Management & Regulation

This week, my agency put temporary rules in place that will govern groundfishing in the Northeast for the next year, providing the needed time for building a better fishery management plan.

Now, we all need to focus on what will happen over the next five years and how to bring the rebuilding era in this fishery to a successful close.

In the coming months, we must focus on achieving these goals and, however tough the going is, work together to get there. First and foremost, this means using the fishery management process to get the best possible plan, as we pull it together for implementation in the 2010 fishing year. The decisions to be made are hard, and will have a lasting influence on how the New England groundfishery works, looks, and succeeds in this new century.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Times.

Lubchenco gives fishing industry a June deadline for transition

The nation’s administrator for oceans and fishing yesterday urged agiant forward step in New England’s commercial fishing narrative from acheckered past to a promising future of "catch shares" and "sectors,"and used $16 million to punctuate her point.

"This week," Jane Lubchenco said, "is focused squarelyon the future of New England groundfish — a future that could andshould include a prosperous fishing industry and healthy oceans.Achieving that future depends on the actions of those in this room."

She made clear that she would provide and prod, andgave the host New England Fishery Management Council a June deadline tocomplete a radical transformation of the industry.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Times.

New England Fishery Management Council members voted 12-4 Tuesday to disapprove a revised report that NOAA Fisheries had prepared at the order of Senior Judge Edward F. Harrington. Two months earlier, the council had rejected the agency’s original report, after disagreeing with its conclusion that the mixed-stock exception did not apply in the case of Framework 42.

Harrington ordered NOAA Fisheries to revise its report, taking the council’s argument into consideration. He said the new report must be reviewed by the council and submitted to court by Friday — the same day that the judge’s ban on Framework 42’s double-counting system for fishing days will expire.

Read the complete story at South Coast Today.

The New England Fisheries Management Council on Monday voted 12-4-1 to reject a NOAA report and to inform Federal Judge Harrington that NMFS failed to provide a proper analysis of the Mixed-Stock Exception

New England Fishery Management Council members voted 12-4 Tuesday to disapprove a revised report that NOAA Fisheries had prepared at the order of Senior Judge Edward F. Harrington. Two months earlier, the council had rejected the agency’s original report, after disagreeing with its conclusion that the mixed-stock exceptiondid not apply in the case of Framework 42.        

Harrington ordered NOAA Fisheries to revise its report, taking the council’s argument into consideration. He said the new report must be reviewed by the council and submitted to court by Friday — the same day that the judge’s ban on Framework 42’s double-counting system for fishing day swill expire.

Read the complete story at South Coast Today

 

The council vote was 12-4-1 against the National Marine Fisheries Service, with Patricia Kurkul, the regional administrator, who contributed to the hour-long debate only in a monosyllabic "no," one of the four votes against the motion by David Pierce, the deputy director of marine fisheries for the state of Massachusetts. He, along with Dave Goethel, a New Hampshire fisherman, carried the motion with a message for U.S. Judge Edward Harrington.

Goethel insisted something large and important is in dispute. To him, Kurkul’s refusal to see a place for the so-called "mixed-stock exception" in fishery management policy is a sign of a continued commitment to "single species management," which he argued was never the intent of Congress and will only "lead to the ruination of the fishery."

Read the complete story at Gloucester Times.

 

The new head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued restrictions yesterday on New England fishermen that are expected to cut the region’s fishing revenue by $17.4 million.

The decision was a compromise that took into account the ongoing economic crisis. NOAA had first proposed rules that would have meant a 20 percent cut in revenue, but lowered it to a 9 percent reduction.

The hope, said new NOAA chief Jane Lubchenco, was to ease the financial burden on fishermen while allowing fishery officials to focus on restructuring by next year the way many fishermen work.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

The coming year won’t be easy for Cape Ann commercial fishermen. But it could have been worse — a whole lot worse — and a ruling announced yesterday carries a positive message on several counts.

