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Learn More| Washington DC Trip |
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| Written by Capt. Bob Zales | |
| Monday, 23 June 2008 00:00 | |
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Several regional and national associations representing over 100 organizations from across the United States joined as a united voice seeking a common cause on Wednesday June 18, 2008. This was a historic day for fishing in the United States as all sectors (private recreational, charter, and commercial) stood together seeking legislative and financial relief from congress. Several of us represented over 20 associations from Florida and the Gulf. I represented the Conservation Cooperative of Gulf Fishermen (CCGF) and the National Association of Charterboat Operators (NACO), Greg Abrams and Bob Spaeth represented the commercial fishing sector from Florida and other parts of the Gulf as Bob represented the Southern Offshore Fishing Association (SOFA) and the Southeastern Fisheries Association (SFA), Dennis O'hern represented the Fishing Rights Alliance (FRA), Travis Palladeno, a charter/commercial fishermen from Madeira Beach represented other fishermen from his area. The 5 of us met with staffs of Congressmen Bill Young, Gus Bilirakis, Allan Boyd, Jeff Miller, and Jo Bonner. We also met with the staffs of Senators Nelson, Martinez, Shelby, and Sessions. As you can see it was a very busy day. It was also the most promising and productive day I have had in DC. The fact that all sectors were sitting together and working for the common cause to be able to fish impressed everyone we spoke with and we received encouraging advice and support from everyone. We have a lot of work to do now and will be providing more info to you and how you will be able to further help in this effort. We do not look for legislative relief for this year as the coming Presidential election has congress in a position of not passing any substantial legislation, but we are hopeful that there may be some economic help available before the end of the year. Stay tuned for more. Thanks, Bob
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Bill Tracker
H.R. 1584: Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act of 2009 has been introduced and has been sent to the House Committee on Natural Resources . A similar version of this bill has died in committee the past two years. Please do not let this happen this year. This bill proposes nothing more than a common sense approach to fishery regulation that should have been in the re-authorized Magnuson-Stevens Act from the beginning and will help provide some desperately needed relief for beleaguered commercial fisheries and fishermen.
Help bring this to the attention of your Congressmen and Senators. They don't use email so you will have to go to the websites of your Congressman and our two Senators (or your own if you aren't in Florida). The Florida Delegation's contact links and an example message you can copy and paste into the message box on their website are here.
You can track what we need to be the steady progress of this bill through Congress with the widget below.