June 12, 2014 — The N.C. House and N.C. Senate have big differences in their respective budget bills, and in the realm of saltwater fisheries, a big one is a fund created to help the commercial fishing industry that takes money collected from the public and allows a group of private citizens to determine how it is spent. The Senate wants it; the House doesn’t.
In the Senate’s budget bill that passed on May 31, the North Carolina Commercial Fishing Resource Fund was created by earmarking a percentage of the sale of every commercial fishing license and every recreational commercial gear license to the fund.
The establishment of the fund was no big surprise was needed to cover the cost of observers required by Incidental Take Permits for endangered sea turtles. The legislature funded the observers last year but told the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries it needed to find other funding in the future. The surprise was who the Senate thought should administrate this fund.
The bill establishes a board of directors for the NCCFRF that would be comprised of one member each from the North Carolina Fisheries Association, North Carolina Watermen United, Ocracoke Working Waterman’s Association, Albemarle Fisherman’s Association, Carteret County Fisherman’s Association and Brunswick County Fisherman’s Association.