{"id":618,"date":"2010-04-16T12:30:58","date_gmt":"2010-04-16T20:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/?p=618"},"modified":"2010-11-22T12:28:31","modified_gmt":"2010-11-22T21:28:31","slug":"legislature-passes-fisheries-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/?p=618","title":{"rendered":"Legislature Passes Fisheries Bills"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The legislature passed two bills today\u00a0that will\u00a0aid Alaska\u2019s fishermen and seafood processors.\u00a0 Fisheries are the lifeblood of coastal Alaska and a major part of our state\u2019s economy.\u00a0 Nearly 40 percent of fish harvested in the U.S. come from Alaska. This adds over $2 billion to our economy and provides over 50,000 jobs throughout the year.\u00a0 During my time in the legislature, I\u2019ve worked with colleagues to address issues facing our seafood industry.\u00a0 The goal has been to help our fishermen and processors recover from increased competition from farmed salmon\u00a0and years of low prices.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.legis.state.ak.us\/basis\/get_bill.asp?bill=HB%20%2020&amp;session=26\" target=\"_blank\">House Bill 20<\/a> provides energy relief for Alaska fishermen.\u00a0\u00a0 The bill expands state loan programs for engine and energy efficiency upgrades to commercial fishing boats.\u00a0 This will allow fishermen to\u00a0outfit their boats with new technology that will lower their\u00a0operating costs.\u00a0 \u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.legis.state.ak.us\/basis\/get_bill.asp?bill=HB%20344&amp;session=26\" target=\"_blank\">House Bill 344<\/a> extends the Salmon Product Development Tax Credit.\u00a0 The credit allows processors to deduct up to 50% of the cost of some equipment from their annual Fisheries Business Taxes.\u00a0 These investments include fillet machines, pin-bone machines, smoking equipment, and ice machines.\u00a0The credit aides the modernization of Alaska\u2019s salmon industry,\u00a0and has led to more value-added processing of salmon.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m hopeful these policies will\u00a0continue the positive growth we&#8217;ve seen in our commercial fisheries, and help make Alaska Salmon more valuable on the world market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The legislature passed two bills today that will aide Alaska\u2019s fishermen and seafood processors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7,8,14],"class_list":["post-618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-bert-stedman","tag-energy","tag-fisheries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=618"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1175,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions\/1175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}