U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke will meet May 12 with the 20 members of Congress from the Northeast who wrote him last week seeking relief from severe fishing limits being imposed on the fishing industry starting May 1.
The exact time and place of the meeting hasn't been set, according to spokespersons for U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., both of whom signed the letter to Locke.
The letter was sent directly to the White House and the Secretary, bypassing NOAA and NMFS. [view PDF of letter].
The letter asked Locke to intervene and use what they said is his legal authority under the Magnuson-Stevens Act to amend fishing allocations on an emergency basis. Despite many pleas from the industry and from Northeast political leaders to NOAA and to Commerce, the federal government so far has changed nothing with regard to catch shares or the new sector management system being launched this weekend.
The fear is that limits for certain "choke" species are set so low that they will be reached very early, forcing whole groups of boats, called sectors, to stop fishing for the year entirely when they are only months or weeks along.
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