Ending a historic freedom to fish the seas for the pleasure of it, Massachusetts’ 500,000 saltwater anglers will be required to buy state licenses for $10 in 2011, as a result of a bill signed yesterday by Gov. Deval Patrick.
The legislation creating a registry of saltwater fishermen passed unanimously through the Legislature last week, stimulated by a federal requirement for a functional registry in each coastal state to improve data collection and knowledge.
But the federal government did not require a license fee.
The Recreational Fishing Alliance, a national organization of recreational fishermen, criticized the decision of the state to impose one.
"While RFA can appreciate the need for additional state funding," said Jim Hutchinson Jr., the organization’s managing director, "using the federal mandate for data collection to legislate buy-in on a saltwater license is misrepresentation of federal intent."
Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.
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Earlier this month, Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri vetoes a similar bill stating "I understand that Congress frequently imposes mandates on the states, However, the Tenth Amendment also provides ‘[t]he posers not delegated to the United States Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.’ Mandating that all persons seeking to cast a fishing line into Narragansett Bay for purposes of recreational fishing should be required to pay an annual licensing fee and register with the government is excessively intrusive."