Washington

PORTLAND — President Obama's choice for a new chief of staff may bode well for New England's groundfishing industry, which some say lost jobs and revenue after a new management plan was implemented last spring.

William Daley, named Thursday by Obama, has a history of working with the fishing industry and with lawmakers.

In the late 1990s, when he was secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce, parent agency of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Daley eased commercial scallop-fishing restrictions, said Brian Rothschild, professor of fisheries and oceanography at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.

"(We are) dealing with someone who understands that we are responsible and have good data. He knows what we are talking about," U.S. Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts said of Daley.

[read the full story in The Portland Press Herald]

 

 

 

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) – Jan. 10, 2011 – NOAA Fisheries chief Eric Schwaab Monday defended the Obama administration's decision to reject Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick's request for emergency relief from allocation limits, telling Saving Seafood in an exclusive 30-minute interview that it reflects the need to balance statutory requirements in fishing industry regulation.

 

Since the decision was announced on Friday, reaction has been highly polarized, with every New England elected official or industry representative who has commented expressing anger and criticism, while every environmental group that issued a release expressed praise.

 

"The bottom line there is that while the (Commerce) Secretary (Gary Locke) does have the authority to take emergency action based upon economic circumstances, he does not have the ability to supersede or undermine our responsibilities under Magnuson (Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act) to use the best available science to meet the requirements to end overfishing and rebuild stocks," Mr. Schwaab said in the interview.

 

When asked if the rejection of Governor Patrick's request was Obama Administration policy, Mr. Schwaab replied "No, that's an interpretation of the requirements of the statute to use the best available science to rebuild fish stocks in accordance with the timeline that's set out in the Magnuson Act."

His comments come after Friday’s letter to Gov. Patrick from Secretary Locke rejecting his and industry’s argument that catch limits were set too low with sector management threatening the survivability of the state’s fishing industry. Echoing the finding in the letter, Mr. Schwaab argued that while commercial impacts of the regulations are important, new biological data is needed to prove that overfishing is not occurring.
 
“You have to read the statute in its totality,” he said. “You just can’t pick one section to the exclusion of others.”
 
But Locke also rejected pleas for $21 million in federal financial assistance, citing the fact that total aggregate fishing revenue increased 21 percent in the first five months of 2010. When asked about the financial relief decision, Mr. Schwaab acknowledged that the data cited ignores the cost of buying quota on net profits, but argued that the revenue increase is still an important consideration.
 
He also added that solutions are needed to help address how smaller fisherman are being affected by the catch share system.
 
 “We are very clear in our letter about the fact that we remain very interested in working closely, again, with the (New England Fishery Management) Council, with the state, with the fisherman themselves to look at some of these more specific economic challenges and bring into play whatever mechanism we can to alleviate some of those kinds of concerns,” said Mr. Schwaab. “But that is not an easy solution. This is a fisherman-by-fisherman, in some case almost trip-by-trip set of challenges. Trying to fix those problems is something that is going to require us to put our heads together and work through together.”
 
Just 11 months into his tenure as the head of NOAA Fisheries (National Marine Fisheries Service) following a nearly 30 year career at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Mr. Schwaab finds himself under attack by critics in the fishing industry, and their political allies, over both the impact of the catch share rules as well as over the responsiveness of NMFS, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Commerce Department to fishing industry and community concerns.
 
When asked about charges that the Obama administration has been unresponsive to the needs of industry, particularly the smaller players, Mr. Schwaab noted that the Commerce Department has allocated money to set up permit banks to help reallocate some quota that could benefit small fishing operations and communities. In addition, he said that Commerce officials have made it clear to Gov. Patrick that if Massachusetts can make a more specific case for economic relief for a specific gear type or smaller fishing area, there is precedent for action.
 
