March 23, 2013 — U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren Friday announced filing what she called a “deficit neutral” budget amendment that would provide disaster assistance to the Northeast groundfishery, declared a disaster in September, but without any financial support to address it.
The amendment marked the initial legislative action by the new Democratic senator from Massachusetts. Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, which also had a fishery, for Chinook salmon, declared a disaster, filed a similar amendment.
Both authorize the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee to revise allocations in one or more bills to create the funding for the disaster relief so long as the changes do not add to the nation’s deficit.
The step is the latest venture by federal lawmakers to help address the economic disaster that has hit fishing communities such as Gloucester, with more dire cuts in fishing quotas from NOAA due to take effect May 1.
On Feb. 4, Congressman John Tierney, whose district includes Cape Ann, announced a different approach to securing the disaster aid; his proposal would tap the seafood import tariff dollars, which had been originally reserved for research and marketing of American seafood under the 1954 Saltonstall-Kennedy Act, but have, over the decades since, been diverted into the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Times