Dr. Jane Lubchenco will be attending the Maine Fishermen's Forum on Friday. This might not seem much of an event to those outside the fisheries world, yet it is akin to a Democrat walking into a caffeine-fueled Tea Party rally in Kansas. Fishermen do not like Dr. Lubchenco, who has been the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) since 2009. In that position she oversees the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the branch of NOAA that oversees the harvest of the country's commercial fisheries.
The reasons that fishermen do not like Dr. Lubchenco are many. They begin with the natural dislike of independent people for anyone who might have the effrontery to tell them how to run their business. Of course, the business of fishermen is to take from the public commons – the ocean – public resources, namely fish, and make a private profit from them. Government regulations that limit them from doing that with abandon have always been a bone of contention.
Fishermen also don't like Dr. Lubchenco because, prior to her appointment by President Obama, NMFS behaved badly. The agency has the authority to levy fines on fishermen who break the rules. Fair enough. In 2010, however, the government's inspector general found systemic problems in the NMFS Office of Law Enforcement, headed by Dale Jones.
Read the complete opinion piece from The Free Press.