February 14, 2014 — Let’s not forget that to force these costs upon Gloucester and other Northeast fishermen — as the agency had, at one point threatened — would have amounted to tossing a downright obscene unfunded mandate onto the backs of an industry already mired for well over a year in a recognized “economic disaster” that is, in large part, of NOAA’s own making.
And if NOAA officials are seeing this as a good-will offering that might calm other disputes on the eve of today’s February meeting of the New England Fisheries Management Council, they’re sadly mistaken.
The truth is, NOAA officials should now also keep their eyes and ears open to considering scientific data that clearly justifies the opening of previously closed areas for the new fishing year to begin May 1. And neither NOAA, the council nor our federal lawmakers should lose sight of the need to reform the Magnuson-Stevens Act as that moves toward potential reauthorization as well.
NOAA’s coverage of the monitoring cost is a victory for the Massachusetts congressional delegation, notably for Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who had pushed for a coverage plan in a meeting just a week earlier with NOAA’s acting administrator, Kathryn Sullivan. And it’s an encouraging sign for the New England Fishery Management Council, which all too often has its own votes and recommendations cast aside by NOAA’s Northeast administrators.
But this can hardly be seen as a boon to Gloucester’s and New England’s fishermen. It is, in fact, a true and just move that merely avoids socking fishermen with one more hefty cost of doing business – a cost that no doubt would have pushed the industry closer and closer to its own death knell.
Read the full editorial at the Gloucester Daily Times