July 11, 2018 — The US House of Representatives is set to vote Wednesday afternoon on HR 200, Alaska representative Don Young’s update to the Magnuson Stevens Act (MSA).
The action was expected to get underway a little after noon eastern time with the reading of 11 amendments and was to move next to nearly two hours of debate. The vote on the amendments and the bill itself won’t happen until the end of the day, based on the latest schedule.
Young’s bill, the Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act, would reauthorize MSA for the first time in more than a decade and make some of the most significant changes in the legislation’s 42-year history.
In an opinion column published by The Hill, a news service popular among lawmakers and staff, Young, a Republican, asked his fellow lawmakers to put “partisan rancor” aside on Wednesday and reminded them how the original legislation – which created eight regional fishery management councils (FMC) — was passed in 1976 with bipartisan support.