Sam Farr: “I represent a lot of fishermen in the west coast in California and up the west coast all the way up to Alaska. The catch…”

“I represent a lot of fishermen in the west coast in California and up the west coast all the way up to Alaska. The catch share program has worked very well. The reason you have it is, one, you only have two systems in fishing--you have a season and you have a limit or quota. The pounding of all of the boats going at the same time regardless of weather is a very risky thing. Now we've given that up to share. We give shares to boats. So what happens if you're a small fisherman in a small boat, you've got a share. You've got your right. You can go out when you want to. Not just when the weather is really foul and may be dangerous. People like this. It's sustainable. They can get loans on their boats. They know they've got all kinds of certainty that they've never had before. To wipe this out, it may be uncomfortable in some other communities, but if you'd much rather direct it, if you want to get mad, do it to those communities because wiping it out this way, you're going to really hurt where it works. And where it works, it works really well. So please oppose this amendment.”