When it comes to helping the foundering fishing industry, John Kerry and Scott Brown are in the same boat.
Both Massachusetts senators today lauded the Commerce Department for a series of efforts to improve the working relationship between beleaguered fishermen and their regulators. Those measures, revealed by Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, include creating a confidential email hotline for fishermen to report abusive and overly aggressive enforcement of fishing regulations and $3.35 million in research grants for New England fishermen and local researchers to boost conservation and reduce the amount of fish that are unintentionally caught and killed.
“We’ve sounded the alarm bells and Secretary Locke has responded,” said Kerry, a Democrat and member of the fisheries subcommittee in the Senate. “This investment is a down payment on rebuilding the trust our fishermen have lost in the system – it will give them a voice in the process, and promote cooperative research to prevent bycatch. Our fishermen have taken a pounding in this economy and we need to do everything we can to help them.”
Read the complete story from The Boston Globe.