Squelching a hot and fast-moving rumor, an official source yesterday said Elliott Norse, a crusading environmentalist and fierce opponent of trawling or dragging — hauling a weighted net along the ocean bottom for groundfish — is not a candidate to fill the top spot at the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Justin Kenney, communications director for Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, responded to reports on a blog and industry Internet Web site that Norse — seen as something of a lightning rod figure — had become a candidate to head NMFS.
"Elliot Norse is not currently a candidate for the NMFS position," Kenney said in an e-mail to the Times.
The rumor surfaced Sunday in Deckboss, the blog of former Alaska newspaperman Wesley Loy and was picked up by the industry Web site, Seafood.com on Monday.
Seafood.com had correctly reported last spring that Arne Fuglvog, an Alaskan political appointee and former member of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, had begun campaigning for Lubchenco's patronage to take charge of NMFS and manage the nation's federal fisheries.
A staffer in the office of Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Fuglvog became the second candidate.
Brian Rothschild, an academic scientist from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth's School of Marine Science and Technology, and the choice of U.S. Rep. Barney Frank and much of the New England fishing community, was the first known candidate.
The specter of Norse's candidacy brought out a grassroots campaign within the New England fishing industry to convince Lubchenco to appoint Rothschild.
Rothschild became the only known candidate for the job after Fuglvog withdrew last summer, citing the delay in Lubchenco's decision-making. She took office bent on expanding the privatization approach to fisheries management that is known as "catch shares," and made a number of appointments to key positions in her inner circle from the environmental movements that she bestrode while becoming the President Obama's choice to take control of NOAA, the parent agency of NMFS.
She has never directly addressed her hesitancy to name Rothschild, Fuglvog or someone else to head NMFS. Alaskan James Balsiger, who once was a student of Rothschild, has remained on as the acting administrator, more than willing to take an appointment as the permanent head of NMFS.
Last week, Lubchenco made an internal announcement of complex plans to expand NOAA's upper echelon with two new political positions, but that reorganization, which requires Congressional action, was said to be separate from the structure of NMFS, which has East Coast regional offices in Gloucester.
Rumor of Norse's candidacy moved quickly throughout the environmental movement and fishing communities yesterday.
Typical was the reaction of Rod Moore, a member of the Pacific Fishery Management Council and executive director of the West Coast Seafood Processors Association in Portland, Ore.
"I think Norse would be an unfortunate choice for the administration," Moore said in an e-mail. "If a scientist is to be chosen for NMFS director, it should be an individual without bias, with a broad background in both science and management, and somebody who has shown a willingness and ability to work with NMFS' diverse constituency as well as fellow scientists and government officials."
Norse and Lubchenco are fellow travelers in the environmental crusade to limit fishing in various ways. Indeed, Norse is featured on Lubchenco's academic Web site from her previous position as a professor at Oregon State University.
Both are former Pew fellows and allies. The founder and president of the Marine Conservation Biology Institute, a grants supported 501(c)3 non-profit corporation in Bellevue, Wash., Norse has led campaigns to ban trawling, and establish a huge marine protected area in the Pacific, which was declared by President George W. Bush in 2009, and made himself a lightning rod for much of the fishing industry.
Norse made few friends for himself in New England commercial fishing circles with his crusade against trawling, the method of choice for the commercial fleets of Gloucester and elsewhere that work the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank and the waters off the southern side of New England.
In numerous articles, Norse has called trawling "the most serious physical disturbance to the world's continental shelves."
"With effects in the sea similar to forest clear-cutting on land," Norse wrote in 1998, "these fishing methods are now known to affect a vastly larger area than clearcutting and could be a major reason why so many fisheries are declining."
Behind Rothschild's candidacy, Rhode Island fisherman Richard Grachek urged fellow fishermen to write to Lubchenco. In a draft letter distributed by e-mail, Grachek wrote that "we in the fishing community are convinced that (Rothschild's) nomination would help to balance the disproportionate amount of agenda-driven people recently appointed to several posts at NMFS/NOAA.
"Dr. Rothschild as administrator would begin to restore some trust between the community and the NMFS, which has eroded so drastically in recent years. This trust is crucial to the survival of our industry which seems to have no place at the table when it comes to decision making on the federal level.
"We in the fishing community now find ourselves in desperate financial shape; not because of a lack of resource, but because of a federal regulatory system generating laws that have created overwhelming negative consequences in the fishing community," Grachek wrote.
Richard Gaines can be reached at rgaines@gloucestertimes.com
