Sample Letter Supporting Rothschild for NMFS Chief

It has come to our attention in the fishing community that the decision to fill the post of National Marine Fisheries Service Administrator may be imminent. In light of the recent selections to fill posts at NMFS/NOAA with people of the same background and affiliations as Dr. Jane Lubchenco, I ask that you consider supporting Dr. Brian Rothschild’s appointment as NMFS Administrator. He is seen as fair and open minded; and has won the confidence and respect of the fishing community.

    He is a University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth researcher who was instrumental in building the School of Marine Science and Technology into a respected institution engaged in the gathering and analysis of scientific fishery data. Dr. Rothschild has been involved in fisheries issues for decades; and has been an independent and non-agenda driven advocate for the objective assessment of the health of the fisheries resource upon which we all depend.

    We in the fishing community are convinced that his nomination would help to balance the disproportionate amount of agenda driven people recently appointed to several posts at NMFS/NOAA.  Dr. Rothschild as administrator would begin to restore some trust between the community and the NMFS which has eroded so drastically in recent years. This trust is crucial to the survival of our industry which seems to have no place at the table when it comes to decision making on the federal level. We in the fishing community now find ourselves in desperate financial shape; not because of a lack of resource, but because of a federal regulatory system generating laws that have created overwhelming negative consequences in the fishing community. There are billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs at stake, as well as the centuries old fishing traditions that our coastal communities were built upon.

    I ask for your support in nominating Dr. Rothschild for the position of National Marine Fisheries Service Administrator. I can assure you that I also speak for many in the fishing community when I ask for your support in this matter. 

    We are also asking for your support in securing future funding for The Northeast Area Monitoring and Assessment Program or NEAMAP. This is a cooperative research program involving data collection and analysis in support of fish stock assessments in the Mid-Atlantic and New England waters.  It is conducted by qualified scientists from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and subject to legitimate quality assurance and peer review. The study surveys are conducted aboard a first class fishing vessel, The F/V Daranar, and operated by an experienced and credentialed Capt. Jim Ruhle. This NEAMAP operation is currently funded through the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s Research Set-Aside Program, which can vary from year to year and is not sufficient to the level of consistency required for a scientific study of this magnitude.  The NEAMAP 2010 to 2012 proposal has, as yet, not been funded.  So the scientists don’t know at this point if they’ll be back next year. The NEAMAP Program has to have a line item in the President’s budget and not be funded through earmarks or research set-asides.  Consistency is the name of the game here.  If this data is to have impact, the program can’t loose a year for lack of funding; that would invalidate the previous years’ research and perhaps the entire program. 

    This is science that the fishing community can get behind.  The appointment of Dr. Rothschild and the funding of NEAMAP might restore some legitimacy and therefore workability to the regulatory process. Fishermen are not anti-regulation; we are simply asking for some intelligence and integrity in the process.

    Your help as a member of government in these matters will be greatly appreciated and will go a long way to help the fishing industry and its related communities survive.

Thank You.

Comments

[don cuddy]

Immanentism is the theory that God pervades the Universe.

[Susan]

Oh - some days it feels as though NMFS pervades this Universe.