To the editor:
Regarding the Nov. 22 Gloucester Daily Times editorial, headlined "Fishermen's letter creates need for fishery referendum," and the comment about "the increasingly shady New England Fishery Management Council" and its efforts to avoid a referendum¬ù for the catch shares program known as sectors, I believe a better understanding of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act is in order.
Reauthorized in 2007, the Act states the following with respect to the New England Council: "The Secretary (of Commerce) may not approve or implement a fishery management plan or amendment that creates an individual fishing quota program … unless such a system has been approved by more than two-thirds of those voting in a referendum among eligible permit holders.
Congress also approved Section 303A of the Act which is more explicit. The term "individual fishing quota" does not include a sector allocation.
A referendum on the current system in place to manage groundfish has not been held for the simple reason that the sector program does not authorize individual fishing quotas.
Read the complete letter to the editor in The Gloucester Times