Fishery Disaster Aid Takes Too Long. Here's Why and How to Speed it Up
Description
The Department of Commerce's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is responsible for administering the fishery resource disaster program. The process to provide assistance to disburse funds to Tribes or states involves several phases. Since January 2014, NMFS received 111 fishery disaster requests. For 56 of the most recently approved requests, NMFS took between 1.3 years and 4.8 years to disburse $642 million. Changes made by 2022 legislation added timelines to the steps; if these are followed and funding is available, the process should take a little over a year.
GAO is making three recommendations, including that NMFS improve its communication and information provided about the fishery resource disaster process and assess whether additional staff are needed to administer the program.
GAO is making three recommendations, including that NMFS improve its communication and information provided about the fishery resource disaster process and assess whether additional staff are needed to administer the program.
Date: Apr 30, 2025
Runtime: 00:00:45
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