Fishing Industry Alerts

Senator William Cowan issued remarks on the current Farm Bill, passed today by the U.S. Senate. The Farm Bill includes several measures aimed at aiding the fishing industry in Massachusetts and New England.

The following is an excerpt from a release from the Senator's office, including descriptions of measures written by the Senator affecting the fishing industry. A full version of the release can be viewed here .

Senator William "Mo" Cowan (D-Mass.) today made the following statement after the U.S. Senate passed the 2013 Farm Bill by bipartisan vote of 66 to 27.  A companion Farm Bill will be debated in the House of Representatives, and the two bills will be reconciled in Conference in the coming months.
 
"While this is not a perfect bill, I was pleased that I could help to include critical provisions for Massachusetts that will support our local and regional food producers as well as recognize and provide some relief for our fishing industry.  Additionally, this legislation will go a long way in boosting our economy by creating a number of jobs across the Commonwealth and the nation," said Sen. Cowan. "Unfortunately while we were able to get much-needed support in some key areas, the final bill falls short of protecting all crucial funding for nutrition assistance that folks back home and around the country rely on every day. When the bill goes to conference we must work hard to hold the line and steer clear of the draconian cuts to the nutrition program proposed by the Republicans in the House of Representatives."
 
The following provisions authored by Senator Cowan were included in the bill passed by the U.S. Senate today:

Fisheries Insurance Study
This amendment directs USDA's Risk Management Agency (RMA) to study and propose a mechanism for insuring seafood harvesters through a USDA crop insurance product.  Our fishermen are facing extremely difficult times.  We need to do everything we can to help them through these difficult times, and insurance is one way to reduce risk.  Our farmers have access to crop insurance; our fishermen should as well.

Fishermen as Eligible Recipients of Emergency Disaster Loans
As Senator Kerry pushed last year, this provision expands the Emergency Disaster Loan program to include fishermen. When a county has been declared a disaster area by either the President or the Secretary of Agriculture, agricultural producers in that county may become eligible for low-interest emergency disaster (EM) loans available through USDA's Farm Service Agency. EM loan funds may be used to help eligible farmers, ranchers, and aquaculture producers recover from production losses (when the producer suffers a significant loss of an annual crop) or from physical losses (such as repairing or replacing damaged or destroyed structures or equipment, or for the replanting of permanent crops such as orchards). Senator Cowan ensured that this provision was included in the 2013 Farm Bill.

Saving Seafood’s primary point remains focused on the Task Force report, which has not undergone any outside review by objective third parties.

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — June 10, 2013 — The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) recently criticized as a “flat-out falsehood” Saving Seafood’s description of the Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force’s report as lacking peer review. Subsequently, the Pew Charitable Trusts made the same argument in a letter to the editor of Seafood News. Saving Seafood would like to clarify our statement referencing the “unproven assumptions, as well as a lack of peer-review of the Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force.” 

When we labeled the Task Force’s report, “Little Fish, Big Impact,” as absent peer review, we were referring to the report’s recommendations, specifically that “forage fish” harvests should be severely restricted. Neither those recommendations, nor the analysis supporting them, have been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.  

Both CLF and Pew stated that the report’s acknowledgements “clearly” indicate that it was peer-reviewed by three independent reviewers. But the report only discloses that “three anonymous reviewers lent their time and expertise to shaping the final form” of the report. “Shaping the final form” and “peer review” are not synonymous.

When contacted for this article, a Task Force member stated that some of those involved in the Task Force considered this anonymous, in-house review to be the equivalent of a formal peer review process. We were also told that the report's anonymous reviewers were in fact selected by Pew, which manages the Lenfest Ocean Program that convened the Task Force.

According to the Pew Charitable Trust’s website, the Lenfest Ocean Program “was established in 2004 by the Lenfest Foundation and is managed by Pew.” A Pew press release earlier this year referred to the “forage fish task force, convened by the Pew-managed Lenfest ocean program…”. The Policy Advisor of the Task Force, Chris Mann, is a "senior officer" with the Pew Environment Group, where he works on “forage” fisheries, among other responsibilities. Christine Santora, the Task Force Project Director, previously worked as a Senior Research Associate with the Pew Institute for Ocean Science.

