Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, received an all-business, New York reception when she met with members of Long Island’s commercial and recreational fishing industries last Thursday in Hampton Bays.
The complaints and calls for emergency action, though voiced articulately and with due respect, were delivered to the administrator high and hard, none harder than those pitched by Senator Charles Schumer. The seriousness of the occasion was marked by the appearance of Warren Carter, who blamed the policies of the enforcement wing of the National Marine Fisheries Service, a NOAA agency, for causing his partner’s suicide.
“This is an emergency meeting. Everyone here is an environmentalist,” were the words with which Mr. Schumer chose to open the session held at Oakland’s Restaurant beside the Shinnecock Inlet entrance.
The statement was as much a directive as a call to order, and was meant to abolish any idea that this was to be a meeting between those bent on raping the sea, and those called to protect it.
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