October 21, 2014 — Look, It’s time our federal lawmakers tackled this issue — and NOAA’s budgeted revenues — head on.
That means ensuring that a far greater share of this money — dedicated to the fishing industry, not the federal government’s grotesque management of it — is headed this way.
On the surface, the news that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will be steering $18 million in grants through the Saltonstall-Kennedy Act to fishermen and waterfront businesses in the coming year stands as a bit of good news amid a renewed sea of fisheries crises.
The allocation is, after all, 63 percent higher than the roughly $11 million granted to winning applicants this past year for fisheries research — and that’s something to celebrate, right?
Well, no, not really.
That’s because the Saltonstall-Kennedy Act — the 1954 federal legislation aimed at steering 30 percent of seaport import tariff revenues into supporting and marketing the domestic fishing industry — generates more than $100 million annually from tariff revenues that exceed the $300 million mark. And even the $18 million pegged to go to the fishing industry this year represents less than 18 percent of the money that would be included if The U.S. Department of Commerce and NOAA followed the letter of this federal law.
That concept, of course, was lost long ago, when Congress first began allowing the federal government to siphon off the Saltonstall-Kennedy Act funding for use within its own budget. And that continues to be the case today.
Read the full editorial at the Gloucester Daily Times