Posted on 07/14/2019 11:20:38 AM PDT by Kaslin
Big government overreach knows no bounds. The latest example of federal regulation that will threaten thousands of jobs and livelihoods of hardworking Americas comes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The NOAA says that Maine's lobster industry is to blame for the killing of right whales, an endangered species, and has enacted regulations set to take place this September which will harm the already struggling industry. Yet, the evidence says that the proposed regulation will in no way actually help the whales and will instead only burden lobstermen.
As reported by the Portland Herald Press, NOAA "has ordered Maine to craft a detailed plan to reduce the lobster industry’s threat to right whales by 60 percent by September. Federal regulators say entanglement in fishing gear and ship strikes are driving the whale’s decline, with just over 400 of them left."
Their intended regulation would force the lobster industry "to cut the number of buoy lines in the Gulf of Maine by half this September."
This means that lobstermen would be less likely to catch lobsters that they could then sell to restaurants, distributors, and in other places. Thus, they would lose income and have to fire hundreds of workers.
Even the left-wing progressive Governor Janet Mills says that there is scant evidence that the activity of the lobstermen is to blame for any endangerment towards these whales. Six right whales did, in fact, die this past year, but those deaths occurred in Canadian waters.
"There is a disturbing lack of evidence connecting the Maine lobster industry to recent right whale deaths,” Mills wrote in a Facebook post. “The Maine lobster fishery is not the primary problem for right whales.”
A letter to the editor in Kennebunk, Maine's local newspaper detailed the plight of the lobstermen succinctly:
"...Maine lobstermen are facing what one lobsterman called “the fight of our lives” right now as they face extreme and dangerous new regulations which if implemented could devastate the lobster industry we have today, and impact the entire economy throughout the state and beyond with a trickle-down effect like no other, with the potential to affect seafood markets and grocery stores, bait dealers, seafood processors, truckers, fuel companies, marine mechanics, trap builders, marine supply stores, restaurants, everyday people who buy seafood, and the biggest moneymaker for the state of all - the tourist industry."
Lobstermen are facing the real threat of being forced out of business and a livelihood that they have relied on for many generations. An entire fishing heritage dating back hundreds of years is at risk and the decimation of an entire infrastructure is a stake as a result of regulations set by NOAA and NMFS put into place to try to protect Atlantic Right whales."
To try and stop the regulation, "Mills is directing Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Pat Keliher to come up with a new risk reduction target based on the industry’s actual risk to right whales. Keliher will present a plan to achieve this new goal to the industry in August and the National Marine Fisheries Service in September."
Maine's congressional delegation even sent a letter to President Donald J. Trump asking him to intervene and stop the damaging new rule. Congressman Jared Golden posted the following on Facebook, summarizing the content of the delegation's letter:
Donald J. Trump, Maine lobstermen need your help to protect thousands of good American jobs.
On behalf of Maine lobstermen, I, along with Senator Susan M Collins, Senator Angus S. King, Jr., and Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, urge you to intervene in the implementation of @NOAA’s new regulations on our lobstermen. It's time to #StandUpforLobstermen
Without changes, NOAA’s regulations will wreak havoc on lobstermen and communities up and down Maine’s coast ... but NOAA doesn’t have the data to show that right whales travel through Gulf of Maine where lobstermen work.
These new rules won’t achieve NOAA's desired outcome — helping whales — and will put lobstermen out of business. It’s the worst kind of regulation. Maine lobstermen are looking to you, President Trump, to have their back.
The point of this regulation is to save the right whale from the supposed dangers of the lobstermen. But, if you ask anybody actually in Maine and in the business, it is a ludicrous regulation because right whales are very, very rare in Maine waters.
As CBS 13 reports, " For lobsterman George Anderson, he's never seen one in his 40 years of fishing. 'Seen all kinds of whales, basking sharks, sun fish but no right whales,' Anderson said."
Now, dozens of towns across Maine are pleading with President Donald J. Trump to repeal the regulation. "President Donald J. Trump, please repeal this burdensome misguided regulation and SAVE THE LOBSTER INDUSTRY. #StandUpForLobstermen #Maine #Trump," a Kennebunkport Facebook page pleaded today.
I heard the Feds are actually going to burn and sink the poor lobstermen’s boats — with no warning, after inviting the families — women and children — on board. Then they’re going to run them down with airplanes and submarines.
