U.S. Rep. Jon Runyan has introduced a bill that he says will help prevent a fishery-management method being pushed by the federal government from eliminating commercial fishing jobs.
Runyan, R-3rd, is a prime sponsor of the Saving Fishing Jobs Act of 2011. The bill seeks to place controls on a management technique called “catch shares” in which existing fishermen are typically guaranteed a share of the annual catch but nobody else is allowed to enter the fishery.
The Obama administration has pushed the catch-share system, and opponents argue it eliminates jobs and often ends up giving the resource to larger corporate interests as the catch shares are bought and sold.
“NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco has a previously stated goal of seeing a sizeable fraction of the fishing fleet eliminated. Catch-share programs, her signature initiative, have done just that by forcing small fishermen out,” Runyan said.
The bill would allow the government to impose a catch-share program only if two-thirds of the fishermen in the fishery vote for it. If a program is approved, it would be terminated if it resulted in 15 percent of the fishermen in that fishery losing their jobs.
Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times.