When a paper is submitted to a journal for conventional peer review, the journal’s editorial staff selects independent anonymous reviewers, who can accept, reject, or offer suggestions regarding the paper. The American Fisheries Society, in a 2006 document “Defining and Implementing Best Available Science for Fisheries and Environmental Science, Policy, and Management,” lists five goals for a peer review process: “the peer review covers (1) the validity of the methods used, (2) whether the methods and study design adequately address the objectives, (3) whether the results that are reported are adequate for interpretation, (4) whether the results support the conclusions, and (5) whether the findings represent a significant advance in scientific knowledge.”

In the case of the report of the Lenfest Task Force, it is not clear how extensive the process of “shaping the final form” was, whether this review was consistent with the best practices of an independent review, or whether the reviewers had the right to reject the report’s findings and recommendations. But even if the review met industry-standard practices, the reviewers themselves were selected by the same organization that convened the Task Force, which is clearly not reflective of an independent selection process.

While we do not question the intentions of those who worked on “shaping the final form” of the report, we stand by our assessment that the report’s recommendations and non-economic analyses, which have not been published in any scientific journal, were not submitted for an independent peer review. Given the circumstances surrounding the management of the Lenfest Task Force, and the role of the Task Force’s managing organization in selecting reviewers, we find CLF’s characterization of our statement as a “flat-out falsehood” to be a flat-out falsehood. The circumstances surrounding the Task Force report review process are not black and white, but grey at best.

However, we want to be clear. One aspect of the Task Force’s work has undergone peer review. Specifically, the Task Force members drafted a paper, “The global contribution of forage fish to marine fisheries and ecosystems,” published in the journal Fish and Fisheries. This paper dealt with the relative economic value of “forage fish” as direct catch vis-à-vis their “supportive value” for predator species. But it did not include the Task Force’s recommendations for species management.

Saving Seafood’s primary point remains focused on the Task Force report, which has not undergone any outside review by objective third parties. Because its reviewers were selected by the report’s funder, the Pew Environment Group, the report has not faced the standards for objective third-party peer review generally provided by independent scientific journals. If the Task Force's recommendations on "forage fish" are to become the national standard, extensive review by regulators and third party experts should be required.

We stand by our position.

Richard Gaines, the award-winning 40-year New England journalist who spent more than a decade as staff writer with the Gloucester Daily Times was found dead this afternoon in the swimming pool outside his home in his beloved Bay View section of the city.

June 10, 2013 — GLOUCESTER, Mass. (Gloucester Daily Times) — Richard Gaines, the award-winning 40-year New England journalist who spent more than a decade as staff writer with the Gloucester Daily Times and carved out a national niche with his local coverage of the commercial fishing industry, was found dead this afternoon in the swimming pool outside his home in his beloved Bay View section of the city.

Police and fire emergency crews responded to the scene as an unattended death. Authorities said there is no suspicion of foul play.

Gaines, who was 69, was found by his wife Nancy – also a longtime writer and editor and a Times correspondent – at around 2 p.m. today when she returned to the couple's Quarry Street home from Boston.

Nancy Gaines said she had been in the city, and was initially surprised that Richard did not pick her up at the Gloucester commuter rail station as they had planned. She then made her way home, and found him already dead in the pool.

"We had plans to try to clean the pool," she said Sunday evening. "And I'm guessing he either got up very early – as he often did – and was working on the pool, or was examining it. It looked as it he may have had a heart attack."

Read the story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Yesterday, Mr. Shelley told the Gloucester Times' Richard Gaines that the lawsuits CLF filed last week against NOAA actions to provide relief to fishermen are "not hypocritical at all."

