Sec. 2. Findings
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Congress finds the following: Management of the inland fishery resources of the Mississippi River Basin are shared by 31 States, multiple Federal agencies, and 2 Canadian provinces. The Mississippi River Basin is the fourth largest watershed in the world, and the largest watershed in the Nation, draining all or part of 31 States and 2 Canadian provinces. The watershed measures approximately 1,200,000 square miles, and covers 41 percent of the continental United States. The Mississippi River and its tributaries comprise 1 of the largest and most valuable ecosystems in the world.
The Mississippi River Basin supports economically and culturally significant subsistence, commercial, and recreational fisheries. States within the Mississippi River Basin have formed multiple regional interstate partnerships, and 1 basin-wide partnership, to promote cooperation and communication among the conservation agencies to manage the interjurisdictional fishery resources of the basin. Twenty-eight Mississippi River Basin State fishery agencies, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Reclamation, the United States Geological Survey, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Chippewa-Cree Tribe, and the Chickasaw Nation ratified the Mississippi Interstate Cooperative Resource Agreement in 1990 and formed the Mississippi Interstate Cooperative Resource Association (MICRA) in 1991 to improve the management of interjurisdictional fishery resources in the basin.
Recognizing the economic, ecologic, and cultural value of the diverse interjurisdictional fishery resources in the Mississippi River Basin and the complexity and severity of issues facing resource management agencies, Congress acknowledges the need for the establishment of a Mississippi River Basin Fishery Commission for basin-wide, inter-agency collaboration in the establishment of shared management objectives, and the collaborative planning, implementation, and evaluation of management actions to provide for the long-term biologic and economic sustainability of interjurisdictional fishery resources in the basin.
As long-term sustainability of interjurisdictional fishery resources is dependent on the control of aquatic invasive species within the Mississippi River Basin, it is the further purpose of this Commission to provide for coordinated, inter-agency, basin-wide management, control, and removal of invasive carps and other prioritized aquatic invasive species within the basin. By consent of Congress, and as directed by Federal law under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act ( 16 U.S.C. 1801 et seq. ) and the Interjurisdictional Fisheries Act of 1986 ( 16 U.S.C. 4101 et seq. ), sustainable fisheries within the United States coastal waters of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Caribbean Oceans, and the Gulf of Mexico, have been managed by multi-state commissions and fishery councils for many decades.
The interjurisdictional and international fishery resources of the Great Lakes are cooperatively managed by the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, operating through the 1954 Convention on Great Lake Fisheries. The Mississippi River Basin Fishery Commission will improve the management and utilization of sustainable interjurisdictional fishery resources in the Mississippi River Basin through the development of a multi-agency program for the joint management and protection of such fishery resources.
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