During the Kenai River Sportfishing Association’s Classic Roundtable forum, U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski(R) and Mark Begich(D) addressed the Magnuson Stevens Act reauthorization.
Sen. Murkowski addressed local recreational issues.
Sen. Murkowski: “One aspect of what we are looking at in the here and now is that we deal with our immediate issues here on the Kenai Peninsula is how we make sure we are not in a situation where we are continually fighting for limited federal dollars for disasters, that’s not how we manage. So we are working those issues and will continue to work those, as it relates to the re authorization of Magnuson Stevens and where we are moving forward, we clearly clearly need to address the recreational fishing issues that you have indicated.”
While Sen. Begich spoke about previous meetings with local recreational fishermen.
Sen. Begich: “Let me jump right into that piece of MSA re authorization, part of the process that I’ve done over the past year plus on the MSA is to make sure that all sides are heard, that we make sure we talk about commercial, sports rec, and also, I would add if I can a third element and that’s the issue of subsistence, especially for Alaska. I held a meeting down here with the sports rec guys and it was very interesting, some of you might remember it, and we had the conversation going on and it was that attitude that was so different than what I had seen from so many years previous of ‘how do we make this work for all sections.”
Both agreed that the Act should address recreational fishing separately however somewhat disagreed on the amount of time it might take to get it there.
