Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren has warned that federal fishery regulations, biased to favor the "largest fishing operations" or "fishing factories," can open the door to foreigners' taking over and depleting stocks once again.
But it is a statement that left fishing industry executives and analysts scratching their heads — and government officials shaking theirs as well.
"It's far fetched, so far fetched," said Vito Giacalone, policy director of the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition.
Describing Warren's comments as "pure and simple discrimination," fishing industry journalist and consultant Nils Stolpe said, "The interviewee has fallen into the 'good fishing vs. bad fishing trap that the anti-fishing groups have been so intent on making part of their mythology."
Giacalone, a Gloucester fisherman, and Stolpe, a New Jersey- and Florida-based researcher and columnist, were given transcripts of the Warren interview with all identifiers removed, and asked to comment. Their opinions mirror others gathered from industry sources.
International fisheries officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration debunked Warren's concern as virtually impossible to imagine, given the protective barriers to foreign corporate infiltration of the 200-mile exclusive economic zone.
Read the complete article from The Gloucester Times