“I’m all for fish, we need to have fish. But I’m more concerned about fishermen than I am about fish. We need to make sure we have a healthy fishery, but we can’t close down these hard-working men and women who have small businesses here" said Florida Senator George Lemieux.
Senator George Lemieux came to the Bay County Chamber of Commerce Tuesday, January 12, to hear concerns from the panhandle’s fishermen over federal regulations on their work. Many fishermen spoke up, and appeared to be angry over the 2007 renewal of regulations in the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.
“People say we’re about to be under the Guillotine, well our neck is there,” Bay County charter boat captain Mark Kelley said. “We’re just waiting for it to fall.”
Variations of the act date back to the 1970s. But the most recent version of the act, the one that concerns the fishermen, was passed in 1996 and renewed in 2007. The fishermen say the quotas imposed by it on both commercial and recreational Fisherman are crippling their businesses.
See the video at WMBB News 13.