U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke today announced he would not — and could not — increase catch limits to relieve what Gov. Devel Patrick’s ad hoc scientific research committee had found to be a government-created economic crisis in New England’s fishing communities, bleeding millions from the working fleet through the launch of the catch share management system for the groundfishery.
Locke turned down the pleas of the governor and the congressional delegation, saying that the filing of an economic impact study in November failed to introduce meaningful, new information. So, Locke contended, his hands were tied.
"In the absence of new scientific data,” he wrote in letters to Patrick and the Congressman Barney Frank. “I am … unable to exercise my emergency rule authority.”
Reaction to the secretary’s decision from the political sector ranged from angry to nuanced, but along Gloucester’s docks this afternoon, the announcement was greeted with shock, outrage and incomprehension.
"Obama came back from Hawaii talking about jobs and the economy,” said John Aiello, a crew member on Capt. Russell Sherman’s offshore trawler Lady Jane. “This is America? They’re doing this to America’s oldest industry, thousands of jobs.”
Richard Burgess, a four-boat-business owner and president of one of the 12 fishing cooperatives or sectors struggling with low allocations set b the governemnt for several fish stocks, said he considered the annoucement tantamount to declaration of “war” with the fishing industry, which has been engaged in legal and political battles nearly from the moment the Senate confirmed scientist-activist Jane Lubchenco to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and she launched a campaign to essentially convert the fisheries into catch share commodity markets.
Frank, a sharp critic of Obama fisheries policy, said he would organized an effort among members of the House Natural Resources Committee a plan to “make needed revisions” in the Magnuson-Stevens Act. It was through that act that the federal fisheries regulatory system racheted down catch limits across the board over the past year, while fishermen and waterfront businesses also grappled with the new catch share system.’
As the new system was engineered, only fishermen with strong 11-year histories of heavy groundfishing have been able to effectively participate in a sector; ancedotally, the benefits of catch shares was realized only by the biggest fishing boat businesses.
Gov. Patrick has yet to submit the amicus brief he promised to addend to the suit. Tierney and Frank have relesased their supporting briefs.
Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk said today that Locke’s position’s cries out for higher review.
“It is time for a presidential review of the situation,” Kirk said, “and I intend to ask Gov. Patrick to take the case to President Obama.
U.S. Sen. Scott Brown said he believes Locke was provided with plenty of evidence to raise the limits.
Read the complete story from the Gloucester Times.
Read the letter from Secretary Locke to Governor Patrick.