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Cape Cod legislators urge Baker to spread relief funds across the fleet

September 2, 2015 — CHATHAM, Mass. – Legislators from the Cape and Islands urged Gov. Charlie Baker to reconsider his current proposal to allocate $6.6 million in federal fisheries disaster money to fishermen who had caught at least 20,000 pounds of groundfish — bottom-feeding fish like cod, haddock and flounder — in 2013 and 2014. Cape fishermen said it would benefit only a relative few boats; they had proposed that the state Division of Marine Fisheries use $4 million to pay for monitors who ride along on groundfish vessels and report on what fishermen catch and what they discard.

“It became apparent to us that that was not going to work,” said Claire Fitz-Gerald, manager of the Georges Bank Fixed Gear Sector, representing 24 boats, and headquartered in Chatham.

There was strong sentiment within the Massachusetts fleet for direct aid to fishermen, and Gov. Baker and the state’s congressional delegation sent a letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and House and Senate appropriations committee chairmen claiming that federal requirements for fishermen to carry observers was an unfunded mandate and the federal government should pay for them, not fishermen. The letter also said paying for observer coverage was not the intent of Congress when it appropriated the federal fisheries disaster money.

Read the full story at Cape Cod Times

 

New England fishermen say federal money needed for monitors

August 25, 2015 — Federal fisheries regulators want fishermen to pay to have somebody watch what they catch and what they throw back.

And, while Gov. Charlie Baker told federal officials last week that they should foot the bill, local fishermen are hoping the state will reconsider and use its share of federal disaster money to pay for the observers required on commercial fishing trips.

The extra eyes on deck cost $710 daily, and fishermen say that hits smaller vessels especially hard.

“What small business can afford to be $710 in the hole before they even open their doors?” Chatham fisherman John Our said.

Expenses are already high for fuel, crews, bait and gear, fishermen say. Haddock, though plentiful, are too far offshore for them to catch, and their traditional species of choice, cod, have disappeared from local waters, mired at historically low population levels.

Cape boats now have to travel farther to catch monkfish, or land skates and dogfish from local waters at just a fraction of the price of cod.

A typical skate trip, at 35 cents per pound and grossing $1,100, would be left with less than $400 to split between the boat and crew, said Chatham fisherman Jan Margeson.

“We don’t gross enough money to afford this,” said Margeson, who proposed allocating federal disaster money to fishermen who actually carried observers.

The fleet will pay an estimated $10,000 per vessel annually to cover the cost of the observers, but its fishermen catch very little of the groundfish species that are in trouble, Our said.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

 

No changes to monitors, Bullard says

August 18, 2015 — Who says no one writes letters anymore? The battle over at-sea monitoring and other issues within the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery is just full of them.

On Tuesday, NOAA Regional Administrator John K. Bullard sent a letter to the New England Fishery Management Council declining two more requests the council made in June to modify the at-sea monitoring program, while saying the request for analyzing ways for streamlining the at-sea monitoring (ASM) program is underway.

On Monday, Gov. Charlie Baker, following up on his pledge made last Thursday during a trip to Gloucester, waded further into the at-sea monitoring fray with his own letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, whose department oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Baker’s letter, signed by members of the state’s congressional delegation, sought Pritzker’s support for NOAA’s continued funding of ASM rather than following through with the federal agency’s plan to shift the cost of at-sea monitoring — estimated at $600 to $800 per observer trip — to the already-beleaguered permit holders when federal funds run out, projected now to be at end of October.

Baker’s letter also questioned the necessity of NOAA’s expansion of other forms of monitoring within the Massachusetts and New England lobster fleets.

Bullard’s letter on Tuesday to NEFMC Executive Director Tom Nies followed the same rejective tone as his letter about two weeks ago that rejected the council request — also made at its June meeting — for NOAA to use its administrative authority to suspend all groundfish at-sea monitoring for the remainder of the 2015 season.

 

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

Mass. Governor, Congressional Delegation to Obama Administration: Fund At-Sea Monitoring for New England Fishermen

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — August 20, 2015 — Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, and all nine Members of Congress from Massachusetts have called upon the Obama Administration to reverse recent policy decisions and continue the funding of at-sea monitoring for Northeastern fishermen. While the agency currently funds at-sea monitors, fishermen will have to assume the full cost of the program beginning this year, which the industry contends they will be unable to afford.

In a letter to Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and the Chairs and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, Governor Baker and the Massachusetts Congressional delegation expressed “serious concern over recent actions taken by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.” The signatories are especially critical of the agency’s current at-sea monitoring policy, specifically its plan to shift funding of the program from NOAA onto fishermen, noting that such a move could potentially bankrupt the industry.

The Republican Governor and the all-Democratic Congressional delegation have joined forces to criticize the Administration decision and the heavy costs that individual fishermen are likely to incur as a result of this policy, especially in light of the fact that fishermen are still recovering from the federal economic disaster declared by the Commerce Department in 2012.

Citing a NOAA analysis of the transfer, the letter notes that monitors will cost the fishery $2.64 million in the first year alone, and would lead to an estimated 60 percent of the vessels in the fishery operating at a loss. According to the Governor and legislators, this amounts to an “unfunded mandate that could lead to the end of the Northeast Groundfishery as we know it.”

