The American Sportfishing Association (ASA), along with the country's leading conservation and sportsmen's and women's organizations, applauds the Senate for passing the RESTORE the Gulf Coast Act (S. 1400) as an amendment to the Senate transportation bill. Introduced by Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), RESTORE represents extraordinary bipartisan consensus among lawmakers in the Gulf of Mexico region and beyond and is a crucial measure that ensures that 80 percent of the funds from the Clean Water Act and other penalties assessed in the wake of the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill are used to pay for economic and environmental restoration projects in Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.