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A bipartisan bill to ban controversial drift net fishing off California’s coast was introduced Thursday by Democratic California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, along with West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito. This bill would phase out the use of large mesh driftnets in all U.S. waters by 2020, and calls on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to help fisheries transition to alternative methods.

The nets, which can be more than a mile long, are intended to catch swordfish but end up trapping dolphins, sea lions and a host of other marine life, many of which die.

“The use of drift nets to target swordfish harms too many endangered or protected marine animals and should be phased out,” Feinstein said in an emailed statement. “It’s unacceptable that a single California fishery that uses this type of drift net is killing more dolphins and porpoises than the rest of the West Coast combined.”

Large mesh drift nets are already banned in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, as well as off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Hawaii, according to Feinstein. Additionally, the United States is a signatory to international agreements that ban large drift nets in international waters.

California fisheries who use drift nets say the casualties to dolphins, sea lions, sea turtles and other unwanted bycatch have been greatly reduced in recent years and now are relatively few, but according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, of the 2,369 sea animals caught in the nets May 1, 2016 to Jan. 31, 2017, only 30 percent were swordfish.