In her first major decision governing regulation of the New England fishing industry, Jane Lubchenco, the new head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration came down on the side of common sense, balance — and, comparatively, on the side of the New England Fisheries Management Council and, to some extent, the fishermen.

Her decision to modify the so-called "Interim Rule," a highly controversial plan to regulate commercial fishing for the next year, will give fishermen a fighting chance to survive over the next 12 months until an entirely new set guidelines takes effect in 2010.

Read the complete story at the Gloucester Times.

Federal regulators cut deeper into the fishing days of Maine’s groundfish fleet Monday, but also restored hope that the industry can survive long enough to see fish populations, and catches, rebuild.

"We must not allow our proud and vital fishing communities to fail," NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said Monday while announcing compromise restrictions for the fishing year that begins May 1.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reduced the industry’s days at sea by 18 percent, leaving the typical boat with 39 fishing days in the year beginning May 1. But it dropped a much more draconian proposal that would have effectively left Maine boats with as few as 20 fishing days.

Read the complete story from The Portland Press Herald.

The National Marine Fisheries Service yesterday announced New England groundfishery regulations for the next year that are less drastic than a preliminary proposal but still are calculated to cost the industry 9 percent of its revenue.

Dropped from the draft that was published in January for comments — mostly negative — was a virtual ban on commercial fishing within a huge swath of waters along New England’s southern coast, from Long Island, N.Y., to deep into Georges Bank.

Also dropped was a proposal that would have more than quadrupled the area in the Gulf of Maine where one day’s fishing counts for two against a fishermen’s license. The abandoned idea would have spread the inshore two-days-for-one area far into the gulf.

NMFS had been put on notice by U.S. senators and representatives from New England that implementing the initial package would have triggered a congressional nullification campaign, and driven NMFS’ standing with its stakeholders even lower.

Instead, the Interim Rule announced yesterday by Jane Lubchenco — the new head of NMFS’ parent agency, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration — cuts fishing days at sea on federal permits by 18 percent and charges a day of fishing as two throughout southern New England waters. The revised rule, due to take effect May 1, also mandates no landings of winter flounder, the stock singled out for protection in the earlier proposed closing of the southern waters. But it backs off the tighter NMFS limits.

Immediate reaction was generally positive. But in the aftermath of the publication of a 127-page regulatory package without the environmental impact statement or detailed breakdowns of projected economic impacts, appreciation for the improvements were guarded and nuanced.

 Read the story in the Gloucester Times 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released the controversial and debated interim rule for groundfish on Monday.

 

Original Documents

Text of the Final Interim Rule 

NOAA’s Press Release 

Audio of NOAA Teleconference on Rule 

State by State Change in Total Trip and Groundfish Revenue – from NOAA’s Fisheries Service.

Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan: Environmental Assessment – Discusses the economic and biological impacts of the proposed groundfishing rule, from NOAA’s Fisheries Service.

 

Overview

NMFS Eases Interim Rule (Gloucester Times)

Maine Fishermen: 39-day working rule could be worse 

New NOAA limits on fishing pared, but will sting (Boston Globe)

 

Congressional Response

Senator Olympia Snowe said the rule "contains troubling provisions" but gives fishermen "a fighting chance at survival"

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank said "the rule is not as good as it should be."  He continued: "I remain concerned that there continue to be areas where two fishing days are counted as one. … Fishermen will still suffer significant financial hardship under this interim plan, and the agency will need to address that. We can do better."

 

Economic Impact 

The Cape Cod Times looked at the economic impact by vessel type (in sidebar box on the Times site)

The Standard Times noted that the rule may have the greatest impact on the southern New England fishery  

 

Industry Comment

The Northeast Seafood Coalition responded to the rule

 

Opinion-Editorial

OPINION: NOAA chief’s decision brings new hope for regulatory fairness (Gloucester Times)

 

Environmentalist Comment

Pew Environment Group’s New England Fisheries campaign said the rule "signals a needed commitment to working with the council, the fishing industry and conservation interests to end overfishing"