AUGUSTA — A bill that, if voted into law, would allow fishermen with lapsed licenses back into the rebuilding scallop fishery was not well received by a standing room only crowd at a public hearing Wednesday afternoon.

That is why, a few minutes after the public hearing came to a close, the Legislature’s Marine Resources committee voted unanimously to recommend the bill ought not to pass.

The bill, LD 908, also would have reduced the daily scallop catch limit in most of Maine by about 30 percent and would have reduced the maximum size of drags used in inner-island areas and bays to 5½ feet.

Licensed fishermen are limited to harvesting no more 10 gallons of scallops each day in Cobscook Bay and no more than 15 gallons along the rest of the coast. Those volumes translate to roughly a 90-pound daily limit in Cobscook Bay and roughly a 130-pound limit for the rest of Maine’s coastal waters.

The bill, submitted by Rep. Robert Alley of Beals, would have imposed a 90-pound daily scallop limit throughout the state and would have banned larger drags, such as 8-foot and 10-foot drags, in inner-island areas.

Alley said Wednesday he introduced the bill with the hope of preserving the coastal scallop population so younger people, especially in Down East, would have the chance to find work and earn a living.

“We need to make this fishery a sustainable one,” Alley said at the start of the hearing. “We do have kids growing up that need these licenses.”

The proposal comes at a time when Maine’s scallop fishery has regained much of the value it lost over the past 20 years. The fishery hit bottom in the mid-2000s, when landings sank to 33,000 pounds and a had a statewide value of less than $300,000. By last year, landings had climbed back up to more than 580,000 pounds and generated more than $7.4 million in total gross revenue for fishermen.

Only one person, Gary Libby of Port Clyde, spoke in favor of the bill Wednesday, saying he let his scallop license lapse in 2011 and would like the chance to get back into the fishery to help make ends meet.

But several people, including Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher, voiced opposition to the bill.

Keliher said allowing past license holders to get back into the fishery would “jeopardize the delicate balance” that has been established since the state began implementing new management measures in 2009, when concerns about coastal scallop stocks nearly resulted in the second half of the season being canceled.

Since 2009, he said, the number of active fishermen targeting scallops in Maine coastal waters has grown by 260 percent, from 168 licensed harvesters to 438. Letting more fishermen with lapsed licenses back in could more than double the number of harvesters in the fishery, which likely would result in DMR adopting other measures, such as a lower daily catch limit or a smaller drag requirement in order to mitigate the impact.

“At this point, this fishery cannot stand the additional fishery effort,” Keliher said.

Several opponents said implementing a statewide limit of 90 pounds would have a detrimental effect on the fishery and the economic impact it has. Fishermen often don’t reach their daily limit, some said, and foul winter weather often keeps boats in the harbor and daily harvests at zero.

Kristan Porter of Cutler said if the limit is uniform statewide, more boats will show up in Cobscook Bay, where the scallops grow quickly and in large numbers, which would harm the resource.

“The idea of three buckets (a 130 pound limit), especially in eastern Maine, is to spread out the boats,” Porter said.

Several fishermen said reducing the drag size would have an adverse impact on the resource because boats would have to make more passes over the bottom in order to try and reach their daily limit. Others, including Keliher, said the 4-inch minimum ring size, which allows smaller scallops to pass through the drag without being harvested, has a much greater conservation benefit than a drag’s overall width.

“We struggle to keep this boat working year-round,” Portland fisherman Rick Callow Jr. told the committee. With a smaller drag, he would “be there all day long, (going) round and round and round.”

Despite the bill’s rejection, members of the committee urged DMR and the fishermen-led Scallop Advisory Council to consider some of the concerns the bill sought to address during further management deliberations.