It has been several weeks since our last View from the Hill post, but much has happened within the halls of Congress, particularly in the House. Much of May and June was focused on marking up and passing annual appropriation bills in the House. The full House Appropriations Committee marked up its FY2020 Commerce, Justice […]
Capitol Hill has been abuzz with its annual spending deliberations as the appropriations season has started full tilt over the last several weeks. The House Appropriations Committee alone has held nearly 50 subcommittee budget hearings, including one with Dr. Neil Jacobs, acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, discussing and defending the NOAA […]
The 116th Congress began on January 3, 2019 with much anticipation that lawmakers would focus on fisheries. The 115th Congress worked on multiple bills – Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) reauthorization bills, red snapper management bills, and the Modern Fish Act (MFA) in both chambers, for example. And the 115th was closed out by the passage of […]
Commercial and recreational fishing; photo by John McMurray H.R. 200, the “Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act,” is scheduled to come to the House floor for a vote on Wednesday, July 11th. The Network and its partners oppose this bill because it undermines the strong science and conservation measures within the […]
Photo by John McMurray No one can deny the social and economic importance of recreational fishing, and sport fishing organizations used to be a significant voice for conservation and management of our marine resources. However, there is a disturbing trend in some corners of the sport fishing community. Where conservation and abundance were once the […]
Photo: Boatyard in Toledo, Oregon Since its inception, the Marine Fish Conservation Network has advocated on behalf of fishing communities. Working waterfronts are a vital part of the coastal ecosystem: commercial docks, provisioners, small-boat marinas and boatyards, charter operators, day boats, tackle shops, wholesale and retail fish markets, processing plants, restaurants, aquaria, ecotourism, and a […]
At year’s beginning, many of us take stock and plan for the future. So it is with U.S. fisheries. Once again the nation’s annual checkup found stocks in good health. The annual Fisheries of the U.S. 2015 showed that commercial catches are trending slightly upward across the board compared to 2014. In fact, after hitting […]
Photo: Canary Rockfish, courtesy of NOAA. My August blog post focused on the great progress the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) has made in rebuilding important species in the Gulf of Mexico. A similar story can be told of the Pacific Northwest. In fact, the productivity of fish and shellfish in this region, thanks to the MSA, […]
