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Floor Speech

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Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I rise today to introduce the Working Waterfront Preservation Act, legislation to help preserve access by our Nation's fishermen and maritime workers to the waterfronts in coastal communities. I would like to thank my friend Senator Jack Reed from Rhode Island, who joins me in introducing this legislation.

According to the most recent data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, commerical and recreational fisheries are responsible for more than 1.7 million jobs in the United States, $253 billion in sales, and $117 billion in value-added impacts. In Maine, our fisheries are one of our State's most important resources and are vital to our economy. A report of Maine's seafood sector as a whole, which included downstream contributors, found that in 2019, the sector contributed more than $3.2 billion to Maine's economy. Although the fishing industry is a significant economic contributor both nationwide and in Maine, it is losing access to the working waterfronts that are vital to the industry's survival.

A working waterfront is defined as land that is used for or that supports commercial fishing, aquaculture, boatbuilding, or the for-hire recreational fishing industries. That may be a technical definition, but these areas represent much more to coastal communities. A recent study conducted by the Maine Coast Fishermen's Association sums it up perfectly: ``Working waterfronts are more than just a place of business for commercial fishermen; they are a hub of information, a collection of salty characters, a safe haven, a meeting room, a space for support, and they are well-deserving of both a place in Maine's history and its future.'' The importance of these areas cannot be overstated.

In Maine our fishermen and women are losing access to waterfront property up and down the coast. In some coastal Maine communities, once thriving working waterfronts no longer exist. Recent interviews conducted by the Island Institute in Maine uncover that ``for all practical purposes, working waterfront access [in these towns] is essentially gone.'' The reasons for this are complex. In some cases, burdensome fishing regulations have led to a decrease in landings, hindering the profitability of shoreside infrastructure. In other cases, soaring land values and rising taxes have made the current use of commercial land unprofitable. Property is being sold and quickly converted into private spaces, which means that they are no longer available to support our fisheries.

While this trend has been happening for decades--in 2006, Maine's working waterfront only took up 20 miles of Maine's nearly 3,500 miles of coastline--the recent demand for coastal properties has intensified this problem in Maine. We can help preserve these areas for the next generation of fishermen, boatbuilders, and maritime workers with dedicated investments. Currently, the primary mechanism for preserving Maine's waterfronts is through a State-run program called the Working Waterfront Access Protection Program. Since 2008, that program has helped preserve 34 waterfront properties. The legislation I am introducing today would help scale up that model program so that more communities can be assisted.

There is currently no targeted, Federal assistance program to help the commercial fishing industry and other maritime sectors gain or preserve access to working waterfront areas. The Working Waterfront Preservation Act would create a $20 million program to help municipal and State governments, nonprofit organizations, and participants in maritime industries improve working waterfront property in our coastal States. Grants would be administered by the Economic Development Administration, and successful applicants would need to be endorsed by State fisheries agencies, which have the local expertise to understand the needs of each coastal State. In order to be eligible for a grant, recipients would be required to permanently protect an area as working waterfront, to ensure that it can be used for commercial purposes for decades to come, and to invest in the cost themselves.

This legislation is crucial for the continued prosperity of coastal communities across the country. I urge my colleagues to join Senator Reed and me in supporting this important legislation. ______

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