September 16, 2013 — CONCORD, N.H. — New Hampshire has joined a lawsuit to block “onerous” regulations that officials contend could have a “devastating” impact on the state’s small boat fishing industry.
The N.H. attorney general’s office is seeking to intervene in a lawsuit filed earlier this year by the commonwealth of Massachusetts against officials of the U.S. Department of Commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the federal government.
The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts challenges Frameworks 48 and 50, the new catch limit regulations on many types of groundfish in New England. The regulations were issued earlier this year by the secretary of Commerce under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.
The lawsuit states that a 77 percent reduction in the catch limits on certain groundfish species is “threatening the extinction of an industry that for more than a century has been part of the commercial and social fabric of New England.”
Read the full story at Seacoast Online