"BP gets the benefit of the doubt, and we don't," state Sen. Bruce Tarr mused as he left a meeting of Gloucester fishermen and businessmen on Friday. The session was called by Mayor Carolyn Kirk to exchange reports, all highly critical, on the first six weeks of catch share groundfishing in New England.
Working on a glitch-filled communications technology platform with allocations much smaller than last year's catch on key species, an estimated two thirds of the boats have held off going out to sea at all under the new system.
Tarr's sense of Lubchenco's shifting scientific approach was shared throughout New England — and also in the South, where the impact of the uncontrolled oil effusion is palpable.
"There is a reluctance concerning science pertaining to oil in the Gulf, but no reluctance for any reason for catch shares in the Southeast and Northeast," said Bob Jones, executive director of the Tallahassee, Fla.-based Southeastern Fisheries Association, the region's leading trade group of 450 harvesters and shore-side businesses.
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