This article is a bunch of hyperbolic crap. The new regulations are moderate, and not nearly what the conservationists wanted. Weaker rope, fewer traps per line. The lobster business is booming.
I bet they make for good eating too. Bring them in and put them on a plate. People will eat any piece of sea garbage as long as it's deep fried.
Indeed. Just like when Canada had to close the Grand Banks cod fishery, and devastate Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Maine-based fishermen in the process, whilst Spain, China, Japan and several other countries continued to park just outside the territorial waters limits, and fish to their hearts content, thumbing their noses and going: “Neenur neenur neenur!”
I was in NL last summer to visit my father, and went out fishing with a few of the locals. It was brutal. I caught nothing but sea-lice-covered, sickly-looking sculpins.
Don’t worry, we can import Indian Lobsters.
“Decades ago RUSH LIMBAUGH warned against the COMMUNIST INFILTRATION of environmental organizations. This is another attempt to destroy American commerce and enterprise.”
Wasn’t Rush a member of the CFR?
Thanks for a bit of countervailing information.
Obama and Al Gore types are still in the dept, leftists.
Anyone born within the last three decades think whales are big talking fish like in Disney cartoons. You see, all animals are fuzzy sentient beings with goals, hopes, and aspirations of their own. Human beings are the enemy and want to exterminate all the furries. The worst human beings of all are Republicans who enjoy torturing the whales before performing vivisection on them.
Wasn’t Rush a member of the CFR?
It was rumored he was ushered in around ‘96 when Pat Buchanan was running fro President. He would have been a kind of surreptitious member on the nonpublic list.
Wasn’t Rush a member of the CFR?
It was rumored he was ushered in around ‘96 when Pat Buchanan was running fro President. He would have been a kind of surreptitious member on the nonpublic list.
the article does not explain what the actual problem is...
its trap tags
lobsterman can have a certain number of tags, and through a bunch of bureaucratic rules is a pain to replace them when a trap is lost. more traps per buoy = more tags lost per buoy lost= fewer pots lobsterman has in the water.
Animal planet had a program where they sponsored some pirate ship to harass Japanese whalers who were conforming to whatever international agreements exist for whale taking. What’s next? The Antifa Channel?
Modeled after gun-control laws.
I live in Maine.
Lobstermen set their traps close to shore....quite close at that.
The right whales are much further out in the open Atlantic.
Most Maine lobstermen ply their trade and have never even seen a right whale their entire career as a lobsterman.
Very rarely, a right whale will come closer to shore and get tangled in the ropes from a lobsterman’s trap. From what I heard, most lobstermen were required to replace their ropes years ago (the ropes are attached to the traps on the ocean floor).
And it isn’t “thousands” of jobs at stake. It’s tens of thousands. The lobstermen are not going to go quietly in the night.
Maine’s Second Congressional District covers 80% of Maine. Candidate Donald Trump carried this district by 10 points and received one electoral vote. His administration needs to nip this in the bud.
The Canadian lobster industry in the maritime provinces will be the beneficiary of this cockamamie scheme if it’s allowed to proceed.
Maine’s Second Congressional District is rather conservative. It covers 80% of the state, and with conceal carry and Constitutional carry, private sale of firearms, etc., it has more Second Amendment protections than Texas.
The left introduced a dozen bills restricting firearms in the most recent legislative session, but to my knowledge they all failed.
Donald Trump carried this district by 10 points.
Maine has been trending red in recent years. There was a blue wave in November 2018 which was a set back. The First district.....the Portland area....is the liberal part of Maine.
The “liberal government agency” you speak of is NOAA, which is a federal agency, not a state agency.
The Maine lobster does not exist in the waters off China, or in the waters off Mexico. In the waters off the Canadian maritime provinces, yes.
I’ve lived in Maine for 27 years and I have never seen a “Somali cuisine” restaurant.
I have no idea what you are talking about.
Maine voted NOT to join that stupid electoral vote compact.
Portland in southeast Maine is moonbat central.
Refugees, illegal aliens, sanctuary city, a history of ahole gun-grabbing police chiefs, etc. First Congressional district.
The Second District is more conservative, though there are exceptions to the rule.
The wording that says they want Maine to come up with plans kind of negates much of the premise of the tale...
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