State backs ports' fishing suit
NEW BEDFORD — The state Thursday jumped in on the side of New Bedford and Gloucester in their federal lawsuit against the Commerce secretary over fishing allocations.
On behalf of Gov. Deval Patrick, Attorney General Martha Coakley filed an amicus brief backing the lawsuit's contention that Amendment 16 to the Magnuson-Stevens Act violated the law in at least four ways.
The state is asking Federal District Court Judge Rya Zobel to send the issue of annual catch limits back to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke for upward recalculation. The brief argues the annual catch limits now do not reflect the "optimal yield" that the law demands for the fishing industry but rather sets the limits artificially and damagingly low.
The two fishing ports, filing suit last summer, asked for a wider array of remedies, including declaring that Amendment 16 is illegal, that Commerce reimburse the cities' legal expenses, that Amendment 16 be suspended, that Commerce undertake a thorough economic analysis of various alternatives and not just one plan, and anything else the court may deem appropriate.
Coakley told The Standard-Times that the narrower appeal is the result of limitations on the state's participation as a friend of the court and not a party in the case.
"We don't represent the plaintiffs' interests; we represent the interests of Massachusetts and its government," she said. "Overall, we are saying that ... the way catch limits have been set, at the very least there should be a remand to review them. We think it is an abuse of discretion."
"They have broad discretion but not unlimited discretion," she said.
"These unreasonably low limits set by the federal government are threatening the economic livelihood of our fishing families," said Coakley in a statement. "The regulations are unjust and unsupported, and we are seeking to have them recalculated in a scientific manner and with greater consideration for the economic impact on our fishing communities."
Last week, Locke shocked the fishing community and political leaders with a total rejection of their appeals for higher catch limits and relief from heavy expenses imposed by sector management.
Two months earlier, Locke was thought to be sympathetic to the fishing industry's situation, but in the end he refused to overrule the judgment of his agency's staff, which always erred on the side of smaller catch limits.
His decision infuriated political leaders who said they felt betrayed by the move.
On Thursday the governor said: "We will not stand idly by while our fishing families in the commonwealth pay the price for a regulatory change that was poorly thought through and poorly implemented. The court needs to understand that neither science nor fairness justifies the regulations now imposing great hardship on the many small fishing operations in Massachusetts that need relief now."
The state called for the regulations to be remanded to Locke with instructions that he recalculate higher annual catch limits. That, said the brief, would be consistent with a report developed by senior staff at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and by scientists at the University of Massachusetts School for Marine Science and Technology, "so as to enable Massachusetts commercial fishermen to achieve optimum yield."
The report, based on information already in the hands of the Commerce Department, documents that catch limits could be increased by up to 30 percent for most species, and significantly more for some. That would provide substantial benefits to the fishing industry while remaining within conservation bounds, said Coakley.
The brief notes that the state generally supports the creation of the catch share or sector-based management system in the Northeast Multi-Species Fishery. But it argues that Locke's implementation violates several national standards established under Magnuson-Stevens.Read More ...
0 comments:
Post a Comment