Fishing ‘Handout’ Line Lands Seth Moulton In Hot Water
By Sean Horgan, Gloucester Daily Times, Mass. | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
Moulton made the initial comments in a videotaped interview Wednesday while discussing the fishing crisis in
"The fishermen want to fish, they don't want handouts," Moulton said in the interview. "Congressman Tierney has been effective for a long time at getting money just to give handouts to the fishermen. But the fishermen, what they want to do is they really want to be able to ply their trade and have a sustainable fishery."
Moulton's choice of words did not sit well with some fishing stakeholders and advocates in
"What the fishermen are getting is right and it's not enough," Sanfilippo said Friday. "Whatever is available, we need it, whatever form it comes. It's not a handout. It's what fishermen have earned. We are in a situation where it's live or die right now in
On Friday, Moulton did not directly respond to a question whether he regretted his choice of the word "handout," instead saying: "I've heard fishermen use the same term."
The
It is the only instance of direct federal assistance since the federal government declared a federal fishery disaster in the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery in 2012. Tierney, along with the other members of the
In 2008, according to a report by the
That led to Gov.
According to the CRS report, similar instances of federal assistance in 1994, 1995, 1999, 2000 and 2002 took the form of compensation, vessel and permit buybacks and funding for health insurance programs.
"I think it's a short-term fix," Moulton said.
Moulton was asked Friday if he would have voted for the federal assistance package if he were a sitting member of
Later, when again asked if he would have voted for the funds, Moulton said he "absolutely would have voted for it" if it was "the only thing on the table." But, he characterized the approach as a "Band-Aid" and said he would have sought a long-term solution to help build a more sustainable fishery.
That long-term approach, he said, would include ensuring the application of the best possible science and exploring the harvesting, promotion and market development for alternative species, such as dogfish. He cited the efforts in
"They're making more money off scallops now than anything else," Moulton said.
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