September 12, 2012 — Nearly 10 months after Gov. Deval Patrick filed socio-economic studies to show the federal government the groundfishery was in calamitous decline — caused in part by one of its own agency’s policies — he and three other New England governors announced Wednesday they are asking Congress for $100 million in aid for the industry.
The written request from Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island was made explicitly “contingent” on the U.S. Commerce Department’s acknowledgement that the fishery over which it has presided for nearly four years has devolved into a state of economic disaster — something the Obama administration has refrained from doing.
The catch share program for the groundfishery— a system that encourages buying selling and trading of fishermen’s quota or catch shares as financial commodities — was the brainchild of NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco. Her initial act after taking office was to pressure federal fisheries regulators to approve the re-engineering of the groundfishery without delay.
But NOAA’s own statistics show that the system has driven more and more quota into the hands of larger boats and corporations, with smaller, independent boats forced to the sidelines; in the first year of catch shares, Gloucester’s fleet alone lost 21 of its then-96 groundfishing boats, and the jobs they provided.
In his original filing last Nov. 15, Gov. Patrick explicitly faulted the “catch share” system for making a bad situation worse. The downward spiral was triggered by two decades of conservation and ever-smaller government-mandated catch limits to meet to congressional mandates, and has accelerated by a series of government assessments this year leading to even tighter cuts in catch limits, notably for Gulf of Maine cod.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Times.