BATON ROUGE — The drive by a state senator to outlaw the possession of Gulf red snapper for recreational and commercial fishermen as well as everyone else in Louisiana cleared its first hurdle Wednesday, and the debate now heads to the full Senate.
Sen. Bret Allain, R-Franklin, said if the federal government wants to shrink the size of the recreational season because the fishery is supposedly being overfished, then Louisiana should go ahead and shut down the whole operation.
Now that his Senate Bill 157 is moving, Allain said commercial interests and the Louisiana Restaurant Association, both of which oppose the legislation, “realize that I’m serious.”
Without opposition, the Senate Natural Resources Committee approved the bill, which Allain said he would “park” if the U.S. commerce secretary would direct Roy E. Crabtree, regional administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Services, to testify before the Legislature.
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