Three Massachusetts congressmen — John Tierney, William Keating and Ed Markey — are prepared to petition the House Rules Committee today to reinstate in the Superstorm Sandy supplemental appropriation bill more than $100 million for fisheries disaster relief stripped out by the Republican leadership.
While cutting the fisheries relief, Republican leadership amendments introduced nearly half a billion in spending on a wide range of programs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, much of it unrelated to the super storm or of a non-emergency nature.
For three days, the authors of the amendments — House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers of Kentucky and Rep. Rodney Freilinghuysen of New Jersey — have refused to respond to multiple inquiries into the reasoning behind the decision to give huge sums to NOAA for a variety of purposes while virtually eliminating relief for fishermen in Massachusetts and six other states where socio-economic "disasters" have been recognized by the Commerce Department.
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Callifornia crabbing: Here's a fun video shot on the decks of the Majestik while catching Dungeness crab off the coast of northern California.
Over 500 lots of seafood processing equipment formerly owned by Adak Seafood will be sold at auction on Tuesday, June 18, starting at 10 a.m. Hawaiian-Aleutian Daylight Time at the Hilton Garden Inn in Anchorage Alaska.
The equipment is located in a recently updated 250,000 square foot state-of-the-art processing facility in Adak, Alaska. Farmington Hills, Mich.-based Hilco Industrial, which conducts 75 machinery and equipment auctions in a wide range of industries annually, will conduct the auction.
Adak Seafood opened originally as Ada Fisheries in Anchorage in 1986. The facility, updated in 2005, is located on the island of Adak, the southernmost city in Alaska near the western end of the Aleutian Islands. The facility processed cod primarily, as well as halibut, blackcod, crab and pollock, Hilco says.
Alaska fisherman and commercial fisheries activist Kevin Adams was elected chairman at the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute board of directors meeting on May 9 in Anchorage.
The governor-appointed board consists of seven members: five seafood processors and two industry representatives actively engaged in commercial fishing. Adams was appointed to fill a harvester seat by Gov. Frank Murkowski in 2004.
With 38 years of fishing experience in Bristol Bay, Adams has long been an active member in the Alaska fishing industry, ASMI says. He has worked for both the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation and the Bering Sea Fisherman's Association, and represents Alaska fishermen on numerous boards.
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