A proposal to combine two federal departments could bring significant changes to the policies that control commercial fishing. Enactment would transfer the Small Business Administration into the new department, and, most importantly for the fishing industry, it would transfer the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to the Department of the Interior.
A bill filed in Washington two weeks ago by North Carolina Republican Sen. Richard Burr would combine the departments of Commerce and Labor into a new Department of Commerce and the Workforce.
"In his State of the Union address this year," Burr said, "the president proposed merging and consolidating federal agencies, and this bill advances that proposal. This common-sense approach reduces duplication by combining offices with similar functions within these two agencies and would streamline our approach to comprehensive economic policy."
No one can say whether putting NOAA under Interior instead of Commerce would improve the lot of Northeast fishermen, but Interior's mission is more suited to the regulation of natural resources and has services already dealing with common issues.
If the regulatory process were to take a turn toward the fishing industry, the risk of overfishing exists, but we're confident the EDF and its allies will continue to be vocal. It would be good for the process if some other voices could be given an equal hearing for a change.
Read the complete editorial from The Standard-Times.