U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton has expanded efforts to reform at-sea monitoring for groundfishing vessels, corralling a regional and bipartisan group of federal legislators to urge NOAA to accept changes already approved by the New England Fisheries Management Council and supported by NOAA Regional Administrator John Bullard.

Moulton and 16 other members of Congress — totaling 12 Democrats, four Republicans and one Independent from five New England states — wrote to NOAA Administrator Kathleen D. Sullivan expressing support for the council motions approved in December and again voicing their opposition to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s plans to transfer at-sea monitoring (ASM) costs to permit holders sometime early this year.

Those costs are estimated at about $710 per day per vessel with monitor coverage.

“We have requested that your agency utilize authority provided by Congress through the Fiscal Year 2015 Appropriations process to cover such expenses in fishing year 2015 and continue to strongly support the deferment of ASM costs to the industry until these program reforms are fully implemented,” the legislators wrote to Sullivan.

The letter, sent Friday, represents the broadest congressional reach on the issue to date and reflects Moulton’s emergence as a leading congressional ally in the fishing industry’s effort to recast the monitoring program into a more efficient and economical operation.

“We felt we needed to educate a broader group of leaders across the region and here in Washington,” Moulton, the first-term Democrat representing Massachusetts’ Sixth Congressional District that includes Cape Ann, said Friday of the monthlong work that went into drafting the letter and convincing the other legislators to sign on.

The letter commended Bullard for supporting the council’s monitoring reform motions and then laid out in detail the council’s votes on separate elements that combined would “substantially improve the (ASM) program for groundfish sectors beginning in fishing year 2016.”

Those motions, supported by industry stakeholders sought to bring more clarity to the monitoring program by verifying specific areas fished and the catch affected, as well as defining discards by species and gear type.

They still require NOAA’s approval before they can be enacted.

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