The Dirty Little Secret
Rep. Ann-Margarette Ferrante, right, spoke at the announcement of Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley’s (left) law suit charging NOAA with imposing excessive fishing quota cuts. The 78% quota cuts, said Ferrante, are nearly double the New England Fishery Management Council’s almost unanamous vote for an interim cut of 40%. Ferrante called the NOAA cuts a vindictive attack on fishermen who months earlier called for accountability from NOAA for enforcement excesses. © Photo by Sam Murfitt
On May 30, 2013 Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley along with a delagation on the Gloucester waterfront, announced the filing of a law suit against NOAA. The suit challenges the catch share system and NOAA’s failure to consider the social impacts of catch shares on the fishing industry as outlined in the Magnuson Stevens Act.
Representative Ferrante, AG Coakley and their delegation have called for accountability to the majority from the government minority by way of the law suit. Ferrante’s comments on May 30 before the delegation, audience and cameras are published here verbatum.
“I speak to you not only as a state representative, but as a proud daughter of a fisherman and as a proud granddaughter of two fishermen. Today when you look at Joe and when you look at Vito, I don’t want you just to see two fishermen who are facing hard times. I want you to see the lifeblood of my community, the heritage of my community. And when you see that vessel over there, I don’t want you to just see a boat that will be put out of business. I want you to see a boat that was used to put kids through college, a boat that was used to feed families, and a boat that was used to feed not only families dependent on the fishing industry, but families throughout this country who bought the fish that they caught, put it on their families’ table, and enjoyed the meal that these two men have sacrificed their lives to fish.
Now I want to thank the Attorney General, I want to thank the secretary, I want to thank the congressmen because this has been a team effort.
I hope everybody is paying attention right now because I want to say something that most people won’t publicly. It’s time we talk about the dirty little secret and the dirty little secret is, this isn’t about fish, this is about a vindictive agency. Now why do I say that and why do I make that bold statement. And do I make that statement easily, no I don’t.
A few months ago, it was this delegation and this attorney general that came to Gloucester and said, Oh my lord, here are some of the worst abuses of government, (Regarding charges of NOAA enforcement abuses of power) here are some of the worst civil rights violations that are occurring, and this agency needs to be held accountable. And they (The attorney general and state and federal congress people) fought with us. They took all the violations that we were complaining about, they took them to Washington, they went to the Obama administration, and they said, These need to be taken seriously. And what happened as a result? The head of NOAA herself flew into Gloucester, convened a group of fishermen, apologized to them, and paid them for the injury that they had sustained.
So now, here we are a couple months later. And for those of us who have been in the trenches (dealing with the NOAA abuses of power), it’s no surprise that we’re here once again. Because when the regulations were discussed at the New England Fisheries Management Council, the council which includes the six states, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York, when they came together, it was almost unanimous that we would go with an interim rule that would allow for a 40 percent cut. We’re not talking about status quo. We’re talking about a 40 percent cut. Each of the states who bear the same responsibility as the federal government to protect fish stocks voted for a 40% cut and that’s what they supported.
And what did the government say? The government came back and said it’s a day of reckoning. And none of us believed that when they said it was a day of reckoning, it would be a day of reckoning because of the crisis within the fish stocks, no. What all of us understood was that it would be a day of reckoning for holding them responsible on the enforcement actions and forcing the head of their agency to come to Gloucester to apologize and to pay retribution. That’s what this is about.
And I applaud the Attorney General because she sees through this. She sees through this and she knows that she is going to stand up to protect the citizens of her commonwealth. She is going to say that when the vindictiveness comes out that says, ‘It’s not good enough to cut. It’s not good enough to cut. It’s not good enough to protect the stocks. What we want is to drive the people that complained about us into the ground and financially ruin them so they can’t survive and obliterate a whole industry that was strong enough to stand up with this congressional delegation, with this AG, with it’s governor, to say this is wrong. We want to send a message to everybody that’s out there and say, Go ahead. You want to complain about us? You want to hold us accountable after we say we’re not accountable to no one? You go ahead and do that, but we’re going to come right back at you and hit you five times harder than we did before.”
If it weren’t for this group behind me, if it weren’t for this team behind me, see those two gentlemen (Fishermen Vito Giacalone and Joe Orlando), they would have no hope, they would have no prayer, and they would have no chance against a government that sadly wants to make them pay for holding them accountable.
Thank you.”
To hear Coakley’s and Ferrante’s comments-http://www.mass.gov/ago/news-and-updates/press-releases/2013/2013-05-30-noaa-lawsuit.html.