Management & Regulation

ROCKLAND, ME (March 2009) – "Never in a million years did I imagine I would leave the fishery at 46 years."

Craig Pendleton of Saco, who began lobstering when he was nine, groundfishing at 17. He sold his groundfshing permit in October 2008.

If an interim rule is passed by National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the 70 fishermen who land groundfish in Maine face the possibility of further reductions in the number of days they can spend at sea (counted from the time they leave the dock) and numerous other restrictions. The rule includes a provision that would increase the two for one area, where each day a fisherman uses will be counted as two. For most Maine fishermen this would mean ending up with 20 allowable fishing days.

Read the Working Waterfront story in full

 

NEW BEDFORD, MA (March 25, 2009) – On her second day in office, the new chief of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration heard from fishermen, fishery managers and environmentalists concerning a controversial fishing rule the agency is expected to release in its final form by April 1.

Jane Lubchenco, an Oregon State University marine biologist, was sworn in to office last Friday, a day after the Senate confirmed her appointment by President Barack Obama. On Monday, Lubchenco hosted two hour-long meetings — one for industry representatives and members of the New England Fishery Management Council and the other for representatives of ocean conservation groups — at the Department of Commerce building in Washington, D.C.

"It was her idea to hear from people directly who made comments about the interim rule," NOAA Fisheries spokeswoman Monica Allen said.

Read the Standard-Times story in full

 

GLOUCESTER, MA (March 24, 2009) – I read with interest the article describing the confirmation of Ms. Lubchenco as head of NOAA (The Times, Saturday, March 21). The article was sprinkled with the buzz-word "overfishing" — which my computer does not recognize as a word, by the way.

Is there an understandable acceptable definition of "overfishing"?

Perhaps it is like the beaten-into-submission phrase "global warming"? Global warming has been going on since the end of the recent ice age. In fact, it was global warming that ended the recent ice age. Admittedly, the ice age isn’t over as yet (there’s still a glacier on Greenland and one covering all of Antarctica). But, enough of the recent ice age ice has melted (took thousands and thousands of years — ­due to global warming) to have raised the level of the ocean to where it now covers the so-called "continental shelves" of the world.

Read the letter in full in the Gloucester Daily Times

 

WASHINGTON, DC (March 24, 2009) – [EXCERPT: Lubchenco described the Interim Rule as her personal "No. 1 priority" adding, "We have made no decision yet."]  Jane Lubchenco, the newly confirmed administrator of the nation’s fisheries, promised yesterday to put her personal stamp on the final draft of the fiercely disputed, one-year Interim Rule for New England’s commercial groundfish industry.

"We are going to be moving relatively rapidly," Lubchenco said in a telephone interview with the Times last evening after she held separate hour-long meetings with fishing interests and afterward environmental groups.

A marine biologist who took leadership of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Marine Fisheries Service at the end of last week, Lubchenco described the Interim Rule as her personal "No. 1 priority" adding, "We have made no decision yet."

Read the Gloucester Daily Times story in full

 

THE INTERNET (March 22, 2009) – The National Marine Fisheries Service wants to implement the "Interim Rule" which would make all of the waters south of New England, from Long Island to deep into the Georges Bank, a no take zone for a year leading up to the imposition of catch shares. Expect delays.

The NMFS reports into NOAA the new head of which is Jane Lubchenco, a Pew Fellow who worked on the infamous, later discredited, Boris Worms faith based "scientific" report, now refered to as the "Jellyfish Report" which predicted empty seas by 2048, except for jellyfish.

Read the bog commentary in full in The Hull Truth

 

WASHINGTON, DC (March 20, 2009) – Jane Lubchenco, an ecologist focused on oceans and climate at Oregon State University, is now undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

She had been unable to speak with the press while her nomination was being weighed by the Senate but has now answered a few questions. There’ll be a lot more here from Dr. Lubchenco and other members of the Obama team on climate, energy and the environment — hopefully including answers to questions posed recently by Dot Earth readers. (John Holdren, the new science adviser to the president, has posted an interesting video message on his priorities.)

