The secured funds will help countless fishing families, businesses, and communities that are struggling under the fishery disasters declared by the Secretary of Commerce in 2012 and 2013.
The following was released by the Northeast Seafood Coalition:
GLOUCESTER, Mass. – January 17, 2014 — The Northeast Seafood Coalition (NSC) released three letters today thanking 25 members of Congress for their successful efforts to secure $75 million for fishery disaster relief funds included in the Fiscal Year 2014 budget. The letters, addressed to the Chairwoman and the Ranking Minority Member of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, 14 Senators representing Northeastern states, and nine Members of Congress representing Massachusetts, respectively, praised the bipartisan groups of lawmakers for their leadership and perseverance. The secured funds will help countless fishing families, businesses, and communities that are struggling under the fishery disasters declared by the Secretary of Commerce in 2012 and 2013.
NSC's letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman, Senator Barbara Mikulski, and the Ranking Minority Member, Senator Richard Shelby, thanks them for their work in bringing together a coalition of lawmakers to secure the disaster relief funds. The letter praises their, "astonishing feat in achieving what had seemed impossible under the current political and budgetary climate in Washington." The letter further emphasizes the importance of the aid, stating, "The funds you fought for represented our final hope for a real bridge to the future. This is no small thing for a centuries-old fishery on which our Nation's colonial economy was founded. The sense of appreciation and relief in our region is very deep."
In a second letter to 14 Senators representing Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey, NSC thanks the lawmakers and their staff for supporting both the appropriation of disaster relief aid and the previous reallocation of the Saltonstall-Kennedy Fund to be used towards fisheries research. The letter also stresses the importance of ensuring that the funds are used wisely. It states, "we feel it is absolutely critical that the benefits of this assistance accrue directly to our fishermen and shoreshide businesses that are at the center of the disaster. It is their survival that has been and must continue to be our priority."
The third letter addresses nine House Members from Massachusetts who represent some of the communities hit hardest by the fishery disaster. The letter thanks the lawmakers for writing directly to the House Appropriations Committee leadership on January 7, 2014 in support of disaster assistance funding. NSC writes, "Given these challenging times, there is no doubt that this letter made a crucial contribution to the success of what was truly an extraordinary bicameral and bipartisan effort in the region to come to the assistance of fishermen."
Read the full letter from the Northeast Seafood Coalition to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman, Senator Barbara Mikulski, and Ranking Minority Member, Senator Richard Shelby
Read the full letter from the Northeast Seafood Coalition to 14 Senators