NEW BEDFORD — Citing his “extraordinary frustration” in dealing with the U.S. Commerce Department, Gov. Deval Patrick has appealed to President Barack Obama to intervene in the dispute over fishing regulations in the Northeast.
After listing all of the ways in which he and others have been rebuffed by fisheries regulators, Patrick asks Obama in a three-page letter to “set your Department of Commerce and its agencies on a course of cooperation and consideration with regard to the fishing industry in Massachusetts and the coastal communities that depend on it for sustenance and identity.”
The letter comes in the wake of sweeping refusals by Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to do anything to change the system of sector management and the level of catch shares imposed on the fishing industry last year.
Despite lawsuits and intense political pressure from a bipartisan group of lawmakers mainly from the Northeastern states, nothing has changed with regard to the regulations and limits on fishing.
Patrick wrote, “Our fishing communities face severe challenges, and are currently suffering great hardship, as a result of well-intended but often ill-conceived and poorly executed efforts by federal regulators to constrain the fishing harvest and rebuild our fish stocks.”
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