Edward Livingston: “I would simply say that I respectfully disagree with him on this point. We are always hearing about federalism…”

“I would simply say that I respectfully disagree with him on this point. We are always hearing about federalism, restoring the power to the States. I think that means equal power to the States and that all Americans stand equally under the eyes of the law. That is not the case when it comes to limits for fisheries or for any other purposes of the Outer Continental Shelf. The fact is, as my friend, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) will say, red snapper are doing fine. There are plenty of red snapper. And the unfunded mandates, I do not think that is a problem because the Federal Government did not worry about that when they made the shrimpers carry BRDs or TEDs or any of the other excluder devices that they mandated from here in Washington, so the unfunded mandates really is not an issue. What is an issue is federalism, equal opportunity for States. In Alaska, they have a 12-mile limit, extending their jurisdiction out 12 miles for the supervision of some of their fisheries. In the States of California and Oregon and Washington, for the purpose of supervising the development of a particular species of crab they are talking about 200 miles, 200 miles reaching out beyond the borders of their shorelines.”