House and Senate negotiators unveiled a $1.012 trillion spending bill late yesterday which would fund the government until October and hold off the threat of another shutdown until then.
The bill includes $75 million in disaster mitigation funding for "commercial fishery failures" and "fishery resource disasters."The full House is scheduled to vote on the measure tomorrow.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House and Senate last fall, and again this month, urged appropriators to include funding for disaster relief. Their letters advocating for the funding can be read here.
The description of the Fisheries Disaster Assistance from the conference report follows:
This Act includes $75,000,000 for Fisheries Disaster Assistance. The agreement modifies Senate report language by clarifying that eligibility for this funding includes fishery disasters declared by the Secretary of Commerce in calendar years 2012 and 2013. Funding in this bill for fisheries disaster assistance is a one-time occurrence and responds to the specific disaster declarations in 2012 and 2013. The Department shall continue working with States and Tribes in the future with respect to fishery disaster determinations and shall continue to work with the Congress on future fisheries disasters funding requests, as necessary, consistent with existing Federal laws and authorities.
The text of the bill pertaining to Fisheries Disaster Assistance follows:
18 FISHERIES DISASTER ASSISTANCE
19 For necessary expenses associated with the mitiga-
20 tion of fishery disasters, $75,000,000, to remain available
21 until expended: Provided, That funds shall be used for
22 mitigating the effects of commercial fishery failures and
23 fishery resource disasters as declared by the Secretary of
24 Commerce.
The full text of the bill is available here.
Additional information is available from the House Appropriations Committee