GLOUCESTER, MA (February 12, 2009) – Nobody knows yet what the final result will be regarding a federal judge’s order to suspend Framework 42, the rules governing the fishing industry.
But the recent three-day meeting of the New England Fishery Management Council in Portsmouth, N.H., did make one thing clear: On Jan. 26, when U.S. District Judge Edward Harrington ordered the suspension of Framework 42 for 60 days, he was only attacking a symptom, which was all he had the authority to attack. The disease at the core of the fight to sustain the fishery is indeed is the agency that imposes those regulations — the National Marine Fisheries Service itself. If survival of the industry and the resource are ever going to be balanced in a reasonable way, this entire rogue agency is going to have to be restructured. Right now, it is essentially a law unto itself. Read the Gloucester Daily Times opinion in full