Mr. Schwaab also rejected criticisms from various lawmakers and local government officials that the federal government has been slow in response to questions and to take action when requested, countering that none of the agency’s actions occur in a vacuum. For instance, the negotiations over December’s congressional approval of changes to federal law allowing regulators to increase catch limits in Georges Bank, a potential boon for U.S. yellowtail fisherman, took place during the much criticized 63 days it took to respond to Gov. Patrick’s request for regulatory relief.
 
“To the extent that we had authority and felt like we had authority to alleviate some pressure, we’ve moved aggressively to do that,” said Mr. Schwaab. “To the extent that we haven’t, its not because we are uncaring. It’s because we have some limitations that we’re bound to live up to under law. And frankly, some of those limitations are going to, over time, be shown to be in the best interest of the fisheries too.”
 
Mr. Schwaab also expressed defiance in the face of calls for NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco’s firing from Capitol Hill, questioning of his qualifications to run the agency by Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk, and doubts about the agency’s competence to manage fisheries by New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang.
 
“I think there is progress on a number of fronts that the Secretary, (NOAA Administrator) Dr. (Jane) Lubchenco, and I deserve credit for,” said Mr. Schwaab. “Have we fixed all of the problems?  No, some of these problems were decades or more in the making. But are we on a positive path forward?  I think the answer is yes.”

[click here and listen to the complete interview]

 

 

 

 

We wanted to believe Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke last October when he said he'd consider raising catch limits in the New England groundfishery if the case could be made that government regulations and policies had created an economic emergency.

And our own government leaders, right up to Gov. Deval Patrick, clearly took Locke at his word as well.

Now, we know. Secretary Locke's promise of "consideration" was nothing more than a sham, and a downright slap in the face to everyone from the governor right down to the Gloucester piers.

There is simply no other way to view Locke's insulting, indefensible denial of any "emergency" boost in groundfish limits, and his lack of recognition of the dire effect the current limits, coupled with NOAA chief Jane Lubchenco's "catch share" system, is having in Gloucester, around New England and far beyond.

Locke essentially claims that a study commissioned by Gov. Patrick and carried out by scientists at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth didn't show the economic need or make the case from a scientific standpoint.

Yet, on the economic side, the state has shown that, under the Amendment 16 framework that includes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's catch share system, just 10 percent of the boats landed 64 percent of the total revenue from May through September — a grim statistic for small, independent fishing businesses. Over the first six months of the fishing year, New England's groundfishermen brought in just 13 percent of the allowable catch in cod, a largely rebuilt stock. And, in an increasingly restored fishery, landings were down up to 11 percent through August through September.

Locke said in his Friday announcement that he sees no "new science" that would lead him to raise the catch limits. Well, Mr. Secretary, that wasn't part of the deal in October — when mid-term elections headed down the home stretch, and perhaps you worried about some justifiably irate fishermen throwing a few inconvenient truths into various debates.

Locke's position didn't call for "new" science; his consideration was to be "based on the best scientific evidence available that indicates (raising the limits) will not undermine the conservation mandates of (Magnuson-Stevens)."

In that case, Locke needed no more evidence there than what he'd already seen — NOAA's initial assessments for setting the pollock catch were so out of whack he had to sign off on raising that limit by 600 percent. That's not 6 percent, not even 60, but 600. Let's face it: NOAA's agenda-driven science — especially under Lubchenco, the faux-scientist who, lest we forget, signed off on a now laughable study that found the oceans would be virtually devoid of all but jellyfish by 2048 — has taken inaccuracy and incompetence to some entirely new depths.

The truth is, Locke has plenty of data to make the limit changes that clearly need to be made. Instead, he seems bent on keeping in Locke-step, if you will, with NOAA's Jellyfish Jane, who's now claiming the plight of endangered sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico is due not to the epic 2010 BP oil spill, but to hazards posed by fishermen.

Read the complete editorial from The Gloucester Times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In sweeping aside that conclusion by academic scientists at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and rejecting the accompanying request for economic and financial relief from Gov. Deval Patrick, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Eric Schwaab, administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service, defended the catch share system as working as it was engineered to do, and said it is certainly not the cause of any harm.

