John Rutherford: “I thank the ranking member for this opportunity. Madam Chair, I represent three coastal counties along northeast…”

“I thank the ranking member for this opportunity. Madam Chair, I represent three coastal counties along northeast Florida's Atlantic Coast, and one of the biggest grievances that I hear in our coastal fishing communities is that there are simply not enough days to fish for red snapper. Anglers tell me time and time again that they can't fish without catching red snapper. One diver even relayed to me that the red snapper were so thick over the reefs, that you could literally walk across their backs. Even so, Federal regulators only gave recreational anglers 5 days to fish for red snapper in the South Atlantic this year, down from 6 days the previous year, all of this because NOAA simply does not have accurate data. Lack of data leads to short seasons or, even worse, no seasons, which devastates both recreational and commercial fishing and significantly impacts Florida's economy. To fix this problem, my amendment will increase the funding in this bill for data collection of reef fish in the South Atlantic by $3.5 million, which will bring the total to $5 million, which is the same amount that has been used for the last few years in the Gulf of Mexico, where it has been incredibly effective. The funding made available there to improve data collection in the Gulf over the last few years has made significant improvement in Gulf red snapper management. For example, in 2014, the Gulf red snapper season was only 9 days. This year, it is 62 days.…”