In a preliminary response to Sen. John Kerry's comprehensive reform agenda for the New England fisheries, NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco on Thursday announced a commitment to continue paying the multi-million dollar cost of at-sea monitoring for commercial fishing boats.
The contracted employees are used on about one-third of the trips to record discards and inventory the catches.
Lubchenco also volunteered to give industry a say in the selection of the two top positions in the Northeast region — regional administrator and chief scientist at the Science Center at Woods Hole.
In a 2,500-word letter to Lubchenco on Wednesday — two weeks after hosting a Senate Commerce Committee hearing in Boston — Kerry estimated the additional year's monitoring would cost $7.5 million.
Lubchenco's prepared statement did not price the subsidy, but she agreed to cover the monitoring costs through April 2013.
Read the complete article by Richard Gaines in The Boston Globe