BOSTON — September 7, 2012 — The attorney for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration argued to the US. First Circuit Court of Appeals that there was no need to put the catch share management program under the authority of a federal judge to limit rampant consolidation of the fleet because the regional arm of the agency was already doing that.
The problem is being taken seriously; it is being addressed,” Joan Pepin, a U.S. Justice Department attorney, told the three-judge panel Wednesday. “The process has been under way since the end of last year. It’s called Amendment 18.”
The comment was made in discussion with Chief Justice Sandra L. Lynch, near the end of the hour long oral argument over the suit by New Bedford, Gloucester and widespread fishing interests against NOAA for introducing a radical re-engineering of the groundfishery without considering the socio-economic implications or giving fishermen the chance to vote on whether to create this new world which made fishing more efficient but also powered consolidation.
Moments later, then in discussion with the plaintiffs’ lead attorney James F. Cavanaugh Jr., Judge Lynch adopted Pepin’s description of Amendment 18.
“You asked for an order that in effect (NOAA) would have to do a study and consider consolidation and consider whether they have to modify this program,” the judge said, distilling and rephrasing the redress sought by the plaintiffs. “As I understand it, they’re doing that, so what’s the difference?”
Cavanaugh said he was not aware from the record that NOAA was addressing consolidation.
“No?” said the judge. “Amendment 18.”
“Amendment 18?” a non-plussed Cavanaugh said.
The fact that Amendment 18, as Pepin and Judge Lynch described it, didn’t ring a bell with Cavanaugh should not have been surprising. Pepin’s characterization of a directed effort, known as Amendment 18, that was addressing a clearly defined problem — consolidation of the groundfishery — was inaccurate, a check of records shows. Amendment 18 — the genesis of which traces to 2010 but has not yet made it on the agenda of the New England Fishery Management Council for official consideration as a possible action — is an idea whose time has yet to come.
The last item on the council agenda for its September meeting in Plymouth is to set the agenda for 2013. A year ago, in setting the agenda for 2012, the council put Amendment 18 so far down that it was all but certain not to make it onto the floor for preliminary discussion. Advocates of controls on consolidation or putting some limits on the catch share system cried foul.
What the council did do about Amendment 18 was conduct a series of 10 “scoping” hearings that gathered a broad distribution of opinions and no clear consensus on what the council should do — if anything – about fleet consolidation or changes in the diversity of the fleet brought on by the catch share management system.
Read the full story in the Gloucester Times