ATLANTA — In early June, Gov. Brian Kemp joined leaders in Florida and South Carolina to petition the federal government to have the states manage their own red snapper populations.
Now, seven Georgia members of the U.S. House of Representatives are adding their voices to the same call.
Reps. Earl L. “Buddy Carter, Austin Scott, Mike Collins, Rick W. Allen, Barry Loudermilk, Brian Jack and Marjorie Taylor Green co-signed a letter to the Dept. of Commerce asking for Georgia to manage its own fisheries, saying the government needed to ”cut federal red tape" and approve it.
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For the request, Carter and his colleagues told Sec. Howard Lutnick that they strongly support Kemp’s request for state management of red snapper and other reef fish populations, saying the populations are healthier in size than ever before.
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The representatives said the population growth had made the federal policies “unnecessary” and burdensome, saying the policies were themselves overreach and severely restrictive.
“Georgia’s recreational fishing industry has long struggled under federal fisheries data that limit access and impose heavy-handed restrictions, often set by bureaucrats far removed from our coastal communities,” Carter wrote. “State management, as proposed, would empower Georgia to tailor conservation and fishing policies to local needs, mirroring the successful Gulf of America model where state oversight allows for 127 fishing days.”
As a result, the members of Congress asked the federal government to provide exempted fishing permits to Georgia, Florida and South Carolina.
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