Janurary 30, 2024 — U.S. Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) introduced legislation to modernize outdated regulations governing commercial fishing along the Atlantic Coast. Even with fish locations changing drastically in response to warming ocean temperatures, the restrictions on species and the number of fish caught in Atlantic waters have not been updated in decades.
According to the release, commercial fishermen have been forced to travel further distances to access fish populations and are often forced to throw landings back, which results in higher mortality rates. The Supporting Healthy Interstate Fisheries in Transition Act (SHIFT) will require the Department of Commerce to consider changing geographic ranges of fish populations as it oversees federal fishery management plans and quota allocations for Atlantic states.
Senator Murphy of Connecticut has focused on job creation within his state, and in May 2023, he was a proponent of increasing federal and state spending on the cleanup of Long Island Sound to help restore commercial and recreational fishing in the state. Murphy also helped increase federal funding for aquaculture to $19 million in 2023.