The administration has been seeking to portray dire consequences in United States-Japan relations if the Pelly and Packwood-Magnuson amendments are enforced. In an appeals brief filed this week, they refer darkly to "a trade war" if the United States should certify Japan. This is absurd, of course. Japan practices bluff and bluster in its dealings with other nations, but it can illafford a trade war with the United States, particularly over a minuscule, dying industry. Japan's whalers this year will produce less than $30 million in income, and that only with huge government subsidies. This pales in comparison to Japan's fishing in U.S. waters, some $500 million annually. If Japan is truly planning to get out of whaling, it should move the termination date up to this year, thus complying with the moratorium and possibly avoiding any long-term sanctions against its valuable fishing industry. Thank you. I will be happy to answer any questions. [The prepared statement of Craig Van Note follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT OF CRAig Van Note, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, MONITOR Today I I am executive vice president of the Monitor Consortium of conservation, environmental and animal welfare organizations. am speaking on behalf of the following organizations: American Cetacean Society American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Animal Protection Institute of America Defenders of Wildlife Greenpeace U.S.A. The Humane Society of the United States Society for Animal Protective Legislation We are extremely pleased that this committee is continuing its oversight of U.S. policy on whales and whaling. Mr. Yatron, you and Mr. Bonker are key actors in the battle to protect and preserve the great whales. We strongly support your resolution, House Concurrent Resolution 54, which is also authored by Mr. Gejdenson. It demonstrates the sense of the Congress and of the American people - once again. - We urge rapid consideration of H. Con. Res. 54 by the full Foreign Affairs Committee and by the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee so that it can be passed by the House. This is a needed directive to the Administration that should give the State Department and the Commerce Department backbone to stand up to the whaling nations. This hearing is timely because the State and Commerce Departments have capitulated to extreme Japanese pressure and are actively seeking to subvert the regulations of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). By entering into a bilateral agreement with Japan, Reagan Administration officials are attempting to ignore U.S. laws the Pelly Amendment to the Fishermen's Protective Act and the Packwood-Magnuson Amendment to the Fishery Conservation and Management as well as the U.S. Government's obligation to support the decisions of the 40-nation treaty organization. Act - The annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission is approaching (in July in England) and we fear that unless remedial action is taken, the U.S. delegation will support moves by militant whaling nations to destroy the commercial whaling moratorium and perhaps to demolish the IWC as well. Now we are For 13 years the United States has led the international battle to save the great whales from extinction. witnessing an attempt by high-level U.S. officials to reverse this noble policy and accomodate the demands of a defiant bureaucracy and whaling industry in Japan. ADMINISTRATION DOUBLETHINK The Administration's policy on enforcement of the Pelly and Packwood-Magnuson Amendments is contradictory and confused. On the one hand, it refuses to certify Japan for that nation's flagrant violation of the ban on sperm whaling. When the Federal Court ordered the certification of Japan, the Administration appealed the decision and won a stay of execution. At the same time it is stonewalling on behalf of Japan, the Administration is enforcing the Pelly and Packwood-Magnuson Amendments against the Soviet Union for that nation's excess kill of minke whale. The Soviets, who harpooned 2,762 minkes in the recent Southern Ocean whaling season, far in excess of their quota of 1,941, were promptly certified and hit with sanctions. They lost half of their fish allocations in U.S. waters and stand to lose all allocations next April if they breach the moratorium. And they are now liable to having their fish products embargoed by the President. There is obviously a double standard in U.S. policy at play here. Both Japan and the Soviet Union purposefully violated IWC quotas, actions which obviously diminish the effectiveness of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling. We must ask why the Administration is treating U.S. laws one for the Soviet way for Japan and in a completely opposite manner Union? It is logical to ask of the Administration how it intends to And treat Norway, another nation that has objected to the moratorium. what about all the other whaling nations, those that committed back in 1982 to abide by the moratorium that begins this year? Mr. Chairman, we urgently request that your committee seek an explanation for the gross