January 25, 2022 — Advocates for the East Coast fishing industry sat down with free-market critics of wind power for a panel in Austin, Texas, where a conservative legal foundation has taken the fishermen’s fight to federal court.
Hosted by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the discussion featured Meghan Lapp, fisheries liaison for Seafreeze Ltd. and Seafreeze Shoreside in Narragansett, R.I., and Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association.
“There’s basically been wholesale sellout by the federal government of our fishing grounds,” said Lapp. “We’re talking about the whole East Coast…and the obliteration of fishing on the East Coast.”
Lapp put her legal background to use in years of reading government documents and putting formal comments into the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and other federal agencies involved in offshore wind planning.
“I write every single comment letter like we’re going to sue, to establish that on the record, and I knew that’s where we were going to get with these projects,” said Lapp.
She knew then it could go all the way to the Supreme Court, but that the fishing industry could not do that on its own without more legal firepower, Lapp recalled. That led her to the Texas Public Policy Foundation, after reading how the group had brought a case on the Affordable Care Act to the high court.