Multi-million dollar bill to support lobster industry advances

BANGOR, Maine (WABI) - Senator Susan Collins has announced she has advanced more than $35 million in an appropriations bill for the next fiscal year to support Maine’s lobster industry.

The bill was approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee and still needs the approval of Congress.

$30 million would go to the Atlantic Marine States Fisheries Commission for Right Whale related research and monitoring.

$3 million is set aside for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northeast Science Center Right Whale monitoring efforts in the Gulf of Maine.

And, $2 million would go toward Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank American lobster research.

Collins says flawed data is being used to create unnecessary requirements for Maine lobstermen and women.

She says the funding would go toward improving the incomplete science on which the federal government relies to inform regulations.

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