Frank assails NOAA chief's inaction on limits

Congressman Barney Frank has expressed "disappointment" in the pace and significance of Obama administration responses to a suite of New England fisheries' problems placed in front of Jane Lubchenco, the President's top appointee on ocean issues, last October.

Frank, who previously had a lengthy sitdown to enlist Lubchenco's support for "the economic and social health of the fishing industry," received a letter from her on Jan. 6; he answered on Jan. 29.

The Newton Democrat and acknowledged leader of the East Coast fishing caucus minced few words, asserting that Lubchenco, as head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, had "squandered" a major opportunity to mitigate severe cuts in the mixed groundfish stocks.

The bulk of Gloucester's and New England's fleet begins working in May under the new catch share regulatory system in which fishermen work in "sectors" or voluntary fishing cooperatives.

Frank was referring to an extreme catch limit on pollock that would allow barely a third of the catch of 2008. Gloucester's Vito Giacalone, industry analyst for the Northeast Seafood Coalition and a participant in the first meeting, has warned that the cutback in pollock could trigger a quick shutdown of sector/catch share groundfishing.

Frank released both recent letters last night after media inquiries. The existence of Lubchenco's response letter to Frank was noted and added for discussion to the agenda for a meeting next Monday of New Bedford Mayor's Scott Lang's Ocean and Fisheries Task Force.

Resistance to Obama administration fisheries policies along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts has been building over Lubchenco's year in office while she has focused on pushing catch shares — a system Lubchenco acknowledges would eliminate a number of existing jobs and consolidate fishing capacity in a smaller number of larger hands.

The policy has generated growing opposition among fishermen and fishing communities, to the point where a national fishermen's protest is being planned for the steps of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 24.

The government catch share proposal is out for public comment through April.

In addition to his complaint about Lubchenco's response to the warning about the potential for the pollock limit to close the groundfishery, Frank also said he was "alarmed" with the "lack of specificity" regarding sectors, the fishing cooperatives that will become active across New England on May 1.

In his Oct. 26 letter to Lubchenco — summarizing the concerns discussed days earlier — Frank said that, "while I am generally opposed to sectors as an abstract concept, I am troubled by the lack of specificity in sector planning."

Lubchenco wrote on Jan. 6 that she felt another face-to-face briefing was warranted to review her staff research into the problems that Frank had laid out in first issues meeting. In the meantime, she said she had queried her "experts" and wanted to "briefly address" his concerns.

"We also share your desire to minimize and mitigate the economic and social impacts of the actions that we are taking," Lubchenco wrote.

She disputed assertions in the first Frank letter about skate and areas closed to scallop fishing.

Frank had written that he was "deeply troubled" by the fact that 40 percent of Georges Bank has been closed to scallop fishing since 1996 "with no recent discernible analysis" of the status of scallops. Frank wrote that "tens of millions of dollars" worth of scallops were dying of old age.

A peer-reviewed 2007 paper by leading academic researchers at UMass Dartmouth validating Frank's assertion was distributed last week at the tumultuous meeting of the New England Fishery Management Council — the instrument of Lubchenco's agency which reversed its November vote and restored scallop quota worth about $40 million to the boats and at least four times that to economies of coastal communities from Maine, Gloucester and New Bedford to the Carolinas.

Frank and more than a dozen congressional colleagues had argued in vain that the council had no good reason for slashing the scallop catch for next year. Chairman John Pappalardo agreed to put the issue back in front of the council after he was summoned to a private meeting with Gov. Deval Patrick — and after Frank called for Pappalardo's ouster if he wouldn't allow reconsideration of the limit.

In her letter to Frank, Lubchenco wrote that "NMFS scientists" have produced studies showing "the closures have played an important role in the increase in abundance of fish and shellfish stocks in the area."

Lubchenco also wrote that "there is a broad range of comfort with" sectors.

She wrote to Frank that a benchmark assessment of pollock will be undertaken in June. But that was too slow for Frank, who wrote that "the agency should do all it can to accelerate its understanding of the pollock stock before June."

"The agency must take a lead role in maximizing fishing opportunities in order to avoid the consolidation that sectors are likely to create," he wrote.

The exchange of letters evolved from something of a fisheries summit at an October meeting in the Rayburn House Office Building involving Frank, Brian Rothschild — a professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth's School of Marine Science and Technology and, for months now, the only candidate to head the National Marine Fisheries Service — Jim Balsiger, the acting assistant administrator of NMFS, and Dr. Steve Murawski, chief science advisor for NOAA.

Also at the meeting were staff from the office of Congressman John Tierney, who represents Gloucester and all of Cape Ann, Richie Canastra, co-owner of the Whaling City Seafood Display Auction, and Giacalone, the Seafood Coalition's government affairs chairman.

The Environmental Defense Fund, a primary architect of the catch share system, and the organization for which Lubchenco served as board vice president prior to landing the top NOAA job, yesterday posted what it considered good news on its blog.

"While the National Marine Fisheries Service budget request was decreased by 1.5 percent," wrote Amanda Leeland, Oceans Program policy director, "it included a key feature: the creation of a new National Catch Shares Program, which would provide significant resources — over $50M — to those fisheries wanting to transition to catch shares."

Richard Gaines can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3464, or via e-mail at rgaines@gloucestertimes.com.

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