This bill puts data-driven academic research and industry collaboration on a path for healthy fisheries, fishing industry and fishing communities. We anticipate its passage.
The forfeiture fund was initially intended to pay for investigations and prosecutions, but an audit and Commerce Department probes have found poor record-keeping and questionable expenditures. The act proposed yesterday calls for forfeited assets to go toward improving the fishery and industry through scientific research and providing socio-economic assistance and support for fishing communities.
The bill also draws upon Sen. John Kerry's recently proposed Fisheries Fee Fairness Act of 2011, which calls for the fair reimbursement of penalties wrongly extracted from fishermen.
Read the complete editorial from The Standard-Times.