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ELLSWORTH —
Spending limitations that would have prohibited
the implementation of new fisheries management
efforts for New England groundfish until October
will be killed when President George Bush signs a
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
bill approved by Congress Monday.
Lifting those
spending limits has been a priority for Sen. Susan
Collins (R-Maine) almost since she had them
imposed through a rider attached to the omnibus
spending bill, which got Senate approval Jan. 22.
By Jan. 28 Collins had attached a rider to a
pension reform bill heading for Bush’s desk that
would remove the restrictions. That bill stalled
in committee and Collins attached the same rider
to another bill.
What might have
appeared as a confusing scramble to impose and
then remove the spending limits was a strategic
effort to make a point to fisheries regulators,
according to Collins.
The spending
freeze “was a strong signal to send to the federal
regulators,” she said March 18.
The freeze was
particularly potent because it would have
prevented the National Marine Fisheries Service
from meeting a court-ordered deadline of May 1 for
new groundfish management rules that would meet
federal sustainable fisheries standards. The New
England Fisheries Management Council had accepted
provisions of the proposed Amendment 13, intended
to satisfy the court order.
However, Collins
didn’t like what she saw. She and Sen. Olympia
Snowe (R-Maine) expressed concerns that the
amendment, which imposed cuts on all
New England groundfishermen, was
particularly harsh on the Maine industry.
Collins said last
month her rider had jarred the council into
action, “forcing the parties back to the table.”
Back to the table
they went in January. First the council’s
groundfish committee met, followed by a full
council meeting during the last week of January.
In a statement at the time, Collins said the
progress she saw at those meetings prompted her
efforts to remove the spending freeze. She said
last month she believes anything short of her
threatened spending freeze wouldn’t have prompted
the response that improved Amendment 13 for
Maine fishermen.
“We needed the
pause to create the impetus,” she said, referring
to the May to October delay in implementation her
initial rider imposed.
At the time,
Collins’ staff assured that the fishery couldn’t
be shut down by U.S. District Court Judge Gladys
Kessler if the funds to implement the new rules
weren’t available at the May deadline.
Snowe and others
questioned that interpretation.
But Collins said
she intended the freeze to bet attention and send
a message.
“I thought, NMFS
(National Marine Fisheries Service) and the
council needed a warning shot,” she said last
month. She said she had been frustrated by the
lack of response to concerns raised by Maine’s
senators.
“We would write
and nothing would happen,” she said.
In the case of
Amendment 13 revisions, she said there was a
satisfying response.
She cited the
council’s provision of 10 “B” days for fishermen
who haven’t been actively fishing to fish in
special access programs and keep a foothold in the
industry.
She also praised
the elimination of vessel tonnage requirements for
the leasing of fishing days; the development of
special access programs; the reduction of the
conservation tax on transferred fishing days, and
an agreement to address the issue of how steaming
time is factored in to fishing day calculations.
While Collins
announced that adoption of her latest rider would
enable the revised version of Amendment 13 to meet
Kessler’s deadline, the provisions will still be a
hardship for Maine’s groundfishery. |
