Bill Seeks To Help Promote Mass. Seafood

Massachusetts' groundfish industry would get a boost under a seafood marketing program included in a jobs bill passed during the Legislature's final day of its formal session.

The goal of the seafood marketing program is to increase the public's knowledge about the health benefits of eating seafood and the economic importance of the state's fishing industry.

The bill approved last week is also designed to create name recognition and consumer demand for Massachusetts seafood products and stabilize market prices by promoting of Massachusetts seafood products when the supply of the products is high and demand low.

Senate Republican leader Bruce Tarr, who represents Gloucester and was one of the bill's sponsors, said the bill is a reaction to what he called "increasingly crushing" federal catch limits that have pushed fishermen to the verge of extinction.