Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I would like to take a minute to tell you how we got here.

As someone who fished in the Gulf of Mexico long before I got elected to Congress, when they started reducing the snapper season back in 2007, we had approximately 190 days to fish as the recreational angler. They have now taken that down to 10 days.

Through the Gulf councils, the National Marine Fisheries Service has worked through the councils to reduce the American recreational fishermen's opportunity to fish for red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico by 95 percent since 2007. At the same time, they have increased quotas and allocations for the commercial sector. And most recently through the Gulf council, they cast a vote, 7-10, to split the recreational sector, and they gave the for-hire recreational sector 45 days and the not-for-hire 10 days.

Now, let me just explain what that means to you. It means that if you want to just take your family fishing, you have 10 days to do it. If you want to go in the other 35 days of that recreational season, you have to pay a charter boat captain to take you out.

What happened with the council is three of the members who voted had a vested interest in the charter boat industry that they did not disclose prior to the vote, even though Federal law required that they do it. Then, they turned around and cast that vote which personally benefited them, which, again, was illegal.

I appreciate the committee working to put in the money for more data in an effort to get the recreational season back for the not-for-hire recreational angler, but to be honest with you, if you give them all the data in the world, no matter what it says, if they continue to conduct themselves in that manner, it won't matter. They will simply allocate themselves more fish.

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Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, let me say that I thank the chairman and ranking member. This is something that needs to be rectified. If an illegal action was taken, it needs to be reversed.

Based on your commitment to work with us on this amendment at this time, I look forward to having those discussions, and I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

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