Senators Warren, Markey Introduce Amendment to Support Monitoring of New England Fisheries

United States Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Angus King (I-Maine), and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) introduced a bipartisan budget amendment to support at-sea and dockside monitoring for fisheries that have received economic disaster assistance on Thursday, March 26.

A fishery disaster declaration was declared in 2012 for the Northeast.

In 2007, the New England and Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Councils, in coordination with NOAA Fisheries, developed a standardized by-catch reporting methodology for all Fishery Management Plans in the Northeast Region.

A U.S. Court of Appeals decision required NOAA to provide funding for standardized by-catch reporting out of the same discretionary funding used to cover the costs of the At-Sea Monitoring program to pay for observers.

NOAA’s upcoming payments to fund the standardized by-catch reporting could result in the at-sea observers program running out of money sometime before the end of the fiscal year.

This would result in the struggling groundfish industry having to bear the full cost of at-sea observer coverage, which can cost nearly $1,000 per day.

Text of the budget amendment is available here.