Zeldin amendment helps the Nation’s Fishermen, prevents abuse of the Antiquities Act of 1906
The amendment bars funding for the designation of any national marine monuments by the president in the Exclusive Economic Zone. Marine monuments are areas of ocean where fishing would be banned without consulting the local community, fishermen, or regional fisheries managers. Mr. Zeldin in a release said the Obama administration’s “overzealous interpretation of this law is causing great concern” among the fishing community because the president has sought to apply his power to vast portions of the ocean. In 2014, he said the president declared a 407,000-square-mile National Marine Monument in the Pacific Ocean where commercial fishing was banned and recreational fishing was severely limited. Now, important fishing areas in the Northwest Atlantic, where fishermen from Greenport and Montauk have long worked, are under consideration with little public input and no transparency. Bonnie Brady, the executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, “These are the critical waters that Mr. Zeldin’s amendment will protect.” Read the rest here 08:07
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