BOSTON (AP) — Attorney General Martha Coakley is urging a court to stop new federal fishing regulations which she called an "existential threat" to New England's 400-year-old fishing industry.

Coakley said her office's motion for summary judgment, filed in the United States District Court in Boston, reinforced the arguments made in the state's lawsuit filed against the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on May 30.

Coakley has also sent a letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski asking the Maryland Democrat to include $150 million in fisheries disaster funding in the final Fiscal Year 2014 federal budget.

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