CARES Act funding was approved for fisheries assistance in May 2020 by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce. The spend plan provides eligibility criteria for participants in the seafood processing, commercial harvesting, sport charter, and aquaculture sectors.
Kari Winkel, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner’s Office Manager spoke to KSRM, “Section 12005, the relief funding for fisheries participants, was allocated $300 million. Of that, NOAA allocated the state of Alaska $50 million. NOAA made those allocations based off of residency. We went through a few rounds of public comment back in October and November to come up with the spend plan that we have right now. It took us a little while to get it approved, but we finally got it approved and now we have the spend plan out there for informational purposes. We have applications for every sector but the subsistence sector, which is being worked on. Right now, we have application period open. It will be open through April 30th. People are mailing in applications, they would need to be postmarked by April 23rd. The way we have it laid out is kind of PFD style shares. Every sector was allocated a certain amount of the $50 million. We won’t know what each share is worth until we’re done accepting applications because then we’ll take the number of successfully applied shares and divide the money from that sector by that number of shares PFD style.”
The spend plan allocates 100% of available funds as direct payments to fishery participants in eligible sectors. While all sectors have been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, available funds will only cover a portion of the losses incurred by affected fishery participants.
For questions or inquiries related to Alaska’s Sec. 12005 CARES Act Fisheries Assistance relief, click here, email AKCares@psmfc.org or call (888) 517-7262.