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) June 6, 2013 — Peter Shelley, senior counsel with the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), last week criticized Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley for filing suit against NOAA after the agency, among other things, rejected the recommendations of the New England Fishery Management Council to extend for a second year, provisions that would have lessened the severity of cod quota cuts.

Yesterday, Mr. Shelley told the Gloucester Times' Richard Gaines that the lawsuits CLF filed last week against NOAA actions to provide relief to fishermen are "not hypocritical at all."

(Gloucester Daily Times) June 6, 2013 –"It's not hypocritical at all," said Shelley, who criticized Coakley for interfering with the federal regulatory process.

"The distinction for me is that I have seen time and time again when politicians – in this case the attorney general – hasn't participated in the (fisheries management) process, and then comes in to try to influence the process in litigation," Shelley said. "They're not taking a legal position, there's not much there except politics.

"Our suits are not political," he said. "They're strictly based on the facts, and we do it as a last resort."

Coakley's office begged to differ Wednesday.

"Rather than resorting to false and personal accusations, our office chooses to argue on the facts," Chris Loh, spokesman for Coakley's office, said in a prepared statement. "The indisputable facts are that NOAA has a history of overzealous enforcement and their new regulations will be a death sentence to the fishing industry. Our motive is simple – to make sure the federal government does its job right instead of devastating our fishing industry."

Shelley discounted as irrelevant that the attorney general's suit was supported by Gov. Deval Patrick, whose designee sits on the New England Fishery Management Council, the policy advisory arm of NOAA which voted 16-1 against radical reductions in catch limits for groundfish in 2013. The sole dissenting vote was taken by NOAA Regional Administrator John Bullard.

In the face of the otherwise unanimous appeal by the council, made up of ocean state representatives and at large appointees chosen from lists of gubernatorial candidates by the NOAA administrator through the Secretary of Commerce, Bullard refused to ease limits on landings.

Underpinning both the attorney general's suit and CLF suits filed last Friday is the same fact – that the Northeast groundfishery was declared by the acting commerce secretary to have collapsed into a "disaster" eight months ago despite industry's adherence to the government's resource management.

"Confirming this dismal outlook, fishermen have been unable to find enough cod to even come close to filling their small quotas," Shelley wrote on the CLF blog. "The fish just aren't there any more."

This line is also favored by the Pew Environment Group, but fishermen took more than 60 percent of their inshore cod quota last year, despite market and regulatory limitations inherent in the unique mix of stock allocations on each permit. Low allocations in any one stock will halt fishing in all stocks.

In the face of the crisis, the attorney general sued to challenge the legality of the extreme measures imposed in response, while Shelley's CLF were moving to provide additional protection to the resources – opposing the decision of the council and NOAA to allow uncaught carryover and fishing in longtime closed areas. Shelley has not been shy in arguing that all fishing for cod should be stopped, a step that would threaten the survival of the industry.

Bullard described his decision to reduce landings by 78 percent as a sign of the arrival of a "day of reckoning"; Coakley and many within the industry argue that such a radical reduction is "a death penalty."

Bullard has agreed to consider allowing fishermen into three closed areas so long as habitat and spawning are not degraded and use 10 percent of unused quota from last year, which is an existing policy in part to discourage fishermen from taking risky trips in bad weather at the end of the fishing year rather than leave part of their allocation in the sea.

Shelley, however, argues that the closed areas were essential to the rebuilding of the distressed stocks.

Many of the closures were established to reduce fishing mortality, and are "artifacts of the old effort control system," the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition argued in an email to the Times. The system now operates on hard catch limits "making other mortality or effort controls – like certain closed areas – redundant.

"Many of the existing closures greatly hinder fishermen's ability to access and harvest their available allocation," the coalition said.

"Contrary to the Conservation Law Foundation's imprudent lawsuit, areas fishermen could gain access to … are conservative and would be limited to areas not defined as habitat closed areas and/or potential new habitat management areas being considered under the larger Habitat Omnibus Amendment."