Locke limited his comments in identical letters Friday to Gov. Deval Patrick and Congressman Barney Frank to a polite discrediting of what is, to date, the only independent credentialed analysis of how the new management system, rolled out for the New England groundfishery last May, was doing.

Locke based his legal rejection of the request on the finding that the Massachusetts report did not include "new scientific data."

But fishing industry backers noted that the sections of the Magnuson-Stevens Act that define disasters and what the government might do in response to them does not contain language that requires "new scientific data."

"There is nothing in the statutory language that requires new scientific data," writes Julie Peterson, an attorney on the legal team behind the federal court challenge to the same catch share system. The court suit has been filed by the cities of Gloucester and New Bedford and by a variety of fishing interests.

"The statute doesn't even define emergency. It's in his discretion," Peterson wrote in an e-mail to the New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang, and Brian Rothschild, the dean of marine science at UMass-Dartmouth.

"The 'new data' idea seems to arise from an unreasonably cramped view, no, strange misinterpretation of NOAA's own policy, which does not in fact limit 'emergency' to only those situations involving 'new data,'" she added. "It defines emergency as involving 'recent unforeseen events or recently discovered circumstances.'"

 

 

 

 

 

On January 7, 2011, the federal government rejected an emergency request by Governor Deval Patrick and the Massachusetts congressional delegation to raise the catch limits on key fish in New England waters, a blow to an already staggered fishing industry.

The governor, working with Representative Barney Frank, had made the appeal in the fall, arguing that a new regimen of catch standards were too strict and cumbersome and created an "economic disaster" for fishermen in the state.

In November, they submitted a study by the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth that urged regulators to alter how they estimate the maximum catch of a particular fish. The report estimated the new rules had already cost the industry $40 million in direct losses.

US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, however, said he could only change the limits if new scientific research suggested more fish could be caught without endangering their overall stocks. The UMass study, Locke said, did not provide a compelling scientific argument.

"The report does not present new scientific data that would justify increasing the catch limits,'' he wrote in letters to Frank and Patrick. "Rather, it presents alternative methods for evaluating the scientific data used to determine the current catch limits. These alternative methods were previously considered and rejected."

Bay State lawmakers criticized the decision.

Read the complete story from The Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

NEW BEDFORD — Political leaders were shocked and angry Friday as U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced there would be no help forthcoming for the region's fishing industry.

In a letter to Gov. Deval Patrick, Locke rejected the argument that catch shares and sector management were collapsing the fleet and threatening the area's fishing heritage.

He rejected both Patrick's plea for $21 million in direct financial help for struggling fishing families as well as the argument that allowable catch limits were set needlessly and punitively low.

The fishing community in New Bedford and Gloucester, in particular, was hoping Locke could be persuaded to raise catch limits so that boats could take enough fish to meet expenses, and that some financial help would be available to get fishing families through the winter.

But help isn't coming, and the reaction was almost uniformly anger and frustration.

Patrick responded in a statement, saying he was "deeply disappointed."

"Our agencies supplied him with more than sufficient evidence of economic distress and dislocation resulting from a poorly planned and executed transition to catch shares, and evidence based on the best available science that catch limits could be raised without undermining our conservation commitments. And yet the secretary denied outright our request for economic aid for impacted fishermen and a judicious increase in catch limits, and provided no alternative form of relief in its place."

"In doing so, I believe he has squandered an opportunity to relieve the economic hardship currently suffered by many fishing families and restore a sense of trust and goodwill toward the federal agencies who regulate their livelihood."

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank told The Standard-Times he is "very angry" at Locke for issuing his letter after Frank had asked him to hold off.

"It's just wrong and we have to appeal it," he said. "I'm very disappointed. I told them, 'I think you've made a mistake and you should hold off.' I'm very angry at them for not doing that."

