Snowe to lead hearing on groundfishing rules Industry seeks flexibility in enforcement of law

PORTLAND – A congressional committee is taking a closer look at a controversial proposal for new groundfishing regulations.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, will lead a hearing of the Oceans, Fisheries and Coast Guard subcommittee questioning the head of the National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal agency that she says has proposed excessive restrictions on the New England groundfish industry.

Known as Amendment 13, the proposed rules are designed to replenish stocks of cod, haddock and other groundfish in New England waters. The rules are unpopular with fishermen, who say they will cause the extinction of small-boat fishermen from Rhode Island to eastern Maine.

Industry representatives say they hope the hearing will help them avoid severe cutbacks scheduled to take effect next spring and, ultimately, inject more flexibility into the U.S. Sustainable Fisheries Act.

But conservation advocates say the hearing is a political move that should have no impact on the rules or on the law, which they say was specifically written to avoid political interference.

The hearing is scheduled for Oct. 22 and will examine the way the National Marine Fisheries Service has interpreted and enforced the law.

William Hogarth, head of the fisheries service and an assistant administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is being invited to testify.

The fisheries service, under court order, is planning another round of severe cutbacks starting in May to speed up the rebuilding of cod, haddock and flounder populations.

In a critical letter delivered to a panel of fishery advisers, Snowe, the subcommittee’s chairman, wrote that she has repeatedly questioned the fisheries service about its inflexible enforcement of the conservation law since it was passed by Congress in 1996.

“It became evident to me that the agency has lost its way in interpreting the Act,” she wrote.