U.S. Rep Frank Pallone [D-6] on Thursday reintroduced a bill that would loosen a number of fisheries regulations that anglers have long decried as too harsh.
Pallone's Flexibility and Access in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act of 2011 would:
• Extend the authorized time period for rebuilding certain fisheries;
• Call on government scientific and statistical committees to provide regional fishery management councils.
The fisheries are "overfished," which means anglers take more fish than the government has allowed.
Under the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Management Act, the federal law which currently governs fisheries management, certain fish species were placed in rigid, 10-year timetables to reach a certain stock level, measured in pounds.
Anglers have long complained that while some species such as summer flounder have reached record high stock levels in recent years, fishing could be shut down or heavily regulated because a target number has not been reached.
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