The search for balance between economic and environmental concerns intensified this week over catch limits from those in both commercial and recreational fishing industries.

Key North Carolina congressional delegation members have asked U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke “to consider other well-established fishery management techniques” to help keep the industry alive.

A letter from Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., Rep. Mike McIntyre, D-N.C., Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., and Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., joined several senators and congressmen from other East Coast states in the request. The request came over “concern that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations catch share policy will further endanger the economic vitality of the already-struggling fishing industry and will not end overfishing.”

“The fishing industry is a crucial part of our nation’s economy, but in these tough economic times too many fishermen are struggling to provide for themselves, their families and their communities,” the letter said.

It maintains, as have fishermen speaking at recent public hearings in New Bern before the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council this year, that NOAA has “committed significant funding to encourage the adoption of catch share programs when it has not committed sufficient funds to adequately assess the stocks of our nation’s fisheries.”

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U.S. Sen. John Kerry has put his political weight behind the struggles of the fishing industry in its growing fight for relief from the regulatory, economic and law enforcement policies created and being carried out by the Obama administration.

photo © 2009 Center for American Progress Action Fund | more info (via: Wylio)

Expressing disappointment and frustration at the lack of progress in a year’s struggle dating to the Feb. 24, 2010, national fishermen’s rally in Washington, D.C., Kerry announced plans organize a field hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee — somewhere in Massachusetts, and no later than April.

The hearing would gather testimony for comprehensive legislation aimed at modifying the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the landmark 1976 law that governs America’s fisheries and is credited with achieving sustainable stocks and ending overfishing.

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A nationally televised report has told the world of the travails of the Gloucester-based fishing industry at the hands of government regulators.

Featuring testimony from longtime port of Gloucester fishermen Bill Lee and Richard Burgess, the CBS News report broadcast Wednesday night marked the first extended network coverage of a struggle that was joined with the start of the Obama administration and has built in intensity for two years

The grievances against the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its National Marine Fisheries Service trace back more than a decade, as the federal Commerce Department inspector general has acknowledged.

The report by CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian covered issues that readers of the Times have been immersed in — stultifying overregulation and vindictive, debilitating law enforcement, which together put small businessmen out of business — but CBS also added a new perspective.

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The U.S. House has voted to cut off funding for future catch share programs, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration policy that opens the door to commodities trading of fishermen’s catch allocations — and a policy already steering control of the fishing industry to larger corporations while driving out smaller, independent boats.

The 259-159 vote early Saturday morning was largely un-lobbied by either fishing industry backers or the Obama administration and its environmental allies, notably the Environmental Defense Fund that developed and has pushed hard for catch share policies.

The vote marked the first time a House of Congress has weighed in on the management regimen, and it looms as a setback for the Obama administration, whose most visible advocate of catch shares is Jane Lubchenco, the embattled NOAA administrator who formerly served as a top board member with Environmental Defense.

While with EDF, she helped organize a disputed scientific justification for catch shares, implying that without them, all food fish would soon be taken.