Steve Bittenbender works as a freelance journalist based in Louisville, Kentucky. Besides working for SeafoodSource.com as a contributing editor, Steve also works as an editor for Government Security News and as the Kentucky correspondent for the Reuters News Service. He also works as a sports writer for The (Louisville) Courier-Journal and The Associated Press. He has received awards from the Kentucky Press Association and the Louisville Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists for his on-going and enterprise reporting work.
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The U.S. Department of Treasury and the Small Business Administration announced on Thursday, 25 June, that commercial fishing vessel owners are now eligible to apply for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans.
The loan program is a COVID-19 relief initiative designed to enable small business owners to keep workers on the payroll as the coronavirus impacted their operations. The loans can be fully forgivable if the recipient uses at least 60
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Through the first five months of the year, shrimpers in the Gulf of Mexico have caught just about the same amount of shrimp as they did last year ...
Photo courtesy of Leigh
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday, 24 June, published guidelines to safeguard seafood processing workers from contracting COVID-19.
The CDC and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) said it developed the plan with help from the Food and Drug Administration.
“It is imperative that workers in the seafood processing industry are protected from coronavirus exposure in their workplace,”
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On Monday, 22 June, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order to temporarily suspend foreign seasonal workers from entering the United States. However, the order carves out an exception for workers who provide “services essential” to the country’s food supply chain.
That’s good news for U.S. seafood processors who depend on H-2B visa workers to fill critical jobs during fishing season.
In the order, Trump said
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The AFL-CIO on Thursday, 18 June sought a rehearing before the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in District of Columbia as it seeks to force the federal government to develop emergency workplace safety standards regarding the novel coronavirus.
The resubmission happened one week after a three-judge panel in the district denied the federation of labor unions request after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) opted not to issue
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Two U.S. congressmen have filed a bill that would allow states to declare fishery disasters because of pandemics including COVID-19.
The legislation filed by U.S. Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Garret Graves (R-Louisiana) would update the Magnuson-Stevens Act to include pandemics as a disaster reason, which would open the door for additional funding.
“Coronavirus is just as much of a disaster for this fishery as it would be if a Category
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The Southern Shrimp Alliance has called into question efforts by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to inspect food imports during the COVID-19 crisis ...
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Nearly three months after a fire destroyed its production facility, NaturalShrimp, Inc. has announced plans to rebuild in its hometown ...
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U.S. lawmakers are continuing the call for more funding for the seafood industry, which has been battered by the COVID-19 crisis. However, the window for such funding may be closing.
States with seafood industries received a collective USD 300 million (EUR 264.2 million) in funding through the CARES Act in March, and officials from the Trump administration announced the allocation splits of those funds last month. However, even before those
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Groups of Republicans in both the U.S. House and Senate wrote to U.S. President Donald Trump this week urging his administration to exclude temporary visa programs, such as the H-2B visas, from efforts to curb immigration.
The letters, reported by Law360.com and TheHill.com, come a couple weeks after the Department of Homeland Security announced it would not bump up the total of H-2B visas, which permit nonimmigrant laborers to work in seasonal
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