February 15, 2014 — Minority Leader Bruce Tarr has helped shepherd a budget amendment through the state Senate that, if passed by the House, would continue funding for an endangered survey program that utilizes ventless lobster traps to help develop more accurate stock assessments for lobsters.
The amendment would create a $500,000 reserve fund, of which at least $150,000 would go to the state Division of Marine Fisheries for the ventless trap survey that Tarr said is essential for helping to manage the lobster fishery, negotiating reasonable catch allocations and setting rebuilding and sustainability strategies for the fishery.
“The importance of continuing to collect this data makes a compelling case for the state funding,” Tarr said Friday. “This will help us avoid having a gap in the data. Other states are continuing to collect this data, which could leave us at a disadvantage when it comes time to negotiate each state’s catch limits for lobsters.”
Tarr said he envisions the state funding to be a stop-gap source of financing for the survey program, established in 2003 and previously financed by federal funds through NOAA grants and mitigation funds from marine construction projects. Those funds dried up in this year’s federal budget, necessitating an increased state funding role.
“But this isn’t intended to be a perpetual source of funding,” Tarr said. “Going forward, we hope that revenues from fishing permits and licenses, as well as reinstated federal funds, will become the sources for funding this program.”