The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee yesterday gave a green light to a bill to allow flexibility in rebuilding deadlines for high-value fish stocks jointly managed by the United States and Canada.
A similar House bill was introduced by Massachusetts Democrats Congressmen Barney Frank and John Tierney, who were joined by colleagues from Massachusetts, Maine and North Carolina.
The related actions — aimed at increasing American boats’ catch volumes of prized Georges Bank cod, haddock, yellowtail and scallops worth an estimated $150 million a year — occurred on the original date for a coastal caucus that Frank had organized to consider ways to instill wider flexibility to the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the primary legislation that governs America’s fisheries.