US: NOAA grants additional USD 10 million to New England fishermen

You may remember that on 11 July 2009 I commented on the announcement by Recently, two U.S. Senators, Olympia Snowe (Republican, Maine) and Jack Reed (Democratic, Rhode Island) on the fact that the federal government (NOAA) distributed USD 10 million in 2009 for various New England fisheries programs, including “aid for fishermen affected by regulations”.

This year another USD 10 million Is to be allocated to New England fishermen. I copy hereunder Senator’s Collins (Republican, Maine) on the subsidy allocation:

SENATOR COLLINS ANNOUNCES FUNDING FOR MAINE AND NEW ENGLAND FISHING INDUSTRY
March 1, 2010
WASHINGTON, D.C. -

U.S. Senator Susan Collins today announced that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) will provide $10 million in additional funding to support New England's groundfish industry. The Maine Department of Marine Resources will receive $2 million to set up a permit bank for fishing permits, through which fishing opportunity will be preserved for small and remote communities in Maine.

"This funding is critical to sustaining Maine's fishing industry and our fishing communities," said Senator Collins. "As fishermen and their families struggle with strict regulations and other burdensome costs in this difficult economy, this assistance is welcome news."

In total, NOAA plans to spend $10 million to assist New England's fishing industry as follows:

• $5,000,000 to support permit banking programs. Permit banks are collections of fishing permits purchased and held by an organization to provide access rights such as days-at-sea and annual catch shares for qualifying fishing vessels.

• $546,000 in direct aid for fishing sector managers and vessel operators

• $4,000,000 for dockside and at-sea monitoring, which will create jobs for monitors and observers in local communities.

• $485,000 for NOAA's Fisheries Service for infrastructure and programmatic support.

The above announcement can be found here:

http://collins.senate.gov/public/continue.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=1bfe6fab-802a-23ad-452d-15fc0cbea0dd&Region_id=&Issue_id=&CFID=36027315&CFTOKEN=13102270

For those interested in the NOAA press realase:

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100301_support.html