Originally Posted By: grizz1
Quote:
After reading that bill, I do not find anything in it about raising the cost of a sport license, just where part of the fee will go.


Better read it again..section 16...spells out surcharges on sports licenses to pay commercial fishermen to change gear....There are also surcharges on commercial permits but no outline as to how much money will be collected from each surcharge..someone could do the math. I am guessing that the surcharges on sports licenses willl bring in more revenue to pay commercial fishermen than the surcharges on commercial permits.

Bottom line is that the initiative if passed would raise sports licenses to fund commercial fishermen. This is in Oregon. In Washington there is already a surcharge for fishing the Columbia starting in 2010. This money will also fund commercial fishermen.

I'm sure the initiative sponsors in Oregon know that the commercial industry will come out swinging so making it appear that the plan will help commercial fishermen was taken into account. Unfortunately the commercials will come out with both barrells blazing anyway


Better read that section 16 once more. I'm pretty sure it doesn't add any new surcharges, those are ones already existing in the Oregon regulations. Section 16 reallocates the surcharges collected after 2010 to the fund. There is also a section 17 telling how the funds are dispositioned after no longer needed.