U.S. Sen. Scott Brown's legislative proposal targeting changes in the Magnuson-Stevens Act would subject federal fisheries policy actions to systematic, independent economic analysis on an annual basis.
And his bill was applauded across the industry Wednesday as a needed lever to compel bureaucratic compliance with the Magnuson Act, which governs the regulation of America's fisheries.
In Gloucester, the Northeast Seafood Coalition, the region's largest industry group, said the National Marine Fisheries Service's failure to balance community well-being and industry harvest with conservation efforts made it necessary for independent evaluation of the impacts of regulatory actions.
Industry attorney Stephen Ouellette made much the same point, but went further, ascribing to fisheries' officials actions "to weaken the industry in advancing "a political conservationist agenda."
"One has to wonder whether NMFS has been stretching the truth and misleading the industry, the general public and Congress," the Gloucester-based attorney added.
Ouellette proposed a "complete retrospective analysis" of faulty projections of landings by regulators, which he has calculated has cost the New England economy as much as $500 million beyond the social costs in moving working fishermen into the ranks of the unemployed.
"The Commerce Department must be forced to comply with an independent fisheries impact statement, so that officials at NOAA and the Commerce Department cannot ignore the situation or tailor the results of the statement to their own purposes," Brown said in a prepared statement.
Read the complete story from the Gloucester Times.