The fierce clash between CLF and the fishing industry which has come to typify an increasingly contentious relationship reflects a divorce of one-time long ago harmonious allies.

More than 30 years ago, CLF partnered with Gloucester fishing interests to sue the federal government successfully to bar oil drilling on Georges Bank.

Read the original story at the Gloucester Daily Times

For more information on CLF and New England's closed areas

Saving Seafood has conducted extensive analysis on the debate surrounding areas closed to fishing in New England. For more information see: 

CLF Incorrectly Accuses NOAA of "Risky" Fisheries Management

Conservation Law Foundation continues to voice discontent over Framework 48

ANALYSIS: Conservation Law Foundation's Claims on Right Whales Don't Add Up

RON SMOLOWITZ: Modifying Closed Areas Will Be Better for Stocks

Conservation Law Foundation's "Top Ten" List misleads once again on closure revisions and marine mammal protections in Framework 48

Response to the Conservation Law Foundation's "For Cod's Sake"

ANALYSIS: Conservation Law Foundation Misleads Public on Habitat Closed Area Changes

For the second time this week, NOAA has been sued — this time twice — by two environmental groups troubled by relaxation of fishing rules aimed at helping fishermen struggling under severe groundfish catch limits.

(New Bedford Standard-Times) June 1, 2013 — In U.S. District Court suits filed in Washington, D.C., the Conservation Law Foundation and Earthjustice maintain that the National Marine Fisheries Service went too far when fishery regulators approved both the reopening of two closed groundfish conservation areas and the carryover of some unused catch permits to ease the effect of sharp cutbacks in quota for cod, haddock and yellowtail flounder.  
 
The environmental groups had registered their complaints about the closed areas during meetings of the New England Fishery Management Council earlier this year.  
 
Later, NOAA Fisheries Regional Administrator John Bullard announced the permit carry-over change with little or no vocal opposition.
 
Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times 
 
Comments from NOAA's John Bullard on the fishing relief efforts: 
 
In an April press release, Bullard explained that NOAA is doing everything possible to help fishermen, but these aids may only ease the crisis. 
 
"We know that for some fishing communities that have relied heavily on cod, haddock and flounder, the next several years are going to be a struggle," said Bullard. "We've done everything we can to include measures that may help soften the blow of quota cuts, but it's going to take a collective effort to find more ways to keep both the fishery and the businesses that support it viable while these stocks recover."  
 
Bullard continued that these aids to fishing communities will not be at the expense of environmental protection. 
 
"In considering requests from fishing vessels to access year-round groundfish closed areas, we also want to address public concerns," said Bullard. "That's why we've been clear that areas defined as essential to protect fish spawning, feeding and breeding will remain closed and that access to other sensitive areas such as the western Gulf of Maine closure and Cashes Ledge probably won't be viable. If we do grant access to any portion of these closed areas, we want to do it in a way that is both responsible and sustainable, so spawning fish, vulnerable groundfish stocks, habitat, and protected species are not put at risk." 
 
Now CLF and Earthjustice are opposing these relief efforts, the only help provided to struggling fishing communities. 
 
Read the full NOAA press release
 
For more information: 

Read the CLF Talking Fish blog post regarding the lawsuit

Read the press release from CLF

Read the first complaint

Read the second complaint

For more information on additional lawsuits against NOAA:

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley Sues NOAA to Block New Regulations that Threaten Fishing Industry

Too few fish monitors, Oceana lawsuit contends

For more information on CLF and New England's closed areas:

Saving Seafood has conducted extensive analysis on the debate surrounding areas closed to fishing in New England. For more information see:

CLF Incorrectly Accuses NOAA of "Risky" Fisheries Management

Conservation Law Foundation continues to voice discontent over Framework 48

ANALYSIS: Conservation Law Foundation's Claims on Right Whales Don't Add Up

RON SMOLOWITZ: Modifying Closed Areas Will Be Better for Stocks

Conservation Law Foundation's "Top Ten" List misleads once again on closure revisions and marine mammal protections in Framework 48

Response to the Conservation Law Foundation's "For Cod's Sake"

ANALYSIS: Conservation Law Foundation Misleads Public on Habitat Closed Area Changes

I urge Congress to explicitly state the objectives of U.S. fisheries management in terms of food, jobs, revenue, economic profit, and maintaining high abundance of fish in the ocean as an end in itself.

