March 3, 2017 — Wilbur Ross meet New Jersey’s summer flounder fishermen.
Ross is the newly appointed U.S. Secretary of Commerce. As the department’s boss, he oversees management of fisheries through its Fisheries Office and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service.
He’s the person the Christie Administration, and state delegates are now trying to hook, and win over to their side on the summer flounder issue.
They wasted no time to petition Ross this week and ask him to put a hold on the new summer flounder regulations approved by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission on Feb. 2.
The regulations call for a 30-percent reduction in the coastwide harvest of summer flounder on the Atlantic Coast. The regs were voted on after federal regulators reported the coastwide summer flounder population from Maine to North Carolina declined and fishermen overfished their quota last year.