| Dear Katy, The latest attack on our environment by Trump and his Republican enablers in Congress could be coming to an oceanside near you. Right-wing Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, a shameless climate denier, quietly introduced legislation last month called the Advancing the Quality and Understanding of American Aquaculture (AQUAA) Act that would help open up federal ocean waters to underwater factory farming. Industrial fish farming, where thousands of fish are crammed into dirty floating feed lots, pollutes our oceans, wreaks havoc on ecosystems, threatens native species, and harms public health and local communities. We must speak out now to demand that the Senate rejects this blatant attempt by Republicans to hand over our environment to corporate polluters. Tell the Senate: No underwater factory farms in federal waters. Click here to sign the petition. The AQUAA Act is another in a long line of policies by the Trump administration to commercialize public lands and waters to benefit corporate America. The bill, which is supported by mega-corporations like Cargill, Red Lobster and Sysco, would amend a long-standing conservation law meant to protect fisheries and oceans and give jurisdiction to a newly created agency to streamline the aquaculture permitting process.1 Instead of promoting sustainable fishing and providing local fishermen with the resources to lessen their environmental impact, this bill allows food and fishing corporations to "directly pollute our waters and administer agricultural drugs and other chemicals, all with very little restriction on the types of fish species that may be farmed."2 Huge opposition to this dangerous bill is already mounting. More than 100 environmental, fishing, farming, workers' rights and indigenous peoples groups are publicly opposing this bill.3 Help us build on this massive public pressure to ensure that this dangerous bill never sees the light of day. Tell the Senate: No underwater factory farms in federal waters. Click the link below to sign the petition: https://act.credoaction.com/sign/aquaa_act?t=7&akid=29165%2E12967895%2EtHAkGj Thanks for all you do. Josh Nelson, Co-Director
CREDO Action from Working Assets Add your name: - Jason Huffman, "Bill introduced to streamline aquaculture in US waters; supported by Cargill, High Liner, others," Undercurrent News, June 26, 2018.
- Hallie Templeton, "Proposed Senate bill would turn oceans into fish feedlots," Friends of the Earth, June 27, 2018.
- Friends of the Earth et al., "Letter from more than 100 organizations Opposing development of marine finfish aquaculture in the United States to Members of U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation and U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources," June 6, 2018
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