Ray Hilborn is Professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington. An authority on resource management and conservation, he has published widely in the field and has been a member of the Ocean Studies Board of the National Research Council, the Scientific Advisory Panel for the President's Commission on Ocean Policy, and the Independent Science Advisory Panel for the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna. He has received the Volvo Environmental Prize, the American Fisheries Society's Award of Excellence, and the American Institute of Fisheries Research Biologists Outstanding Achievement Award. He is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the co-author of Overfishing: What Everyone Needs to Know, published last year by Oxford University Press.

This is a guest editorial written for Seafood News following the Managing Our Nation's Fisheries Conference, held earlier this month in Washington, DC.

SEAFOOD.COM NEWS — May 31, 2013 —  The recent Managing Our Nations Fisheries conference in Washington D.C. and the upcoming reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Management and Conservation Act has focused attention on the nation's fisheries, how well they are doing, and what can be done to improve the contribution of U.S. fisheries to our national well-being.  A logical first step in evaluation of our fisheries is to first ask what are the objectives of American fisheries management?

The text of the act begins with "To provide for the conservation and management of the fisheries, and for other purposes", but then becomes more specific by stating that rebuilding fish stocks, ensuring conservation , protecting essential habitat are all intentions of the act.  Also, the act makes it clear that one objective is to provide for "the development of fisheries which are underutilized or not utilized … to assure that our citizens benefit from the employment, food supply, and revenue which could be generated thereby."

In short the objective of the act appears to be to provide for sustainable employment, food supply and revenue, and to achieve that, conservation of fish stocks and habitats is essential.  The two specifically targeted actions are to rebuild overexploited stocks and develop fisheries on underutilized species.  Yet, as I will show below,  while we have reduced overfishing, one consequence has been far more underutilized fish stocks and we seem to have lost sight of the actual goals of employment, food supply and revenue.

In its annual report to Congress, NOAA reports on the status of our fisheries regarding the biological status and whether the stock are assessed.   

The biological status is reported as both the number of stocks that are overfished (are at low enough abundance to reduce sustainable yield), and the number of stocks that are subject to overfishing (fished at a rate harder than would produce long term maximum sustainable yield).  There is no systematic scorecard of the fisheries contribution to employment, food supply or revenue with reference to the potential contribution.  While measuring these is no doubt difficult, there appears to be a tacit assumption among policy makers that if we prevent overfishing, we will produce something like maximum food production, employment and revenue, or at least that the greatest threat to these objectives is overfishing.

The Magnuson-Stevens act has been quite effective at reducing overfishing so that the proportion of stocks estimated to be overfished has declined to from 38% in 2000 to 19% in 2012, and the proportion subject to overfishing declined from 33% in 1999 to 10% in 2012.  This has largely been accomplished by major reductions in fishing pressure off the west coast, east coast  and Gulf of Mexico.  Alaskan fisheries were never subject to major overfishing and there has been no need to reduce fishing pressure there. 

Fishing pressure has declined dramatically from previous peaks; a 40% decline in the East Coast  a 48% decline on the Southeast and Gulf of Mexico to a 75% decline on the West Coast.  Across all US fisheries where assessments are available, the exploitation rate is about 40% of what would produce maximum sustainable yield.  US fisheries management is now extremely conservative and while almost all attention seems to be focused on the few stocks where overfishing is occurring, we seem to be ignoring the fact that exploitation rate are now, on average, so low.

U.S. fisheries management has been successful at largely stopping overfishing and reducing the number of overfished stocks — but since stopping overfishing is a means to an end, not an end itself, we must ask how is the US doing at producing food, jobs and revenue?

