Ed Case: “I very much appreciate my colleague's efforts on this particular amendment, which, as he points out, is a truly…”

“I very much appreciate my colleague's efforts on this particular amendment, which, as he points out, is a truly bipartisan amendment joined in by Members from the New York delegation on a bipartisan basis. I think this illustrates a couple of different things. First of all, this bill and these amendments need not be partisan. In fact, they offer one of the best avenues forward for true bipartisanship as we confront the crisis of climate change. Second, they illustrate that when we talk about our marine resources and climate change, and in this bill, we focus on our oceans and tend to think that our coastal States are those that are affected. Clearly, it is not only our coastal States that are affected. Many States throughout our country are directly affected by the impacts of climate change, including New York State, in conjunction with the Great Lakes. So this is an amendment that we can support. Every year, we seem to hear about another toxic algal bloom in the Great Lakes closing beaches or fisheries. It is important that the fishery research reauthorization in this bill include researching the impacts of harmful algal blooms because there is a lot that is unknown about the causes of these toxic blooms and the long-term effects in fish populations.…”