John Kerry

I realize that you, along with Congressmen Frank and Keating, are concerned about the unused rollover.

A lot of this will come out. So don't feel you're being shortchanged because there's time yet.

We'll get onto it--we'll get into it in the questioning.

Senator Kerry, you pointed out the matter of rolling over quota that's relevant to that.

Congress should very seriously consider re-writing the emergency action provisions in the statute to provide the agency with a more useful level of flexibility when common sense dictates.

Congress should look into what changes can be made to these guidelines--either through statutory changes or otherwise--to achieve a greater utilization of OY.

We are extremely grateful to Mr. Kerry and other Senators for securing language in the Senate's bill to fund NMFS in FY12 that makes it clear that NMFS must fully fund At-Sea monitoring of the groundfish fleet in fishing year 2012.

We certainly recognize the difficult budget climate you face in Washington these days, but the consequence of not funding A-Sea monitoring next year will be a collapse of the sector system and a whole lot of New England fishermen…

I think that's a positive note. I think that that's encouraging, and it's good that we can do that rollover.

So the answer is we can. Yes, we could roll over.

I want the truth and the fishermen want a better relationship.

I think it would be, obviously, a different kind of thing from the hearing, but I think a very important point of communication.

I think the discussion is important, and everybody's had extra time, and I think that's been important.

And I would remind everybody here that this comes into the discretionary portion of the Federal budget, which took $1 trillion worth of cuts over the course of the last few weeks.

Why is it not working?

Let me just emphasize this stock--and if you want to establish trust--nothing has frustrated us more over the last years--I mean, decades--than the science.

Is that broken down? Could you get that to us on a year-by-year?

But what about the actual allocation? I mean, do you have an allocation--this is the catch share, so a downstream impact.

You said the technicality was that revenues were up.

But we want the ability to go get that, and we need the help in order to do it.

We have to get the money. Look, we understand.

All of us have joined together in trying to urge the issuance of a disaster declaration to provide holdover assistance to fishing folks.

When the government steps in and creates a dislocation rather than Mother Nature, and people are selling their boats or their homes, we have a disaster, an economic disaster.

I often link our fishing folks to the same industry, to farming. They live off the sea, live off the land, but they're really farming from the ocean.

You worked closely with Senator Stevens to rewrite the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.