12-29-12 – The U.S. Senate Friday easily beat back an effort to drop from the $60.4 billion Superstorm Sandy relief bill a package of $150 million in fisheries disaster aid, including funding for Massachusetts, the other four coastal New England states and New York whose fishermen ply the Atlantic for groundfish and face a cataclysm of cuts in catch limits next year.
But the successful defense of the fisheries disaster funding, led by Sen. John Kerry, might be for naught.
An amendment to strike non-Sandy related spending from the supplemental appropriation bill was defeated 60-35. Among New England senators from New England coastal states, only Kelly Ayotte, a New Hampshire Republican, voted to delete the non-Sandy spending, including the fisheries disaster funding from the bill.
”This is a big win for our fishermen, but this has been a fight more than a year in the making and there’s still work to do,” said Kerry in an email. “I’ve made their case to the leadership of the Senate, the Appropriations Committee and to the Administration to get this far, and I’ll continue to work with my Massachusetts colleagues in the House to make sure that this funding is enacted into law.”
Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times.
Read the relevant section of the Disaster Assistance Supplemental Appropriations Bill that passed the Senate. Note that it includes the $150m for the 2012 fishery disaster declarations.