I have been asked to describe what Senator Ted Stevens meant to the seafood industry. In many ways, today's Alaska fishing industry owes its existence to Ted Stevens.
Prior to passage of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the United States claimed jurisdiction over fishery resources only 12 miles from our coast, and foreign factory trawlers harvested salmon, crab and vast amounts of groundfish right off Alaska's coast.
Senator Stevens was the first member of Congress to propose expansion of U.S. fishery jurisdiction beyond 12 miles when, in January of 1971, he introduced legislation that would have created a 200-mile fishery conservation zone.