New Bedford Mayor Scott W. Lang, while angry, had a different take. "I wouldn't want to be them," he said. "I think we've got them right where we want them. Seriously." New Bedford has joined Gloucester in suing Locke over the sector management and catch shares.

"I think that the secretary is getting some extremely narrow advice from the people at NOAA. It's the same opinions we've been dealing with now since about a year ago regarding catch shares. They're hell bent in implementing the system regardless of what the science said."

Rep. William M. Straus, D-Mattapoisett, said the core problem is catch shares themselves. "The real solution is not to be caught up in a species-by-species plea for help each year, but a full review of the experimental management system that the federal government is using for New England fisheries management," he said.

First word of Locke's decision came from U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass.

Brown said: "Our fishermen are struggling to keep their jobs and make a living. They deserve fair treatment from the federal government instead of job-killing regulations that prevent them from putting food on the table for all of us. This blatant disregard for our fishing industry must stop immediately, and I strongly encourage Governor Patrick to appeal this ruling and request further meetings so the Commerce Department can fully explain their misguided decision."

U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., joined the chorus of distressed lawmakers. Speaking for himself and other lawmakers, he said: "We respectfully disagree with (Locke's) determination that he cannot make changes in the fishing catch share levels without new scientific evidence. I believe the secretary has the authority to raise fishing levels based on the information provided by Governor Patrick and the economic effects of the catch share program on Massachusetts fishermen. This is not over."

Read the complete story from The Standard Times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Senator John Kerry (D-MA) has issued the following statement:

BOSTON — Jan. 8, 2011 – Senator John Kerry today pledged to continue to fight on behalf of Massachusetts’ fishing industry after the U.S. Department of Commerce denied a request by Governor Deval Patrick for emergency aid.
 
“Fishermen are going out of business and many more are pushed to the brink, and we need to find a way to increase stock levels and provide emergency assistance.  Governor Patrick is fighting alongside us, and while Secretary Locke expressed a welcome willingness to look at these questions anew, we respectfully disagree with his determination that he cannot make changes in the fishing catch share levels without new scientific evidence,” said Sen. Kerry.  “I believe the Secretary has the authority to raise fishing levels based on the information provided by Governor Patrick and the economic effects of the catch share program on Massachusetts fishermen.  This is not over.  I was successful in obtaining direct assistance for our fishermen in the appropriations process last year that was unfortunately blocked by the Republicans.  I will continue to find appropriate solutions to develop a sustainable fishery while helping our fishing industry get up off the mat and thrive again. In particular, today I am asking the Secretary of Commerce to complete negotiations with the Canadian government on an international agreement to eliminate disparities and increase catch limits for our fishermen.”
 
Last October, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced that he was “prepared to issue an emergency regulation to revise catch limits whenever there is both sufficient economic and sound scientific data available” in a letter to Governor Patrick.
 
In November, Kerry, along with Senator Scott Brown and Congressmen John F. Tierney, Barney Frank, and Bill Delahunt, sent a letter to Secretary Locke supporting the Governor’s request for emergency regulations revising catch limits to higher levels that remain consistent with conservation requirements.

Read the November letter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The U.S. commerce secretary Friday denied a request by the governor of Massachusetts for emergency increases in fish catch limits, saying there's no new science to justify them.

Secretary Gary Locke had said in October he was open to ordering increases, but needed evidence to support it.

Gov. Deval Patrick responded in a November, sending a letter and scientific report to Locke that said unnecessarily low catch limits were creating an "economic disaster" for local fishermen. The report estimated a $40 million hit in direct losses and foregone catch.

But on Friday Locke said the state report offered no new science to justify raising catch limits, but simply offered an analysis of old data that had already been rejected by regional regulators at the New England Fishery Management Council.

"I need scientific data not previously considered by the council because the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (the nation's fisheries law) does not permit me to overrule council decisions on the basis of a disagreement over scientific judgment," Locke wrote in letter to Patrick, dated Friday.

