ATLANTA — Gov. Brian Kemp joined a request from Florida and South Carolina governors Ron DeSantis and Henry McMaster to move management of fish populations to the state.
Specifically, the three governors sent a letter to U.S. Commerce Sec. Howard Lutnick requesting that the states handle management of red snapper and other reef fish populations found in the Atlantic Ocean.
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"As we work with the administration to cut red tape and empower states to do what is best for our people, Governor Ron DeSantis, Governor Henry McMaster, and I are requesting state management of red snapper and other reef fishes in the Atlantic," Kemp said in a statement. “Our fishing industry has suffered under heavy handed federal regulations imposed by bureaucrats thousands of miles away. It’s time this industry is managed much closer to home!”
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In terms of what the states want to do, the governors said the current management of fish populations are “driven by flawed data and regulations that threaten the economies of our coastal communities.”
While the states are “committed to helping our recreational fishing communities,” the governors said they are also working to conserve fisheries as resources for future generations.
“The first step to correcting course on federal mismanagement is to stop the harmful impacts of Amendment 59 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Snapper-Grouper Fishery of the South Atlantic Region,” the three officials said in their letter.
The letter lays the blame on “decades of inaction by career bureaucrats within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,” as well as actions taken at the end of the Biden Administration, which “cut-off public access to the fishery” and have made it harder for communities to “exercise their God-given right to fish and support their local economies and way of life.”
Kemp and his fellow governors said the red snapper population is no longer being over-fished and as a result, they would like a large increase to the quota allowance for fishing the species, due to their current level of “unprecedented abundance.”
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