July 24, 2018 — Members of the U.S. Senate got their first chance to look at the latest attempt to merge NOAA Fisheries with the Fish and Wildlife Service at a meeting on Thursday, 19 July.
Members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee met to discuss the Trump administration’s plan to revamp agencies within the Department of Interior, which is where the proposed merged agency would be located. Two Democratic committee members spoke out against the proposal during the hearing.
A merger of the two agencies requires approval of the U.S. Congress.
U.S. Sen Maria Cantwell (D-Washington), the ranking minority member on the committee, said a merged FWS-NOAA Fisheries could trigger laying off thousands of workers and create “more bureaucratic mismanagement” of fisheries.
“Moving NOAA Fisheries from (the Department of) Commerce to the Department of Interior ignores the agency’s responsibility of managing multi-billion-dollar commercial fisheries,” said Cantwell, who added that she believes what fisheries need is “science and funding.”
Susan Combs, a senior advisor in Interior Department, said in her opening remarks that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has reviewed the agency’s operations and sought to modernize it in order to serve the country well for the 21st century.
“The secretary’s vision is to establish science-based unified regional boundaries, where priority decision making is made at the local level with informed centralized coordination,” Combs said.