Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. PINGREE. I thank my colleague from Massachusetts and Chairman Culberson for chatting with us about this particular issue.

Mr. Chairman, as has been already stated here by my colleague today, there is never a good time to ask our fishermen to take on a cost of this size that we are discussing here. But now is an even worse time than most because it will be asking those who make their living on the Gulf of Maine to pay for onboard monitors when the ground fishery is struggling. I understand the tough position that NOAA is in due to tight budgets, but times are even tougher on the men and women who make their living from groundfish right now.

I hope NOAA can find a way to avoid making them pay for onboard monitors, and whatever the short-term solution is, I think NOAA should look at ways to conduct monitoring through the use of onboard cameras or other cost-effective electronic technologies.

I hope the chairman will be willing to work with us on this and with NOAA on this issue that affects so many of our hard-working constituents.

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