Locke added, "I stand ready to increase catch limits whenever new scientific data are available that meet the requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens Act."

Patrick said Friday that state agencies had given Locke "more than sufficient evidence" that an increase in catch limits was justified and badly needed.

Read the complete story by Jay Lindsay of The Associated Press at Bloomberg Businessweek.

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEW BEDFORD — President Barack Obama signed into law Thursday a bill removing a legal obstacle that prevented the U.S. from negotiating with Canada for increased catch limits on certain species of fish, especially yellowtail flounder.

New England fishermen can look forward to higher catch limits on trans-boundary species when the law takes effect. For one thing, more groundfish and scallops will be available without exceeding limits on bycatch.

"This is a very welcome piece of good news at a time when people in our fishery are under siege from arbitrary and unfair restrictions," U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, said when the bill passed Congress last month.

"While this provision appears technical, people in the fishing industry of Greater New Bedford have told me that it's one of the most important things Congress could do to increase fishermen's ability to fish, and I'm very proud that we were able to accomplish it," he said.

Frank gave credit to U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, who helped push the bipartisan U.S.-Canada Transboundary Resource Sharing Understanding through the lame-duck Congress.

Read the complete story from The South Coast Today.

Listen to Vito Giacalone of the Northeast Seafood Coalition discusses the International Fisheries Clarification Act on WBSM's Saving Seafood program

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke today announced he would not — and could not — increase catch limits to relieve what Gov. Devel Patrick’s ad hoc scientific research committee had found to be a government-created economic crisis in New England’s fishing communities, bleeding millions from the working fleet through the launch of the catch share management system for the groundfishery.

Locke turned down the pleas of the governor and the congressional delegation, saying that the filing of an economic impact study in November failed to introduce meaningful, new information. So, Locke contended, his hands were tied.

"In the absence of new scientific data,” he wrote in letters to Patrick and the Congressman Barney Frank. “I am … unable to exercise my emergency rule authority.”

Reaction to the secretary’s decision from the political sector ranged from angry to nuanced, but along Gloucester’s docks this afternoon, the announcement was greeted with shock, outrage and incomprehension.

"Obama came back from Hawaii talking about jobs and the economy,” said John Aiello, a crew member on Capt. Russell Sherman’s offshore trawler Lady Jane. “This is America? They’re doing this to America’s oldest industry, thousands of jobs.”

Richard Burgess, a four-boat-business owner and president of one of the 12 fishing cooperatives or sectors struggling with low allocations set b the governemnt for several fish stocks, said he considered the annoucement tantamount to declaration of “war” with the fishing industry, which has been engaged in legal and political battles nearly from the moment the Senate confirmed scientist-activist Jane Lubchenco to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and she launched a campaign to essentially convert the fisheries into catch share commodity markets.

Frank, a sharp critic of Obama fisheries policy, said he would organized an effort among members of the House Natural Resources Committee a plan to “make needed revisions” in the Magnuson-Stevens Act. It was through that act that the federal fisheries regulatory system racheted down catch limits across the board over the past year, while fishermen and waterfront businesses also grappled with the new catch share system.’

As the new system was engineered, only fishermen with strong 11-year histories of heavy groundfishing have been able to effectively participate in a sector; ancedotally, the benefits of catch shares was realized only by the biggest fishing boat businesses.

Gov. Patrick has yet to submit the amicus brief he promised to addend to the suit. Tierney and Frank have relesased their supporting briefs.

Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk said today that Locke’s position’s cries out for higher review.

“It is time for a presidential review of the situation,” Kirk said, “and I intend to ask Gov. Patrick to take the case to President Obama.

U.S. Sen. Scott Brown said he believes Locke was provided with plenty of evidence to raise the limits.

Read the complete story from the Gloucester Times.

Read the letter from Secretary Locke to Governor Patrick.