Lobster industry hails executive order easing fishery regulations

A red lobsterboat is behind a dock loaded with traps.

File photo / Laurie Schreiber Maine fishermen have supported the economy for generations.

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Lobster trade associations in Maine are hailing an executive order from the White House that would ease or eliminate regulations on seafood fisheries.

The Maine Lobstermen’s Association “has been fighting government overregulation for years and won a historic court case that challenged draconian whale rules taking a big step forward in ending this abuse of power,” said Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association. The executive order “recognizes the challenges our fishing families and communities face and we appreciate the commitment to reduce burdensome regulations and strengthen the competitiveness of American seafood.”

“Maine fishermen have been supporting Maine's economy for generations,” said Virginia Olsen, a lobster fisherman and director of the Maine Lobstering Union.

The order addresses the union’s concerns that Canadian trade practices, unequal conservation and regulations are hurting Maine families, Olsen said.

‘Overregulation’

The executive order on “Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness,” issued last week, directed the secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce, with the secretary of Health and Human Services and with input from the U.S. fishing industry, to “immediately consider suspending, revising or rescinding regulations that overly burden America’s commercial fishing, aquaculture and fish processing industries at the fishery-specific level.”

The order says that federal “overregulation has restricted fishermen from productively harvesting American seafood including through restrictive catch limits, selling our fishing grounds to foreign offshore wind companies, inaccurate and outdated fisheries data and delayed adoption of modern technology.”

It continues, “The United States should be the world’s dominant seafood leader. But in addition to overregulation, unfair trade practices have put our seafood markets at a competitive disadvantage. Nearly 90% of seafood on our shelves is now imported, and the seafood trade deficit stands at over $20 billion. The erosion of American seafood competitiveness at the hands of unfair foreign trade practices must end.”

But a Washington, D.C., conservation organization said the order ”risks driving fish stocks into decline.”

The order “would weaken, not strengthen, our fishing industry by increasing the risk that overfishing drives our fish stocks into decline, effectively taking healthy U.S. seafood off the menu,” said Meredith Moore, senior director of Ocean Conservancy’s fish conservation program.

Marine monuments

Measures in the order include implementing an “America First Seafood Strategy to promote production, marketing, sale and export of United States fishery and aquaculture products and strengthen domestic processing capacity.”

The order requires the secretary of Commerce, in consultation with the secretary of the Interior, to review marine national monuments and provide recommendations on whether any should be opened to commercial fishing.

U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine 1st District, praised the order as an intervention that could help ease differing regulatory burdens between the U.S. and Canada, citing conservation measures and regulations on U.S. fishing gear and environmental practices that he said are absent in Canada.