They may disagree on everything else under the sun, but Republican incumbent Scott Brown and his Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren — who are locked in a tense, high-profile struggle for a U.S. Senate seat — agree on the basic problems harming the Massachusetts fishing industry.
Their agreement is that the federal government has been levying excessive fines and overregulating the fleet, which has been further weakened from a combination of statutory limits on catch levels and a commodification market program adopted in 2010 and taken directly from a policy paper co-written by NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco while she was still serving on the board of directors at the Environmental Defense Fund. The lead financer for the policy paper advocating catch shares was the Walton Family Foundation, endowed with Wal-Mart profits and controlled by the family that founded and still owns the world's largest retailer.
Asked by the Times to respond to a 30-second radio ad that began running last week about what ails the fishing industry, Warren issued a statement that did not attempt to differentiate herself from Brown's extensive pronouncements. Brown has also filed multiple bills to ameliorate the problems.
"Our fishermen work hard and play by the rules, and they deserve to have a fair shot at success," Warren said in the prepared statement.
Read the complete article in The Gloucester Times