WASHINGTON — March 23, 2012 – New York Sen. Charles Schumer has pledged an all-out effort to get a hearing "this year" for his legislation make clear to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that rebuilding overfished stocks need not be forced into the 10-year window mandated by Magnuson-Stevens Act.
Schumer's pledge implicitly calls out Sen. John Kerry to make good on his support for the concept of flexibility.
The first speaker at Wednesday's "Keep Fishermen Fishing" rally, which drew 21 members of Congress in a bipartisan alliance that virtually as one called for adding "flexibility" to the Magnuson-Stevens Act, Schumer set the urgent tone and business-like theme of the rally event with his blunt and reasonable goal — to "begin hearings on Magnuson reform this year."
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