December 19, 2019 — The first quick-fire question Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon put to Elizabeth Warren Dec. 5 was, “What is the most important issue facing American voters today?”
“Corruption,” Warren fired back.
That fits well with her campaign message that big corporations and the uber-rich have wormed their way into the corridors of power in Washington.
But Warren has another bit of fishy business on her mind.
In a Dec. 10 policy brief, she laid out plans to leverage the power of the oceans to fight climate change and boost jobs in the fishing industry. Among her points, Warren said America had offshored too much of the fish processing business.
“We must also rebuild the necessary infrastructure to once again support vibrant coastal communities and a local seafood economy,” Warren said. “Today, roughly one in four fish eaten in the United States was caught here and sent to Asia for processing before being re-imported for American consumers. By building processing plants in the United States, we can not only decrease the carbon footprint of the seafood industry, but we can also create a new class of jobs in the Blue Economy.”
Dare we say, that 1-in-4 statistic had us hooked.
We got in touch with the fishery researchers who wrote the paper Warren used to support her assertion. They said they didn’t offer that stat, and while they don’t have an exact estimate, her figure is probably too high.