March 19, 2013 — The Gulf Fisheries Fairness Act will provide Alabama and the other Gulf states the legal authority to manage local fisheries, and our fishermen and tourism industry will gain a lifeline they so desperately need.
In recent years, coastal Alabama has faced a number of man-made assaults – one the result of a historic environmental disaster, the other the handiwork of overzealous government regulators. While many of our coastal businesses are making a comeback from the tragic BP oil spill of 2010, the same cannot be said of much of our local fishing industry, which has had to battle both BP and Uncle Sam.
Those seeking to fish for one of the Gulf’s most popular fish, Red Snapper, are being subjected to increasingly stringent federal regulations that are unnecessarily threatening the local economy. At the same time, empirical data and anecdotal evidence show the Red Snapper stock is as healthy as it has ever been. Practically anyone who has dropped a hook in the Gulf over the last few years has found it easier than ever to catch Snapper. Frankly, their number and size make them difficult to avoid and their abundance is actually crowding out other marine life at artificial reef habitats. Yet federal bureaucrats continue to consider the Snapper overfished.
This week, Dr. Robert Shipp, three-time chair of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, noted researcher and professor of Marine Sciences at the University of South Alabama, testified before the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee that the current management of reef species in the Gulf of Mexico is failing – both the fish and the fishermen. Dr. Shipp voiced support for the concept of increasing the five Gulf states’ fishery management authority to place more control over reef fish in the hands of the states rather than the federal government. This is a concept I have been studying for several months, and I believe the only solution to the problem is legislative action in Washington to return some power to the states.
Last week, I introduced the Gulf Fisheries Fairness Act to extend the state water boundaries of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas for the purposes of reef fish management, affording these states greater control over reef fisheries and effectively opening up more Gulf waters to fishing. The Gulf Fisheries Fairness Act will provide Alabama and the other Gulf states the legal authority to manage local fisheries, and our fishermen and tourism industry will gain a lifeline they so desperately need.
Read the full opinion piece at the Alabama Political Reporter