Fishermen, Politicians Rally Against Federal Regulations

Written By Morgan True and Aarthi Gunasekaran

WASHINGTON –  Fishermen from across the United States descended upon Capitol Hill Wednesday to voice their displeasure with a federal bureaucracy they believe is regulating them out of business.

Politicians from both sides of the political aisle and both houses of Congress joined a crowd of several hundred current and former fishermen, along with industry advocates, in lambasting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its director, Jane Lubchenco.

One small boy wore a sign around his neck reading, “NOAA, Jesus was a fisherman. Why can’t I be?” Others waved signs declaring, “Show Me The Science” and “Let Fishermen Fish.”

A bevy of public officials spoke, including Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Scott Brown, R-Mass.
“What does it take to get fired at NOAA?” asked an incredulous Brown. He was joined on stage by a staffer holding a blown-up photograph of a $300,000 luxury craft whose purchase has been sharply criticized by NOAA’s inspector general — and which Brown has sought to make a symbol of the agency’s bureaucratic excess.

“The nation’s primary fishing regulator, NOAA, is being run by Washington insiders with a radical agenda to change the way that you do business and it’s wrong,” he charged.

In his remarks, Kerry focused on the theme of improving the science that guides regulation, declaring, “If [regulators] make judgments that are based on unsound science, no science at all or science you can’t believe in, then we are going to have a problem.”

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