Fishermen's Finest vessel gets green light to fish in US waters as Jones Act waiver granted

After months of negotiations, US Sen. Maria Cantwell, a senior Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, secured a bipartisan agreement to pass the Coast Guard reauthorization bill, which includes a waiver to allow the newly built America's Finest vessel to fish in American waters.

America's Finest, a 264-foot factory trawler built for US harvester Fishermen's Finest at Washington State's Dakota Shipyard at a cost of $75 million, is the largest private shipbuilding investment in more than a decade. Fishermen's Finest had planned for the vessel, part of the Amendment 80 fleet, to harvest in the Bering Sea.