The Commerce Department and National Marine Fisheries Service must take the next crucial step and begin negotiating a fishing agreement with Canada.
Without such an agreement, the important legal change Congress made Tuesday does nothing to help struggling U.S. fishermen.
The new law does not force the Commerce Department or the New England Fishery Management Council, which National Marine Fisheries administers, to negotiate an agreement with Canada. They have the choice to do so or not.
The only humane and common-sense choice, however, is to begin immediately to craft a cross-border agreement and get it ready to take effect this spring, as soon as the law allows.
Read the complete editorial in the Standard-Times