And we can only hope that Kerry, fellow Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown and Congressmen John Tierney and Barney Frank pull no punches in posing hard questions to Lubchenco, who — in the midst of an ongoing economic slowdown, and in defiance of a supposed jobs push by President Obama — continues to push her nonprofit-driven and corporately-backed agenda of consolidating the fisheries, driving out independent fishermen, killing small businesses and forcing cutbacks in crew positions, all in one fell swoop.

Kerry, in a My View column in Saturday's times, noted his desire to use the hearing for bringing the polarized sides to the table, but we'll get a sense early on as to how seriously Lubchenco is taking all of this.

That's because the hearing will include two separate panels, with Lubchenco on the first one and a group of New England fishermen and nationally acclaimed fishery scientist Brian Rothschild on the second.

Read the complete editorial from The Gloucester Times.