NOAA Awards Fishery Economic Assistance Grant to Commonwealth of Massachusetts
May 23, 2008
NOAA’s Fisheries Service today executed a $13 million grant to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to implement a state-run program that will provide economic assistance to the state’s groundfish fishermen.
Congress provided for the program in NOAA’s 2008 appropriation and NOAA’s Fisheries Service received the state’s grant proposal on April 16. This is one of the largest grants ever administered by the agency’s northeast regional office in Gloucester, Mass.
The assistance is expected to be used for direct assistance to fishermen and to assist with health insurance premiums for fishing families. The state’s proposal was submitted to NOAA after the Massachusetts division of marine fisheries held public hearings in the fishing communities of Gloucester, New Bedford, and Plymouth, and received comments by phone, mail, and email.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and information service delivery for transportation, and by providing environmental stewardship of our nation's coastal and marine resources. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners, more than 70 countries and the European Commission to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes, predicts and protects.