This link is for a bill that is currently under review. It is essential to the recovery of our oceans. Turning our commercial fisherman into aquaculture specialists is the best way to help repair our dying oceans, regain our depleted fish stocks, and help to meet the intake demands of a growing nation.
I am a little leary of the provisions set aside for oil exploration. I think we should be concentrating our funding on alternate energy sources, rather than further exploiting our fragile eco-systems, by drilling for more oil.

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/mediacenter...ct%20FINAL.pdf

Please let me know what you think.

I'm not much of an environmentalist, so honestly I don't care to much but I guess if it does help, why not.

Neb, As a former commercial fisherman, I can tell you with certainty, that our oceans are really dying. What use to be a profitable business is becoming a losing battle. I personally know of Captains that have been forced out of this business because there are very few fish left. What use to be an area where you could pull in a full net, is now an area where you may get 10 fish in the net if you are lucky. The answer at first was to go out further to fish. Now that doesn't even work. Even great fish stores like the Grand Banks are becoming depleted. WE have to address this
NOW!
Our lobster population is dying off from shell rot, as are our crabs. This is caused by Crude oil spilled and tires being discarded improperly. The lobsters can't molt because they need a certain temperature at a certain time of year and the water has risen 3 degees constant, in the last few years. If the lobsters can't molt, to rid themselves of these rotting shells, they die. The lobsters and crabs are essential to our oceans, as they clean the bottom of scum. Without them there is not going to be enough oxygen to support life in the ocean. Then, eventually, gas will rise from the ocean floor and poison the air!! Then we die too.
This is possibly the most pressing subject, in terms of saving our earth!!!!
We need to come up with a different energy source so we are not transporting our own deaths in oil tankers.

Another factor contributing to the downfall of lobsters and crabs, would be the overharvesting of oysters, mussels, and clams. In addition to being over harvested, there are a few species that feed exclusively on these things, and because their natural predators have been over-fished, the oysters and clams are at an even greater risk. They are the filters of the ocean, who clean the impurities out of the water, and their decline affects the other ocean populations. They do filter oil and other harmful pollutants out of water.
That is another market that can be cultured, leaving the wild populations to rebound.
Life is all connected. Whether or not we have the right to dominate the earth, we do it, but we need to be doing it a bit more wisely. The way we are doing things now will lead to our self destruction.

I just don't understand why our country is so out of touch with nature that we can't understand such simple facts as our crumbling environment.

I live in Nebraska, there isn't much pollution here so therefore you just don't think about it.

It is time to start thinking outside the box, or state in this case

Not much ocean there either...

Yeah, not to much ocean.

But seriously, I would say that the majority of Nebraskan's don't worry to much about environmental pollution. Because there isn't any. So if you are an environmentalist and you want to come to a very low polluted place, Nebraska welcomes you.

The parts I saw looked nice and wild. It seemed very open-spaced.