Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman from Florida for bringing this issue up. The lionfish has certainly, according to many reports, been a species that is causing an adverse impact to red snapper. The solution that he proposes here is a solution whereby States could submit a modified or a new exempted fisheries permit, where they could provide for additional access, on top of their existing allocation, to red snapper in exchange for harvesting a certain number of lionfish species, which are predators to the red snapper. As folks will see, there is a lot of handwriting on this amendment. We did sit back and make some changes to this, so there is an excellent chance that there are some imperfections here. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for working with us on this. I thank my friends from Florida and California for working with us on this as well. It is likely that we are going to need some additional work on this as we move forward. There are some enforcement issues; there are science issues; and there is introduction of a new mechanism that causes some significant concern in the form of tags, in some cases. But I, again, thank the gentleman from Florida for raising this issue, for working to ensure that we continue to have access to red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico. I look forward to working with my friend from Florida, as well as the folks across the aisle, in perfecting this as we move through the conference committee. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.”