December 18, 2017 — From a literary standpoint, there really isn’t much to say about the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. The plot is murky, the characters non-existent and the writing so dense and boring that you’d swear it was written by some Beltway wonks.
Oh wait, it was. Perhaps the movie will be better. Or even the re-authorized version.
Following five years of stultifying futility, Congress finally seems on the threshold of formally re-authorizing the law that governs the management of our nation’s federal fisheries.
Last Wednesday, the House Natural Resources Committee voted H.R. 200 (or if you’re not into the whole brevity thing, the Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act) out of committee, setting the stage for a vote by the full House and, somewhere down the road, a clash with the Senate over whatever bill comes from the upper chamber.
But for now, the House bill has given commercial fishermen at least a glimmer of hope that their cries have carried from the wilderness and now are resonating in the halls of Congress.
The key word in all of this is flexibility.