Byrne Reacts to Nine-Day Red Snapper Season

Press Release

Today, Representative Bradley Byrne (AL-1) reacted to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association's (NOAA) decision to further limit the Red Snapper season in the Gulf of Mexico to nine days in 2014.

This decision was reached after Louisiana and Florida made the decision to go noncompliant with federal regulations in the Gulf earlier this year and increase the length of their respective in-state seasons. The emergency rule, filed with the Federal Register today, takes these developments into account and sets a 20 percent buffer "to prevent a recreational quota overage this year."

Congressman Byrne has argued that NOAA's scientific methods used to measure Red Snapper stocks are fatally flawed, and are not reflective of the actual number of Red Snapper in the Gulf of Mexico. Byrne has cited scientific methods championed by Dr. Bob Shipp of the University of South Alabama, a leading voice on this issue who believes the states are more effective regulators on this particular issue than the federal government, as well as anecdotal evidence from local fishermen.

Byrne said: "Alabama's fishermen and coastal communities are being devastated by the federal government's total inability to effectively regulate Red Snapper fishing. Today's development merely serves to highlight the fact that the federal regulatory framework is broken beyond repair.

"I continue to believe that we must work to return more power to the states in order to achieve any kind of long-term workable solution on this issue. In the meantime, I am working with my Gulf Coast colleagues and with my colleagues on the House Natural Resources Committee to repeal these inflexible quotas through my bill, the SNAPR Act. This fight is not over, and I won't back down in the fight to protect Alabama's coastal communities."

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