Saving Seafood

MAINE: Lobstermen’s rally targets lack of science behind right whale rules

July 29, 2019 — A rally designed to draw attention to impending federal regulations that would strike a big blow to the local lobster fishing industry drew hundreds of fishermen, their families and supporters from up and down the coast to the Stonington Commercial Fish Pier.

The rally, organized by Captain Julie Eaton, also drew Governor Janet Mills, U.S. Senator Susan Collins, Congresswoman Chellie Pingree and Congressman Jared Golden, a representative for former governor Paul LePage and State Senate President Troy Jackson, who spoke alongside lobstermen from Stonington, Winter Harbor and North Haven, Stonington Town Manager Kathleen Billings, Marie Hutchinson of the Island Fishermen’s Wives Association and local students. A representative from Senator Angus King’s office also attended, as did local state representatives.

Read the full story at the Penobscot Bay Press

Claws out: Rally shows public support for Maine’s lobster industry

July 24, 2019 — Stonington is a tiny hamlet far off the beaten path in Downeast Maine. As the crow flies, it’s about 80 miles from Portland. On the road, it’s double that. Suffice it to say, it’s hard to end up there by accident.

So it was by design that the state’s Gov. Janet Mills, Sen. Susan Collins, and U.S. Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden were part of a large crowd of elected officials to appear at a rally in the state’s lobster capital over the weekend.

On Sunday, July 21, a local gathering was slated to bring attention to pending federal requirements for the state’s lobster fleet to cut its lines in the water by 50 percent as part of a broad federal proposal to protect endangered right whales. Maine’s fleet has long led the charge to adapt its gear in efforts to reduce interactions with whales. But this proposed rule, industry leaders say, would only harm the fleet without serving to protect the whales.

“NOAA knows that not one right whale has been proven to have been entangled in Maine rope in many years, and the new proposed regulations would only cause extreme danger to our lobstermen,” said lobsterman Julia Eaton, who helped organize the gathering.

On May 28, Sen. Angus King, Collins, Pingree and Golden submitted a letter to acting NOAA Director Neil Jacobs. On July 10, the delegation submitted a similar letter to President Donald Trump, urging him to intervene in the conflict and acknowledge that Maine’s fishing gear does not appear to pose a risk to the whales’ shrinking population.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Maine political leaders promise to press Trump for state’s lobster haulers opposed to new rules

July 23, 2019 — Mainers who haul lobsters for a living do not kill right whales.

That was the message from a rally at Stonington’s commercial fishing pier on Sunday attended by more than 500 people, including Gov. Janet Mills, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, and U.S. Reps. Jared Golden and Chellie Pingree.

At issue are pending federal regulations aimed at protecting the endangered right whale, which can be killed by getting tangled in lobster trap-lines, but would force state lobstermen to cut the number of lines they can put into the water by 60 percent.

Rally speakers said that the rule would devastate the state’s lobster industry, which contributes an estimated $1 billion to Maine’s economy, while doing nothing to protect the whales, which, as a recent scientific study shows, seldom stray into the lobstering waters of the Gulf of Maine.

According to the National Marine Fisheries Service, no right whales have died from entanglement in Maine fishing lines in many years, as increasingly rising ocean temperatures have driven the whales and the food they eat into Canadian territory.

Mills and the congressional delegation, plus speakers representing former Gov. Paul LePage and U.S. Sen. Angus King, told rally attendees that they would support the state’s approximately 4,500 lobstermen and continue to press President Donald Trump to oppose the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s proposed new regulation.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Maine delegation asks for help easing tariff impact on lobster industry

July 15, 2019 — Maine’s Congressional delegation is urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture to include funding for Maine’s lobster industry as USDA finalizes its aid package for agricultural producers affected by China’s retaliatory tariffs.

U.S. Sens. Angus King, I-Maine, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Reps. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine 1st District, and Jared Golden, D-Maine 2nd District, have signed a letter that reiterates an earlier request of relief for Maine’s lobster industry amid the ongoing trade war with China, according to a news release.

“Retaliatory tariffs have caused a very significant export market for Maine lobster — China — to all but disappear,” the letter says.

The delegation requested “significant” funds for Maine’s lobster industry through USDA’s Agricultural Trade Promotion Program.

“ATP funding will help to develop new export markets for Maine lobster, decreasing the blow of Chinese tariffs on an iconic American industry,” the letter said.

In June, the delegation sent a letter to President Donald Trump urging him to provide financial assistance to lobster businesses hurt by the ongoing trade war with China, similar to the relief being provided to American farmers.

