Political Quotes

“In fact, the director of shark research for that institute says, ``The folks that are pushing the fin ban campaign want to simplify it to this very simple message that if we ban the fin trade in the United States, we save sharks all around the world. That is so simplistic and so wrong. It would cause fishermen ``to have to throw fins into the dumpster. It goes totally against our doctrine of full utilization of fishery products, that when we harvest fishes from the sea, we don't want to throw stuff away. We want to use absolutely everything we can.'' David Shiffman, a marine conservation biologist with Simon Fraser University, also talks about how this is a flawed approach. He lays out an alternative, which my friend from Florida, Congressman Webster, and the Mote Marine Laboratory director of the shark institute there have advocated for as well. Mr. Speaker, there is no one in this body who supports the concept of shark finning. But let's be clear on that. No one here supports this concept of finning a shark and just letting the rest of it drop to the bottom and die. No one does. But we have to understand that our entire fisheries management practice, the State of Louisiana having one of the largest commercial fisheries in the Nation, that this is part of the overall consideration. The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Veasey). The time of the gentleman has expired. Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman.”