Tag Archives: Wyden

ODFW using grant to track whales on Oregon Coast, reduce fishing gear entanglements

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife received a $278,856 federal grant Friday to help fund its program to improve environmental conditions for whales off the Oregon Coast by reducing the risk of whales entangled in fishing gear. The Funded Species Recovery grant, awarded by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was announced Aug. 9, by U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, both Oregon representatives. >click to read< 10:32

Wyden, Merkley Secured $2.1 Million in Federal Disaster Recovery for Oregon Fisheries

The office of Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, issued the following news release: Oregon’s U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley this week secured $2.1 million in funding to help Oregon fisheries. The funds were finally allocated after a nearly two-year protracted battle with the Trump administration to approve Gov. Kate Brown’s request for fishery disaster declaration in May 2017. >click to read<16:25

Bi-Partisan effort to keep open permanently Newport, Charleston Coast Guard air bases

“We remain extremely concerned about Coast Guard air facilities in the high-use ports of Newport, Oregon and Charleston, South Carolina,” the four lawmakers wrote Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation; the committee’s ranking member Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.); Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), chair of the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure; and the House committee’s ranking member, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.).  click here to read the letter 13:09

SEEKING HELP: West Coast Senators ask for disaster aid for fisheries in the next 2017 disaster funding package.

In a bipartisan push led by Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley, all eight West Coast Senators—Merkley, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) — today called on congressional leaders and the Trump administration to include disaster aid for fisheries in the next 2017 disaster funding package. click here to read the story 15:00

Crab bill strengthening the Pacific Northwest’s Dungeness crab industry heads to President Trump

A bill introduced by Oregon’s Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley to strengthen Oregon’s crab fishery passed the United States Senate and will now head to the president’s desk for signature into law. The bill permanently extends a decades-long fishery management agreement that has been vital to the Pacific Northwest’s Dungeness crab fishery.,,, The states of Oregon, Washington, and California cooperatively manage the West Coast crab fishery in federal waters under a tri-state agreement that Congress first authorized in 1998. The act would make that authority permanent. click here to read the story 15:51

Merkley, Wyden, Schrader, DeFazio, Blumenauer and Bonamici Ask Coast Guard to Keep Newport Air Facility Open

In a letter to Admiral Paul Zukunft, Commandant of the Coast Guard, the Oregon lawmakers stressed the safety implications of closing the facility, writing that the unilateral decision to permanently shut Newport’s doors this December would endanger lives. “Closing this facility would threaten the safety of mariners who make their living in the waters around Newport,” they wrote, “and we urge you to reverse this decision.” Read the rest here 16:11