We can calculate the lost food production by comparing the long term yield under current fishing pressure with the long term yield under the fishing pressure that would produce maximum sustainable yield.  We lose food production (and potential jobs and revenue) in two ways,  by fishing too hard or fishing too little, and the Magnuson-Stevens act makes specific reference to both of these in its objectives.  If we weight all stocks equally, I estimate (using NOAA stock assessments) that, as of 2005, we were losing about 9% of the potential US yield due to overfishing and about 30% due to underfishing. 

The major threat to sustainable jobs, food and revenue from U.S. marine fisheries is no longer overfishing, but underfishing.  However, many groups, particularly e-NGOs, are still actively pushing for less fishing pressure by giving a high priority to maintaining fish stocks at high abundance.  I don't see any part of the Magnuson-Stevens act that suggests being a high abundance is a priority for our nation's fisheries management, but perhaps it is time for Congress to explicitly state the extent to which we wish to forgo food, jobs and revenue in order to have more fish in the ocean either because of their intrinsic value, or as food for marine birds and mammals.

We do  know, that if our national objective were to maximize the profitability of fisheries, our management targets would be less fishing pressure than that which produces maximum sustainable yield, and if we could calculate lost profit by current US fishing pressure,  the loss from economic overfishing would likely be higher than the 9% lost yield, and the loss from economic underfishing would be lower than 30%.

Some would argue that the current low fishing pressure is necessary to rebuild overfished stocks and once all stocks are rebuilt fishing pressure can rise again.  Under the current management system this will never happen because some stocks are always going to be depleted due to natural fluctuations and climate change, and, as we add annual catch limits for more species, the problem will only get worse.   

I urge NOAA to routinely calculate lost food production, lost jobs and lost revenue and report that information to Congress.  I urge Congress to explicitly state the objectives of U.S. fisheries management in terms of food, jobs, revenue, economic profit, and maintaining high abundance of fish in the ocean as an end in itself.

-Ray Hilborn

This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) May 30, 2013 — Northeast fishing industry members delivered a petition to Congress today urging the elimination of funding for the NOAA Northeast Office and the reallocation of "any salvaged funds to relief for the Northeast groundfish fleet"

The petition was addressed to Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski and Ranking Republican Richard Shelby of the Senate Committee on Appropriations. In 2012, when Senator Mikulski chaired the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies, that panel voted to eliminate spending on the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Northeast Regional Office (NERO) headquarters in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

The petitioners argued that by "closing the Northeast Regional Office in Gloucester and redirecting these funds to relief and programs benefiting the Northeast groundfish fleet, the Committee stands to support and advance important scientific research … such as those where fishermen are working together with the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST) and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at the College of William & Mary (VIMS), as well as much-needed more frequent assessments of the condition of managed species."

In an article by Steve Urbon, the New Bedford Standard-Times reported on the petition when it was initiated in February.

The text of the petition is reproduced below. The complete text of the petition including the list of signers is available in the PDF linked below.

Petition to close the NOAA Fisheries Northeast Regional Office

Also today, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley will hold a press conference scheduled for 1:00 p.m. to announce the filing of a lawsuit against the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which seeks to block new regulations that threaten the fishing industry. The lawsuit alleges that NOAA ignored the devastating economic impact of the new regulations and used flawed science to over-restrict the Massachusetts fishing industry.

Bloomberg News reports that Massachusetts' filing in federal court "claimed that new federal rules, called Frameworks 48 and 50, have reduced by 77 percent the amount of certain fish that can be caught in New England." Bloomberg also reported the Commonwealth argued that "regulations are 'threatening the extinction of an industry' and violate the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which governs fishing management."

State House News Service reported that "Coakley has designated a mortgage advocate in her office to focus on helping fishermen stay in their homes."