inconsistency that is apparent in the Administration's policy toward enforcement of the Pelly and Packwood-Magnuson Amendments. Congress passed these laws with very clear intent: that the Secretary of Commerce must certify nations which are found to be diminishing the effectiveness of an international fisheries conservation agreement, and that any nation certified under Pelly to be violating IWC regulations on trade or taking must automatically have their fishing allocations cut in half by the Secretary of State. THE LAWSUIT When the Administration announced last November that it would ignore the Pelly and Packwood-Magnuson Amendments and would instead support Japan's violation of the sperm whaling ban and the moratorium, twelve conservation and animal welfare organizations filed suit in U.S. District Court to challenge these actions. They were joined in the suit by Thomas Garrett, who served as deputy U.S. commissioner to the IWC for many years and who headed the U.S. delegation to the IWC in 1981 when the sperm whaling ban was voted by a margin of 25 to 1. On 5 March 1985, Judge Charles R. Richey of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and against the Administration. The ruling concluded: "The court holds here that the Secretary of Commerce had a clear and nondiscretionary duty to certify the Japanese whaling in excess of the established IWC quotas. By not doing so, the Secretary has ignored the plain intent of Congress, and the historic significance of United States sanctions in the sphere of international whale conservation. The Secretary of Commerce may not unilaterally, even bilaterally with the Japanese, dismiss the mandate of the IWC so as to proceed with his own particular vision of whale preservation. Congress has not given him that authority, and has, in fact, explicitly created an automatic sanction to prevent this very ΟΙ situation. "Congress, in enacting Pelly in 1971 and Packwood-Magnuson in 1979, wanted to send out a clear message to the world that the United States was committed to being in the vanguard of the fight to preserve the whale. The Secretary may not now distort his clear Congressional mandate by permitting a foreign nation (here Japan) to violate the IWC quotas without that nation facing the immediate consequences as set forth by the above-mentioned statutes. The decision ordered "the defendants Baldrige and Shultz to immediately certify to the President that Japan is in violation of the IWC sperm whaling quota and enjoin them permanently from agreeing not to reduce, or failing to reduce, Japanese fishing quotas in consequence of such certification, and thus save another vital national, if not international, goal of the preservation of an almost extinct species of vital importance to humankind." The Congress passed laws designed to preserve the endangered whales, yet the Executive Branch refuses to enforce those laws. The Federal Court ruled that the Administration must enforce. And the Administration continues to resist. If the U.S. District Court decision is upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals -- the ruling is expected in June will the Administration seek to evade enforcement once more, either by appealing to the Supreme Court or by seeking to rescind the Packwood-Magnuson Amendment? - Japan has announced it will agree to end commercial whaling in 1988, pursuant to the bilateral, if the U.S. District Court decision is overturned. The Reagan Administration has sought to portray this as a great "victory" when in fact it would constitute a gross violation of the IWC's 1986 commercial whaling moratorium. And Japan has already violated the IWC ban on sperm whaling. The Administration believes that four years of violation of this ban by Japan, as authorized by the bilateral, is also a good thing for whale conservation. If killing protected whales and defying a moratorium constitutes "progress," then the Administration must be concocting a new definition for conservation. JAPAN'S DUBIOUS INTENTIONS In Japan's words, too, we find deception. The Japanese announcement on 5 April did not say that they might end all whaling only commercial whaling. This is a crucial distinction because Japanese officials have already announced that they are seeking to continue the whale-killing beyond the moratorium or 1988 by 1) redefining their coastal whaling as non-commercial, "subsistence" whaling, and 2) by continuing their pelagic whaling by unilaterally granting themselves, through a major loophole in IWC rules, "scientific research permits" to kill as many whales as they want in the guise of non-commercial scientific study of the whales. Japan's Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Moriyoshi Sato, made this statement to the Japanese press on 5 April 1985 after the Japanese Cabinet announced its decision on the commercial whaling moratorium: "The IWC is discussing the resumption of whaling based upon reassessment of resources, and we intend as well to demand (that we be allowed) to carry on non-commercial whaling. We intend also to make every effort for the continuance of whaling." Translated from the Tokyo Mainichi Shimbun, 5 April 1985. - |