One focus will be Magnuson-Stevens' National Standard 8 — requiring NOAA to weigh the impact of regulations on fishing communities — Zinser should have a field day showing how nonprofits' interests have far outweighed any concern for the industry and communities.
Then there's the blatant co-opting of the rulemaking process documented in a classic 2005 EDF grant proposal, which encouraged a potential donor to support the primary catch share pusher because EDF could "work the regulatory process from the inside, making aggressive use of our hard-won seat on the New England Fishery Management Council."
There's also the hidden communications among NOAA, the New England council, and Conservation Law Foundation amid the push for catch shares for Gloucester and other New England fishermen. Those exchanges were sought by fishery attorneys in an earlier lawsuit, yet denied after CLF actively fought to keep such emails and other communications out of public view.
This probe is long, long overdue.
Read the complete editorial by The Gloucester Times.