Sarah Elfreth: “I am grateful that H.R. 4294, the MAWS Act, is included in today's suspension package, a piece of legislation I was so…”

“I am grateful that H.R. 4294, the MAWS Act, is included in today's suspension package, a piece of legislation I was so proud to work in partnership in crafting with the gentleman from Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the Nation that is responsible for $100 billion in annual economic value, is facing a critical, albeit delicious threat, the invasive blue catfish. These blue catfish were introduced into tidal areas of the bay in the 1970s for recreational purposes under the assumption that they would stay in the freshwater and not venture into the brackish water of the larger bay. That assumption has turned out to be catastrophically wrong. Blue catfish are now not only in every tidal area of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, but they are the most abundant biomass in many of them, and the threat is real. Blue catfish can live up to 20 years. They can weigh up to 100 pounds. They eat approximately 10 percent of their body weight every day and have an extremely fast metabolism. The imbalance my colleague from Virginia just spoke about in our ecosystem has created a situation where because they eat so much, their meals frequently consist of staples of our seafood industry and staples of Maryland and Virginia's culture: baby blue crabs, rockfish, even oysters, causing significant economic damage to our seafood industry at large, which is a central part of our economies in the bay region.”