The delegation noted that prior to the Trump administration’s tariffs imposed on a variety of Chinese goods, China had become the second largest importer of Maine lobster.

Read the full story at MaineBiz

Maine lawmakers ask Trump to intervene against lobster trap rules

July 12, 2019 — All four members of Maine’s US congressional delegation are asking president Donald Trump to personally intervene against the implementation by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of new lobster trap rules that they say could impose unnecessary economic hardships on harvesters in the state.

The rules, which are intended to preserve endangered North Atlantic right whales, are expected to go into effect in two years, forcing a 50% reduction in lobster trap lines. However, the members of Congress suggest in a three-page letter sent to the White House on Wednesday that “there is no credible evidence indicating the rules would have real impacts on the agencies’ stated goals”.

“Your administration has made a point of targeting regulations that you believe are ill-conceived or overly burdensome,” says the letter, signed by Democratic representatives Jared Golden and Chellie Pingree and senators Susan Collins, a Republican, and Angus King, an independent. “By applying the same logic to Maine’s lobster industry and intervening in the implementation of NOAA’s regulations on Maine lobstermen, you can prevent unfair harm to an iconic Maine industry and save many good American jobs.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Rep. Golden’s effort to withhold whale protection money fails

June 21, 2019 — An amendment filed by Maine Rep. Jared Golden to prohibit federal regulators from spending money on right whale protections that would impact lobstermen was voted down Thursday.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 345-84 to kill the amendment to the U.S. Department of Commerce spending bill. The proposed budget rider was also supported by Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-1st District.

In defense of his amendment, Golden, D-2nd District, told a largely empty House chamber that it was needed to protect Maine’s $485-million- a-year lobster industry from being unfairly blamed for a problem that it didn’t cause. Good science would prove that, Golden said.

“(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), facing the threat of lawsuits, has rushed ahead using a tool that was developed for the purpose of reducing ship strikes by the Navy,” Golden said. Then NOAA “fed that tool with old data and hasty assumptions.”

“For years now, Maine lobstermen have made sacrifices with almost no measurable effect on right whales,” Golden said later Thursday in an emailed statement. “My amendment simply required the government to ensure the use of sound science and reliable data before they take even more from our lobstermen. That shouldn’t be too much to ask.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Backing lobstermen, Rep. Golden seeks to withhold funds for right whale protections

June 20, 2019 — Rep. Jared Golden wants to withhold federal funding for the implementation of lobster fishing rules intended to protect the endangered right whale, claiming the government is basing the regulations on an untested scientific tool.

Maine’s 2nd District congressman, a Democrat, introduced an amendment to a pending appropriations bill that would effectively block controversial right whale regulations requiring Maine’s $485 million a year industry to cut the number of buoy lines in the Gulf of Maine by 50 percent to prevent fatal fishing gear entanglements.

“The federal government is asking Maine lobstermen to make huge sacrifices without clear evidence that those sacrifices will have any positive impact on right whales,” Golden wrote in a statement Wednesday. “I’ve joined lobstermen to voice our concerns and now it’s time for action.

Golden said it is important to help the right whale, but he joined the Maine lobster industry and Maine’s fishing managers in a common refrain: the federal government has no conclusive proof that right whales are getting hurt or killed by entanglement in Maine lobster gear.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

New England Fisheries Officials, Lawmakers Want NOAA To Slow Proposed Rules On Lobster Gear

April 24, 2019 — The top marine resources officials from Maine and New Hampshire, joined by Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Golden of Maine’s 2nd District, are sharply criticizing the federal government’s efforts to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale and are calling for a slowdown of plans to impose new rules that could be costly for New England’s lobster fleet.

In a letter sent Friday to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, Patrick Keliher, and his counterpart in New Hampshire say federal fisheries managers botched the rollout of a new and apparently flawed risk-assessment model.

It’s supposed to help measure the effectiveness of various strategies to reduce the chance that whales will be injured or killed by entanglement in fishing gear, from using weaker rope or breakaway rope for hauling traps to a specialized gadget that would cut line when a whale becomes entangled, imposing trap limits or targeted closures of areas where whales are known to be swimming.

“There are some things that are coming out of that tool and some questions that we have about the model or some of the ideas in it that doesn’t really pass the straight-face test for us,” says Erin Summers, Maine DMR’s point-person on the whale issue, during a NOAA webinar introducing stakeholders to the risk-assessment model.

Read the full story at Maine Public Radio