Read the New York Times story in full

 

WASHINGTON, DC (March 19, 2009) – Pity the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It has certainly suffered insults over the years, beginning in 1970 when President Nixon decided to tuck the newly formed agency inside the Commerce Department. Why? Because he was miffed at Walter Hickle, his man in charge of the Interior Department.

The oceans and atmospheric agency has grown over the years to make up 60% of the Commerce Department budget, and federal officials have resisted calls to make it a separate agency. Its multi-syllabic name commonly gets shorted to an acronym. But even the colloquial NOAA gets lampooned, as shorthand for "No Organization at All," or "National Organization for the Advancement of Acronyms."

The slights grew more serious during the presidency of George W. Bush. Scientists and policy wonks working on global warming or protecting rare and endangered whales and fish increasingly found their work questioned, delayed or altered because it ran afoul of official White House policy.

Read the Los Angeles Times story in full

 

WASHINGTON, DC (March 20, 2009) – The Senate gave its blessing late Thursday to key members of President Obama’s science team, including an Oregon State University ecologist who will be the first woman and first marine scientist to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The Senate voted unanimously to confirm Harvard physicist John Holdren as Obama’s top science advisor and Oregon State ecologist Jane Lubchenco as administrator of NOAA, an agency that conducts much of the nation’s climate-change research, forecasts the weather and regulates commercial fishing. Lubchenco said she was eager to get started because of pressing burdens on the economy and the environment, including global warming, polluted coastal waters and severely depleted fish populations.

Read the Los Angeles Times story in full

 

GRANTS PASS, OR (March 20, 2009) – EXCERPT: The new head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will not only be talking the talk on global warming, she will be walking the walk — eight blocks from the Metro station to her office. Former Oregon State University marine biologist Jane Lubchenco had planned to rent a small apartment close enough to walk to her offices in the nation’s capital, but got sticker shock when she saw the prices — $5,000 for a one-bedroom apartment — enough to finance a large house back home.

So she settled for a little place in the Cleveland Park neighborhood near the Red Line station.  Lubchenco, whom the Senate confirmed for the NOAA job Thursday, has also signed up for the Zipcar car-sharing service to take the place of her Honda Civic hybrid back home in Corvallis. "I don’t see myself as a pioneer in this area, because I know a lot of people who are becoming more and more aware of their own carbon footprints," she said. One of the first things Lubchenco and her husband, fellow OSU marine biologist Bruce Menge, did for the new apartment was replace the incandescent lights with energy-saving compact fluorescent bulbs. She was encouraged by how easy it was to find them in neighborhood stores. "It used to be the case that it was hard to find compact fluorescents," she said. "Now, in many places that’s all you can find. In a relatively short period of time there has been a very rapid transition. It’s not fast enough. But it really is happening. Especially when doing the right thing is also saving you money in the long run."

Read the Associated Press story in full

 

 

EXCERPT:  Arnold Leo, the secretary of the East Hampton Town Baymen’s Association reminded the [NMFS] that federal law required managers to consider the effect of their measures on fishing communities and “to the extent practicable, minimize adverse economic impacts on such communities.” Mr. Leo pointed out that a virtual moratorium already existed on the harvest of winter flounder in New York. “It is simply unreasonable — even punitive — to go from the management measures currently in place to a total ban on groundfishing in a huge area in an effort to get ‘some increase’ in winter flounder.”

EAST HAMPTON, NY (March 19, 2009) – New York’s commercial fishing industry, already reeling from high fuel costs, some of the lowest quotas on the East Coast, and the downturn in the broader economy, is now facing the loss of its groundfish fishery.

In response, East Hampton Town officials are asking other affected towns, as well as state and federal representatives, to encourage the National Marine Fisheries Service to change a policy that otherwise will keep boats tied to the dock beginning May 1.

Read the East Hampton Star story in full