Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, with all due respect to my good friends on the other side of the aisle, they are promoting the opposition to this bill from interest groups that don't have any interest in commercial fishing, period. Let's be real about this. What hurts me, I have heard them say that it removes science from fisheries. Let's explore this. No one is listening, but that is okay. For starters, the words ``science'' and ``data'' appear 34 times throughout the bill. Section 207 directs the councils to establish a plan for cooperative research that brings together a wide variety of high-quality, non-Federal data to support existing data. This is about States, coastal areas, villages, communities, fishermen making decisions instead of the Federal Government, and I know they don't like that. Section 208 directs the Secretary to work with the States to find the best way to incorporate State data, just not their own data. Section 301 directs the Secretary to develop a strategic plan for conducting stock assessments for every stock in a fishery's management plan. Again, science. Section 303 replaces an arbitrary 10-year rebuilding requirement. If the fish come back quicker under this bill, H.R. 200, they could be fished at a sustainable yield level. Under the present law, which I wrote, they can't do that. Otherwise, we lose years and management of the fish for a period of time. That is up to the councils under H.R. 200.…”