The Chronicle

The U.S. Senate passed Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler’s bipartisan bill earlier this month to permanently extend a decades-old fishery management agreement that she says has been vital to the state’s Dungeness crab fishery.

The bill now awaits the president’s signature before it becomes law.

Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, partnered with Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell to get the bill passed in the Senate with unanimous support, according to a press release.

It passed through the U.S. House earlier in January.

According to the release, the states of Washington, Oregon and California cooperatively manage the West Coast crab fishery in federal waters under an agreement that was first authorized by Congress in 1998. The bill makes the existing authority permanent after the agreement expired in 2016.

“It’s vital to our crab fishermen and the tens of thousands of maritime jobs that depend on proper management of our Dungeness fisheries that this tri-state agreement becomes permanent,” Herrera Beutler said in the release. “I join our coastal communities in anticipation of this bill being signed into law and notching an important win for West Coast crab fishermen.”

The bill is vital to Southwest Washington crab fisherman, according to Herrera Beutler’s office, because it ensures the coordination between states to achieve management and conservation goals. The Dungeness crab industry in Washington brings in $61 million annually. Crab fishermen in the state harvest an average of 9.5 million pounds of crab each year, supporting more than 60,000 maritime jobs.