Gloucester, Mass – June 19, 2011 – One of America's grandest public meeting halls will be home today to a hearing that, ideally, will shed more light on one of our federal government's worst and most unjust assaults on its own people.
And it's encouraging that the U.S. Senate's Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services and International Security is not only holding today's hearing to delve deeper into the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's war on New England's and America's fisheries, but that it is indeed holding the public session in Boston's Faneuil Hall.
That's because New England — especially Gloucester and New Bedford — has been the flashpoint for both the excessive NOAA enforcement now documented by a federal Inspector General's report, and for the new catch shares regulatory scheme that's steering control of more fishermen's catch toward larger companies and outside investors, driving out the small-independent boats that have long been the seafood industry's lifeblood.
Read the complete editorial from The Gloucester Times.