January 15, 2014 — The news that a congressional spending bill bears $75 million in fisheries disaster aid provides welcome tidings for the fishing industry.
The important thing is for lawmakers to ensure that this aid, desperately needed by so many fishermen and families to stabilize the boats, businesses and their way of life, gets into their hands as soon as possible heading into a new fishing year starting May 1.
That means that the Department of Commerce — governmental parent of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the agency entrusted with this planned allocation — should immediately move toward distributing the money through the states, to be parceled out perhaps based on the number of commercial permits and fishermen working the seas.
Yes, the aid is facing approval late in the game — an absurd 16 months after the Department of Commerce declared the Northeast groundfishery, including Gloucester, a full-fledged “economic disaster,” and nine months after NOAA’s cuts of up to 78 percent in landing limits made things even worse than that.
And yes, the dollar amount is just half the level sought by industry advocates and lawmakers like Congressman John Tierney — who has pressed consistently for a disaster aid package since the declaration, while Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey had pushed for a $150 million Senate aid package as well.
But as state Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante noted (see news story, Page 1), “$75 million is a lot more than $0. And for so long we’ve been at $0.”