let me tell you about a few of those real-world harms.
Over the course of five months in late 2016 and early 2017, Matthew
Herrick was harassed and physically assaulted by men directed to his
home and office by the gay dating app Grindr. These men--over 1,100 in
total--were responding to a fake profile created by Mr. Herrick's ex-
boyfriend. Grindr was on notice of both the fake profile and its
harmful effects. Mr. Herrick and his friends filed approximately fifty
reports with the company reporting the problem and seeking help. But
the company did nothing while Mr. Herrick suffered.
On October 21, 2012, Radcliffe Haughton walked into a Wisconsin spa
and shot and killed three women, including his estranged wife, and
wounded four others before turning the gun on himself. He had purchased
the gun the prior day from a private seller he found on the online gun
marketplace Armslist.com. He was able to purchase the gun even though
his wife had recently obtained a domestic abuse restraining order that
specifically prohibited Mr. Haughton from purchasing
[[Page S576]]
a gun. For all intents and purposes, Armslist was designed to
facilitate such illegal sales. It precluded users from flagging illegal
sales; it allowed people to anonymously purchase guns without a
background check; and it enabled prohibited purchasers to search only
for sellers that did not check criminal backgrounds or keep records.
Mr. Haughton took advantage of these features and, as a result, three
people are dead.
On August 25, 2020, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two
people and injured a third on the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin during
a protest of the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Mr. Rittenhouse was
one of many armed, right-wing counter-protesters encouraged to travel
to Kenosha by a Facebook page run by a group called ``Kenosha Guard''
that asked if any followers would be willing to ``take up arms and
defend [the city] from the evil thugs.'' Despite being flagged to
Facebook at least 455 times as a call to violence, the company left the
page up.
In none of these cases did Grindr, Armslist, and Facebook act like
``Good Samaritans.'' They did not voluntarily police the content on
their platforms. Instead, they either actively encouraged or turned a
blind eye to dangerous and illegal content knowing full well Section
230 immunized them for any harm their platforms caused. Any attempt by
victims to hold the platforms accountable for their roles would be
blocked by Section 230.
Under the SAFE TECH Act, this would no longer be the case. This bill
would ensure that internet companies either address the serious
problems they are causing or face potential liability. It does so by
creating targeted exceptions to Section 230's broad immunity, including
exceptions for advertisements and other paid content; claims for
injunctive relief; civil rights, stalking, and harassment laws;
wrongful death actions; and suits under the Alien Tort Claims Act.
Introducing these exceptions to Section 230 does not guarantee that
platforms will be held liable in all--or even most--cases where they
cause real-world harm. But it will give victims the opportunity to make
their case. By doing so, the SAFE TECH Act will punish those bad actors
who are actively encouraging or turning a blind eye to dangerous and
illegal content, while allowing true ``Good Samaritans'' to flourish
online. That was the promise of Section 230. After twenty-five years,
it's about time we realize that promise.
I therefore encourage my colleagues to support the SAFE TECH Act.
____________________