Saving Seafood

Bipartisan group of 151 Maine legislators call on Biden to rescind new lobster fishing regulations

September 10, 2021 — State legislators have submitted a letter to President Joe Biden requesting that his administration take steps to immediately rescind new regulations on lobster fishing.

The new regulations, which are intended to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale, were announced on Aug. 30 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Maine lawmakers are now asking federal agencies to re-engage with the state of Maine to find a different path forward. Rep. Billy Bob Faulkingham, R-Winter Harbor, a lobster fisherman, initiated the letter. It includes signatures from 151 Republican, Democrat, and Independent state legislators from across Maine.

Read the full story at News Center Maine

 

TIM PLOUFF: Lobstering under attack

August 2, 2021 — A few weeks ago, Rep. Billy Bob Faulkingham (R-Winter Harbor) met with several dozen concerned citizens in Ellsworth for updates on Maine’s offshore wind proposals. The man facing that audience was grim-faced, fatigued and struggling for the proper words to express his apparent anxiety.

A husband, a father of three and a longtime lobsterman out of Winter Harbor, Faulkingham, who also serves on the Joint Standing Committee for Marine Resources, has been a strong voice of reason in our Legislature for many efforts at bettering our state, but primarily for working to protect Maine’s lobstering industry.

As Faulkingham described it, three seemingly combined forces are aligned and have put the bull’s-eye on the men and women in Maine whose lives depend on lobstering — whales, warming and wind power.

The right whale protection consortium has heightened its efforts to alter nearly every aspect of Maine’s primary (and most significant) fishing industry by pushing the federal fisheries agencies to limit, reduce and even eliminate the fishing methods currently employed in the local waters and the Gulf of Maine despite several studies indicating negligible right whale incidents within these waters over the last few years. At best, the supposed science is leaning toward saving whales, with little regard for the men and women who are active conservationists every day while doing their jobs.

The warming water folks, often the same groups and agencies that are involved with the right whale restrictions, also want to promote bureaucratic rules that will severely impact all forms of fishing in Maine’s coastal waters.

Read the full opinion piece at the Mount Deseret Islander

Maine compromise prohibits new offshore wind development in state waters

July 13, 2021 — Maine Gov. Janet Mills on July 7 signed into law a new measure that prohibits new offshore wind projects in state waters, in a compromise aimed at protecting Maine’s commercial lobster and recreational fisheries, while potentially allowing future wind power development in federal waters farther offshore.

Mills in June had signed a bill to plan for what would be the first U.S. research area for floating offshore wind in Gulf of Maine federal waters. But the state’s politically and culturally influential fishing industry has been deeply opposed to allowing any wind turbines off Maine, since Mills in November 2020 announced state government’s intention to seek a federal lease for 16 square miles for an array of up to a dozen floating turbines.

The ensuing debate led in June to a compromise in the Maine Legislature, where Rep. Billy Bob Faulkingham, a Winter Harbor lobsterman, introduced a measure that would ban wind development in state waters and prohibit issuing state permits for cables and other supporting infrastructure to connect projects in federal waters to Maine.

Lawmakers were also considering a bill setting up Mills’ proposal to impose a 10-year ban in state waters but allow the Aqua Ventus demonstration project near Monhegan to proceed with other research projects and issue permits for federal waters projects.

Final amendments reached a bipartisan compromise that sets up a new Offshore Wind Research Consortium that includes representation from Maine fishermen.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Maine fishing interests seek total ban on offshore wind energy

May 6, 2021 — More than 60 commercial fishermen and their supporters testified Tuesday in favor of a bill that would block any attempt to develop offshore wind projects anywhere along the Maine coast.

The bill would prohibit any state agency from permitting or approving any offshore wind energy project regardless of its location. It was introduced by Rep. Billy Bob Faulkingham, R-Winter Harbor, a commercial fisherman, and co-sponsored by eight other Republican lawmakers.

The testimony on L.D. 101 from lobstermen, their families and town officials from fishing communities drew a clear line in the sand: Any offshore wind development, they told told lawmakers on the Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee, would threaten the very survival of their iconic industry and way of life.

In his testimony, Faulkingham said offshore wind was the worst kind of green energy — calling it up to five times more expensive than market prices, a threat to sea birds and mammals that would eventually take up an area four times larger than Casco Bay and enrich foreign corporations with taxpayer money. Nuclear power and Canadian hydro are better options, he said.

“It is time to put a permanent halt to offshore wind development,” Faulkingham said, calling it “a science project.”

Asked by a fellow lawmaker if his opposition was a case of not-in-my-backyard, Faulkingham said no.

Read the full story at the New Hampshire Union Leader