BIDEN BANS SWORDFISH DRIFT GILL NETS IN US

I'll be right upfront: I'm not a fan of legislative riders, where an issue unrelated to the major piece of legislation gets attached as a way of getting it passed.

- Rip Cunningham

It is my feeling that the issue ought to be discussed on its own merits and voted on. But when a piece of legislation has been passed on a bipartisan basis and then vetoed for political reasons, I'll bite my tongue when it appears as a rider. This is when the old nautical expression of "any port in a storm" kicks in.

That is what happened just before Christmas in 2022. Congress passed the Omnibus federal spending package, and included in it was the Driftnet Modernization and Bycatch Reduction Act. During the previous Congress, the same legislation was passed by folks on both sides of the aisle, but then it was vetoed on January 1, 2021, by President Trump as he headed for the exit.

A TANGLED WEB