Click here to view video.

WASHINGTON – Today, in a U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies hearing on the U.S. Department of Commerce’s FY 2017 Budget Request, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called on Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker to commit to maintaining robust funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which provides funding to the Milford Lab in Milford, Connecticut. Murphy emphasized that the Milford Lab is one of just two NOAA labs nationwide dedicated to supporting the critical aquaculture research that drives Connecticut’s $30 million shellfish industry, supports over 300 local jobs, and helps improve ocean health. 

“We’re really at the center of aquaculture research in the country with the Milford Lab,” Murphy said to Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker. “As you know, 90% of the seafood that we consume in the United States today is imported, so we certainly have an interest in growing a domestic aquaculture industry…In Connecticut, we have 43 companies and 300 employees in this field that account for about $25 million in shellfish production alone, and that is growing. Aquaculture research is one of these triple wins in that you support a booming industry that’s creating jobs, you grow our knowledge base about ocean health and ocean acidification that can have spillover effects on our efforts to combat warming oceans, and then you of course increase the presence of, in our case, of shellfish, which improves water quality and habitats.”

Secretary Pritzker responded, “We’re very much committed to the Milford Lab and the great work that the people are doing there. We’re also committed to our growing research in aquaculture. And in fact, in our budget, we ask for an additional $1.5 million to support that work because we recognize how important it is, and we also know that it is strongly supported by the east coast shellfish aquaculture industry.”

Murphy has advocated for this investment after visiting the Milford Lab to learn about its critical role in supporting Connecticut’s aquaculture and shellfish industry, which needs robust federal support to meet growing consumer demand. Murphy listened to the funding needs and priorities of Connecticut’s aquaculture industry, and was proud to help secure $116 million for the Fisheries Management Program and Services and $140 million for the Fisheries and Ecosystem Science Program and Services For Fiscal Year 2016 as well as $6.3 million in dedicated aquaculture research funding. These funds will directly support the Milford Lab. 

In addition, Murphy highlighted the important coastal resiliency planning work being conducted at the Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation (CIRCA). CIRCA benefited from NOAA distributed Hurricane Sandy Disaster Relief funding and is helping towns along Connecticut’s coastline gain the expertise to prepare for severe weather events. 

The full text of Murphy’s exchange with Secretary Pritzker is below:

Senator Murphy: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Madame Secretary, thank you for all of work. I’m always impressed at your testimony – the dizzying array of topics that you have to be master of is, I know, both a blessing and a curse. So, I’m going to build on some of the questions that Senator Collins and I tend to double up on and those are questions about fisheries, and in particular, in Connecticut.

As I’ve talked to you before, we’re really at the center of aquaculture research in the country with the Milford Lab, so I wanted to present sort-of a two-level question for you. One, to ask about the commitment in this budget moving forward, generally, to supporting aquaculture. As you know, 90% of the seafood that we consume in the United States today is imported, and so we certainly have an interest in growing a domestic aquaculture industry, but if you pace it out, estimates are that by 2030, 60% of the fish that are going to be consumed in the United States will be from aquaculture, and so we might as well be doing that here.

So I wanted you to talk about, if you would, the broader commitment to aquaculture, and then specifically, as you know, in Milford, Connecticut we have one of the two NOAA labs nationwide that support this kind of research. And in Connecticut, we have 43 companies and 300 employees in this field that account for about $25 million in shellfish production alone, and that is growing. And so you know, from our perspective, aquaculture research is one of these triple wins in that you support a booming industry that’s creating jobs, you grow our knowledge base about ocean health and ocean acidification that can have spillover effects on our efforts to combat warming oceans, and then you of course increase the presence of, in our case, of shellfish, which improves water quality and habitats.

So I just wanted to pose those two questions for you: how can we support aquaculture at large, and then I just want to make sure that your Department continues to have a commitment to robust funding for the Milford Lab, and that there is a commitment to maintaining that lab in Connecticut.

Secretary Pritzker: Well, we’re very much committed to the Milford Lab and the great work that the people are doing there. We’re also committed to our growing research in aquaculture. And in fact, in our budget, we ask for an additional $1.5 million to support that work because we recognize how important it is, and we also know that it is strongly supported by the east coast shellfish aquaculture industry. So we try to do work in a place where industry would support the research that we’re doing. Both the facility and the work are extremely important, and we’re committed to both.

Senator Murphy: And just for your edification, we’re really starting to see some great public-private partnerships on that campus. It’s a very small campus right on the Sound in Milford, but we’ve already had a lot of interest from private companies to come in and start to partner with our researchers there. And so there’s a really great commitment to public-private partnerships there.

Just one last question on the general issue of coastal resiliency. So with NOAA’s help funded through Sandy relief dollars, Connecticut stood up a Connecticut center for climate resilience. The idea here is to really help leverage state dollars, local dollars, and private dollars that are going in to trying to protect our coastline from what will be the next major storm. Long Island Sound is the most urbanized estuary in the country, so we’re particularly vulnerable.

But setting that center up isn’t enough. We’re going to need help keeping it up and operational, and our idea is that for a little bit of money, you are able to leverage a lot smarter investment of federal, state, and local dollars. We have 169 towns in Connecticut – they don’t often have the expertise locally to know how to best use dollars for resiliency purposes. But an ongoing commitment to center of excellence, like the one that we’ve developed in Connecticut, I think is a great way to make sure that a small amount of federal dollars goes a long way towards the coastal resiliency that the Department has been very committed to.

Secretary Pritzker: Thank you.