At its June meeting, the New England Fishery Management Council requested that NOAA take administrative actions to “improve the efficiency of the program,” as well as “reduce costs of the [at-sea monitoring program] without compromising compliance” with current laws. In its response to the Council, NOAA rejected these requests, stating that they were not “consistent with current regulatory requirements and statistical standards.”

The Gloucester, Massachusetts-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, which represents a significant percentage of the groundfish fleet, criticized NOAA’s decisions, while coming out in support of efforts by Gov. Baker and Congress to force a change in agency policy.

“The Council has questioned the benefits and the costs to the groundfish fishery of the at-sea monitoring program, and has given their clear directive to the Agency to either suspend or make the existing program more cost effective,” said Jackie Odell, Executive Director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition. “All requests made to date have received an astounding ‘no’ from NOAA. The Northeast Seafood Coalition strongly supports the requests made by the Council, Governor Baker and Members of Congress. When is enough, enough?”

In addition to Secretary Pritzker, the letter was sent to Sens. Thad Cochran and Barbara Mikulski, and Reps. Hal Rogers and Nita Lowey. Gov. Baker and Sens. Warren and Markey are joined by Reps. Richard Neal, Jim McGovern, Michael Capuano, Stephen Lynch, Niki Tsongas, William Keating, Joseph Kennedy, Katherine Clark, and Seth Moulton as signatories of the letter.

Read the letter from Gov. Baker and the Massachusetts Congressional delegation

Read the NEFMC’s request to NOAA on at-sea monitoring

Read NOAA’s rejection of the NEMFC’s at-sea monitoring request

 

State leaders express concern about NOAAs “oppressive” observer funding decision

August 19, 2015 — NEW BEDFORD, MA — Public officials statewide are criticizing a recent decision by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association requiring fishermen in the groundfishing industry to pay for federally mandated observers.

The Baker-Polito administration sent an letter to federal partners Monday expressing “serious concern” about the requirement, and urging their support in covering the costs of the At-Sea-Monitoring (ASM) program for the Northeast fishery, according to a news release from the governor’s office.

“While we, too, respect the importance of proper fisheries management, we question the fiscal and programmatic decisions that the agency has made of late with regards to the Northeast Fishery,” states the letter, which was sent to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce and members of the U.S. House and Senate appropriations committees.

Read the full story at South Coast Today

Baker and Mass. congressional delegation urge federal officials to pay for ground fishing observers

August 19, 2015 — In an effort to reduce the financial burdens on the region’s struggling fishermen, Governor Charlie Baker and the state’s congressional delegation urged federal officials this week to pay for a controversial program that requires observers to monitor fishermen who catch cod, flounder, and other bottom-dwelling fish.

In a letter sent to the secretary of the US Department of Commerce, which oversees the nation’s fishing industry, Baker and the delegation expressed “serious concern” about a decision this year by the National Marine Fisheries Service to require the region’s fishermen to pay for the observer program.

Fishermen insist they can’t afford to pay for the observers, especially after major cuts to their quotas. The Fisheries Service estimates that it costs $710 a day every time an observer accompanies a fisherman to sea, and the agency’s research has suggested that requiring fishermen to cover those costs would cause about 60 percent of their boats to operate at a loss.

“To shift the cost of this ineffective program onto the fishery just as the industry begins to rebuild is not only imprudent, but irresponsible,” Baker and the delegation wrote. “This equates to an unfunded mandate that could lead to the end of the Northeast Groundfish Fishery as we know it.”

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

 

 

MA Gov. Baker backs fishermen’s call for NOAA to pay for monitors

August 13, 2015 — With a crystalline portrait of America’s oldest seaport serving as the backdrop, Gov. Charlie Baker on Thursday attacked NOAA’s plan to force fishermen to pay for at-sea observers on their boats and reiterated his pledge to help convince the federal fishing regulator to consider science other than its own.

Baker, speaking to a crowd of about 100 near the Fishermen’s Wives Memorial on Stacy Boulevard, with the city’s Outer Harbor sparkling in the background, called the federal at-sea observer proposal “the most perfect example of an unfunded mandate I think I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“I think it’s ridiculous and it’s outrageous,” Baker told the audience of fishermen, fishing advocates, Gloucester officials and members of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association. “If they want to send observers out on the boats, they should pay for them with their own money.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has told the commercial fishermen in the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery that it expects to run out of money to fund the at-sea observer program by Oct. 31 and then will shift the responsibility for funding it  — estimated at $600 to $800 per day for each boat that carries an observer — to the fishing permit holders.

“It’s insult to injury as far as I’m concerned,” Baker said. “And I’m sure that most of the people in the fishing industry feel the same way.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

MA Governor Baker meets fishermen in Gloucester

August 13, 2015 — Gov. Charlie Baker will journey to Gloucester this afternoon for a private meeting with fishermen and fishing stakeholders to hear concerns and address recent and pending regulations from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the governor’s office confirmed.

Baker’s press office said the the event is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. at the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Memorial on Stacy Boulevard, and that his private meeting with the fishing stakeholders will be followed by a press availability session.

The governor also is scheduled to meet with the editorial board of the Gloucester Daily Times during the day.

Read the full story from the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

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