Trent Lott: “the Gulf States from Texas to Florida have all been dealt serious blows this past hurricane season by Hurricanes…”

“the Gulf States from Texas to Florida have all been dealt serious blows this past hurricane season by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Wilma, and Dennis. The needs are tremendous across the entire Gulf Coast in the fishing communities which were hit hardest and first. Before these hurricanes, the gulf produced about 15 percent of the Nation's domestic wild-caught seafood by weight and about 20 percent by value. According to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report, these hurricanes shut down, damaged, or destroyed 90-100 percent of the commercial docking facilities, repair shops, ice houses, offloading facilities, net makers, recreational marinas, bait and tackle shops, and seafood restaurants and retail markets in eastern Louisiana, with similar, if somewhat reduced, impacts in Mississippi and Alabama. Most of these facilities remain closed today, 9 months later. On September 9, 2005, Secretary of Commerce Gutierrez declared a fisheries disaster for the Gulf of Mexico under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which authorizes fisheries disaster assistance in such situations. Of the almost $90 billion in disaster funding appropriated by the Congress since these hurricanes, none has been directed at these fishing communities. On top of the difficulty that gulf fishermen are experiencing in rebuilding their ability to catch and process gulf seafood, they are also faced with the hurdle of getting that catch into the national marketplace.…”