George Miller: “I reluctantly oppose the passage of S. 39, the Sustainable Fisheries Act. Like many other Members of the House, I had…”

“I reluctantly oppose the passage of S. 39, the Sustainable Fisheries Act. Like many other Members of the House, I had hoped to be able to give this bill my unqualified support, or to amend it in the same bipartisan spirit with which we initially passed our bill in the House, and send it back to the other body. The process by which this product arrives on the floor today, however, has not allowed the Members of the House, who passed a different--and stronger--bill to play any significant role in the formulation of the bill now before us. As most Members are aware, the chairman of the Resources Committee and I rarely see eye to eye on natural resource management issues. The reauthorization of the Magnuson Act, however, proved to be a departure from the norm. Last year, we worked together to pass a strong, bipartisan bill that had broad support from the fishing industry, the environmental community, and the administration. We passed that bill by a 10-to-1 margin, and then waited for the other body to act so that we could work out our differences in conference. As everyone knows, it has been a long wait. In fact, it took a year for the bill to finally be returned to us last week. To no one's surprise, it was returned in a much altered state. Even worse, the legislation has been presented to us, in the closing days of the Congress, as a take it or leave it proposition.”