Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and the state's congressional delegation are urging President Barack Obama to include funding for fishing safety training and safety research grant programs in his next federal budget.

In a Dec. 18 letter to Obama, Baker and the entire Massachusetts delegation pointed out that, based on U.S. Department of Labor statistics compiled by Bloomberg Business, Nnortheast groundfishermen are 37 times more likely to die on the job than police officers and 171 times more likely to die on the job than the average U.S. worker.

"If our school teachers died on the job at the same rate as our fishermen in Massachusetts, we would lose 400 public school teachers each year," they wrote to the president.

They also pointed out that the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2010 required new safety and survival training for those in charge of commercial fishing vessels operating beyond three nautical miles from shore.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times >>

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