Attorney General Coakely has previously argued that NOAA has the authority to enact  a one-year measure that would be less detrimental than the new regulations, but  NOAA lawyers have insisted that the law prohibits intervening for a second year.  Saving Seafood attempted to obtain a copy of the NOAA General Counsel's advice on this matter, but our Freedom of Information Act request was denied, citing attorney-client privilege.

The case is Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Rebecca Blank, 13-cv-11301, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts (Boston).  Rebecca Blank is the acting Secretary of Commerce. The Commerce Department oversees operations of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Text of the Fishermen's Petition:

Hon. Barbara Mikulski, Chairwoman 
Hon. Richard Shelby, Ranking Member 
Committee on Appropriations
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20010 
 
Dear Chairwoman Mikulski and Senator Shelby: 
 
On January 26, 2013, the Associated Press reported that John Bullard, the Northeast Regional Administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), stated, "failures by fishery managers are ultimately to blame for weak stocks that haven't rebounded." The AP went on to quote Mr. Bullard as saying, "we set the rules and clearly the rules have failed. There's no other conclusion." 
 
*We commend Mr. Bullard for his honest, direct and accurate description of the current reality. 
 
Mr. Bullard also commented on changes in the workplace, "A plant shuts down. A person who's worked there for 30 years all of the sudden goes to the factory door and it's closed. You learn a new trade and you adapt…People adapt and they survive." As fishermen, we are owners and employees of small businesses, and we fully understand the difficulties and pain that Mr. Bullard describes. 
 
*We believe that just as there are consequences for failures in business, so too should there be consequences for failures in government. 
 
Therefore, we, the undersigned, petition the Senate Committee on Appropriations to eliminate funding for the NMFS Northeast Regional Office, located at 55 Great Republic Drive, Gloucester, Massachusetts, and to reallocate any salvaged funds to relief for the Northeast groundfish fleet. Having already been declared to be in a state of emergency last September by acting Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank, those whose livelihoods depend on this fleet deserve relief from circumstances caused by the "failures by fishery managers" that Mr. Bullard described. In the wake of these well-documented failures by NMFS, direct action is needed to atone for these errors and mitigate the struggles that have ensued for Northeast fishermen. 
 
By closing the Northeast Regional Office in Gloucester and redirecting these funds to relief and programs benefiting the Northeast groundfish fleet, the Committee stands to support and advance important scientific research, particularly cooperative research and surveys conducted by non- NMFS scientists – such as those where fishermen are working together with the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST) and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at the College of William & Mary (VIMS), as well as much-needed more frequent assessments of the condition of managed species. 
 
We further urge the Committee to reduce and redistribute current Regional Office operations to minimally staffed offices located in port communities such as New Bedford, Gloucester, and Portland so that necessary permits may still be issued as needed.
 
As a courtesy, we are sending a copy of this correspondence to the Acting Secretary of Commerce, the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Natural Resources Committee, the House and Senate representatives of all signers, and the mayors of New England's three largest fishing ports.

Eric Schwaab, a longtime Marylander who's spent the last three years in the federal government overseeing fisheries and conservation efforts, is returning home to take a new post at the Baltimore National Aquarium.

Schwaab, currently an acting assistant secretary in the leadership at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will join the aquarium July 1 as its first-ever senior vice president and chief conservation officer, the Inner Harbor nonprofit announced Wednesday.
 
"Eric's wealth of experience and passion will help us expand and better promote conservation action to protect the ocean, our planet's life support system," said John Racanelli, the aquarium's CEO.  
 
Before joining NOAA, Schwaab spent roughly two decades with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, where he held a variety of posts including deputy secretary and fisheries director.   
 
He was tapped in 2010 by NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco as assistant administrator for fisheries. At the time, New England lawmakers in Congress were calling for Lubchenco's resignation over revelations that agency law enforcement officials were using fishing penalty payments to buy cars and boats, go to international conferences and fund covert activities with little budget oversight. Fishermen also were unhappy over catch limits imposed by NOAA.
 
For more information: 
 
Read the full article at The Baltimore Sun
 
Read the press release from the National Aquarium