By Richard Gaines
Staff Writer
—
Out of options and facing economic desperation, advocates for the New England fishing industry — including a powerful bipartisan, congressional coalition — have turned to the White House as a last resort for regulatory relief.
And an industry letter of appeal to President Obama contained an invitation for an August visit to Gloucester.
"We would like to show you our way of life and to offer our concrete solutions to the (fishery) rebuilding challenge," said the letter from the Northeast Seafood Coalition. Despite the cordiality of the invite, the Gloucester-based coalition — the largest industry group on the East Coast — minced no words in explaining why it felt the need to take the fisheries issues to the very top.
Mayor Carolyn Kirk Friday wrote her own letter of invitation to the president.
"A broad coalition of elected officials from many states, including Gov. Deval Patrick, Senators John Kerry and Scott Brown of Massachusetts, fishermen, and industry advocates, have made multiple pleas for relief on the new regulations that are putting fishermen out of business," Kirk wrote.
"Rather than get into the technical details, I have a simple request," she wrote. "Come to Gloucester. See for yourself the hardworking fishermen who have spent years conserving the fisheries resource, only now to be shut out of their livelihood at a time when the fish are rebounding."
Kirk said she also expected Patrick, a longtime friend of the president, to weigh in quietly. A number of Democrats have told the Times that Patrick has promised to make the call to Obama at the right moment.
Charlie Baker, the Republican candidate challenging Patrick for the governor's seat, has also highlighted the fishing industry as needing and deserving support.
The Seafood Coalition, which boasts members from Maine to Long Island, told the president that "officials in the Department of Commerce (which regulates commercial fishing) have failed to understand the reality and gravity of the challenge upon us."
Congressional meetings with and letters to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and more regular dialogue between Rep. Barney Frank and Locke's fisheries administrator Jane Lubchenco have yielded nothing tangible in terms of regulatory relief.
Frank, representing New Bedford — the No. 1 U.S. port in terms of the dollar value of landings — affirmed a recent promise to appeal to the White House for attention for the fishing industry.
The architect of the House version of the banking reform bill, Frank bluntly made clear he expected attention to the fishing industry's problems.
"I have made it clear to high-ranking members of the administration, including Secretary Locke, that my relationship with the administration will be affected by how they respond to this absolutely urgent need," Frank said after his face-to-face meeting with Locke on May 10.
"This is a big priority for me every single day and I'm bringing this up personally with President Obama," said Sen. John Kerry. "I've organized meetings and calls, but I've got to finish the job because people are really hurting."
The New England fleet faces massive casualties — estimates range from one half to two thirds of the boats — from a new regulatory regimen and federal catch limits that allow just a fraction of last year's harvest of some species.
With Locke and Lubchenco largely unresponsive to pleas to boost landing limits some may see as unnecessarily low, multiple appeals have now been sent — or are being made — to Obama.
In addition to the Seafood Coalition and Kirk letters, two Republican senators — Massachusetts' Scott Brown and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire — also wrote to the president May 28.
Gregg — who was President-elect Obama's first choice for commerce secretary — and Brown, winner of the special election to finish the term of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who had a deep emotional bond with the fishermen, advised the president that, without relief, "these new regulatory restrictions will result in many fishermen losing their livelihoods and a possible closure of the entire New England Fishery."
Gregg declined the nomination to head Commerce, and is retiring at the end of his term which runs through January. He and Brown were part of a bi-partisan coalition of 23 representatives and senators who wrote to Locke earlier this spring appealing for his use of emergency powers to increase the allocation of fish available to the groundfishing fleet.
With the U.S. importing 80 percent of its seafood before the fouling of the Gulf of Mexico began constricting production from southern waters, industry analysts said maintaining production from Northern Atlantic waters has become more important.
The Seafood Coalition wrote of its concern that the hyper limits on the immediate catch could cost New England ports not only jobs, but also infrastructure and markets.
"Rebuilding rules should not — and need not — destroy the fishery to rebuild the fish.
Although federal statistics show a powerful recovery underway for U.S. fisheries, it has been Lubchenco's expressed policy to squeeze a "sizeable fraction" of boats out of business. The new regulatory regime centers on fishermen's "shares" of a total allowable catch for each species.
The catch shares, however, can be bought, sold or traded, and many fishing activists fear outside investors will buy up and control many of the shares as individual fishermen and boats are forced out of business — a track record that's surfaced in other "catch share" fisheries.
In 2008, the last year for which statistics are available, New England groundfish produced about $300 million in revenues, $805 million including scallops and lobster, and about 114,000 full- and part-time jobs.
Richard Gaines can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3464, or rgaines@gloucestertimes.com.
