In an encouraging act of bipartisanship, budget committee senators unanimously voted on Monday to send the Lobster Act to the Senate Floor.
The Lobster Act hopes to reform the $12 billion American fishing industry. Many local American fishing companies are critical to this industry, but recent industry consolidation has taken resources from these local companies. “One foreign owned firm owns 12% of groundfish allocation rights in the New England Regional Fishery Management Council” (S. 105). Although this 12% falls short of antitrust restrictions, such industry dominance by foreign-owned fisheries limits the scope of smaller, domestic companies. Meanwhile, local fishers are struggling as 45% of fishermen report working 18+ hours per day. This Act hopes to reallocate fishing access to smaller, entry-level fisheries in order to change these conditions.
Senator King, who drafted the bill, aims to empower small fishing businesses in his home state of Maine and throughout the United States.“The Lobster Act looks to take the big trust interest out of the fishing industry in terms of their sheer dominance” said King. In doing so, King hopes to promote the struggling domestic economy, while creating a reduced role in the industry for larger fishing corporations. Reflecting on the future of the bill, King says “I hope it can be a good demonstration of bipartisan action to help our local businesses.”
Preceding the vote, Senator Murkowski and Senator Warren both expressed their support of the bill. Murkowski explained that the bill will help eradicate the environmentally detrimental overfishing of snow crabs in Alaska. He calls the bill a step forward for “maintaining fisheries around the United States.” Senator Warren agreed, explaining to the committee that empowering small fishing businesses will also combat underfishing and promote competition in the fishing industry, “which is going to lead to better outcomes both for small fishers and for the consumers.”
The bipartisan collaboration on this bill reflects the cooperation that all committees in the Senate should strive towards. Senator Collins reflected on the session, saying “There were still some bumps in the road, but I honestly think it went much more smoothly.” Later that day, Senator Graham released a statement on behalf of Budget Committee Republican Senators that had a more pessimistic view of the committee’s proceedings on Monday. In response to delayed notification of Democratic Senators’ absences in committee, Republican Senators wrote “The Budget Committee Democrats, it would seem, care little about the input or participation of any Republicans in their legislating, and in doing so are ignoring the voices of millions of Americans for whom we are tasked with representing.” They went on to call for amended quorum rules in order to more productively legislate in the future.
Despite continued Republican discontent in the Budget and Domestic Affairs Committee, Monday’s session showed significant improvement in bipartisan collaboration. Following the committee session, Warren said “I felt like we had really productive debate on both bills. We’re working in a bipartisan matter.” Continued cooperation like this will make for a highly effective committee.
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