February 21, 2011: After meeting with fishing industry representatives at the Waterfront Grille in New Bedford, Senator John Kerry (D-MA) addressed members of the press, and expressed his concerns about NOAA and Commerce Department policies that continue to adversely affect the fishing industry. A transcript of the Senator's comments follows:
"Our fishermen all across Massachusetts and all across New England are really hurting. It’s not entirely because of the economy; it’s because of the federal government and some of the decisions that have been made with insensitivity and without adequate creativity. I believe we can do better, and I am asking for a meeting which I know will occur with Secretary Locke of Commerce [Department], and with Jane Lubchenco, the head of Marine Fisheries, NOAA. We are going to meet, and take this on I hope in a very direct and comprehensive way.
We have been at this a long time, and it’s reached a point of real frustration. I think the fishermen and their families deserve more specificity sooner and more inclusion in the process so that we can together arrive at a way of managing our fisheries and meeting our environmental responsibilities, even as they are able to meet their family responsibilities.
The reason it is as difficult as it is right now is partly because of the insensitivity of some people in the enforcement process, so I am going to hold a hearing on the asset forfeiture program to look at what has been going on and what abuses have occurred and whether or not the response to those abuses has been adequate. In my judgment, and the judgment of Barney Frank and others, it has not been, and I think we can do better.
I am one of the senior members on the Commerce Committee, senior on the fisheries subcommittee; I intend to bring out a more comprehensive approach to this from the committee itself with respect to the science and the emergency economic response that I think is necessary. Fishermen are farmers, farmers from the ocean. Our farmers in the Midwest get an awful lot of help, and I think its long time overdue that these farmers of the ocean who have the same sustainability issues, the same kinds of crop questions, crops and stocks, and they both feed America. I think it’s important for us to help this industry more than some people have been willing to today.
We have some real challenges, in tough economic times and with a tough budget. But one thing I do know, is that fisheries represent a lot more than a just a day to day economic component of our communities, they are a part of our history, they are a part of our culture, they are who we are in New England; they define it. And the last thing I want to see is just fleets of big commercial vessels out there and small fishermen have been driven literally into the past. That’s not going to happen under my watch.
We have some fighting to do, we have some thinking to do, and we need to find some cooperative effort that responds more effective to our fishing folks."
Listen to the audio courtesy WBSM.