GLOUCESTER, Mass. — August 3, 2012 — John Bullard has hands-on experience working with commercial fisherman … he clearly knows the issues. We welcome Mr. Bullard to Gloucester, we wish him the best — and extend the hope that he will indeed work with Gloucester’s and New England’s fishermen, not against them, as has happened in the past.
By most counts, the worst distrust between fishermen and the federal officials who regulate them rests right here in New England.
And that means that distrust and animosity — understandable, considering the job-killing policies NOAA has put in place under national chief administrator Jane Lubchenco, and the enforcement excesses documented by the Department of Commerce’s own inspector general — is especially focused on Gloucester, where NOAA oversees fisheries from Maine to the Carolinas from its Northeast headquarters in Blackburn Industrial Park.
Yet, as noted in Richard Gaines’ Page 1 Thursday story, there is a new sense of optimism that those gulfs of distrust might be bridged through the presence of a new regional administrator who met with local NOAA personnel on Wednesday, and is slated to take the agency’s regional reins on Monday.
John Bullard steps into a difficult position, leading an increasingly dysfunctional NOAA agency in perhaps its most volatile region. Yet, it’s encouraging to hear him say that’s he comes with “no marching orders” from the tunnel-visioned and accountability-challenged Lubchenco, who seems intent on driving independent fishermen and small businesses out of the industry, and who had a hard-line foil in Bullard’s predecessor, former regional chief Patricia Kurkul.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Times.