Batten down the omnibus

The fisherman has been, along with the rancher and the farmer, the expression of the country’s yearnings. Fishermen may not think this when bundling along an icy dock on a frozen early morning. But where they see regulations and boat payments and feel the familiar jab of a bad back, we the land-bound turn warmly in our beds and envy their independence and their vitality.

Our dreams have changed in recent years, however, buffeted by waves of disquieting statistics. I have observed this since the day many years ago when an environmental group came into these offices and informed us the groundfish throughout the

Gulf of Maine were all but gone. This seemed impossible, an idea so vast in its implications about who fishermen were and what they stood for that I dismissed it. Then the scientists arrived with studies and charts of diminishing stocks of cod and flounder, haddock and hake. And then the fishermen themselves stopped by –

I had hoped they would steam up the Penobscot but they arrived by car – and said things such as “over-fishing” and “saving the industry.” Long meetings of fishing councils followed, with debate over fishing days, by-catch and net size and all the realities that take the romance out of the image.

Fishing has rebounded, but not at a speed that seems appropriate to some who follow the situation closely, including Judge Gladys Kessler, who in 2001 ruled in a lawsuit by the Conservation Law Foundation against the National Marine Fisheries Service that stronger restrictions were needed and set a deadline of May 1, 2004, to see them in place. The new rules required years of work and took shape as Amendment 13, attached to a management plan of the New England Fishery Management Council.

There is no romance in it, though there is a good deal of science and at least as much negotiation. Maine did not fare well under this revised amendment. But with a judge’s order hanging and fear that something worse would arrive unless they agreed to the reworked amendment, most Maine fishermen were just relieved that they would know what the working conditions were for next summer.

Then came Sen. Susan Collins, who, after listening to fishermen and various other experts, seemed to have absorbed salt water in her veins and told the fishery council to forget it. She went to Senate Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens and with his help added to the Senate’s major spending bill a rider to stop funding for Amendment 13. Though some fishermen supported her, others were horrified – what if the judge closed the entire industry for lack of regulation? – council members were irritated and fellow Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe was … well, whatever senators are when they are especially unhappy. It is worth noting that Sen. Snowe is chairman of a subcommittee that oversees fishing and was in a lengthy disagreement with Sen. Stevens over his own fishing legislation concerning Alaskan crab.

Sen. Collins’ legislation was approved Thursday afternoon as a tiny part of the Senate’s omnibus spending bill, which is a collection of spending bills the Senate did not have the will to pass on their own but did not dare reject when combined. The total cost of the bill is $820 billion, of which $296 million will come to Maine in the form of funds for heating oil for the poor, health care for veterans and tuition money for students. Though the bill holds a year’s worth of pork, it is mostly money for essential programs that keep people alive and, often, well. Sen. Collins supported the bill; Sen. Snowe opposed it because of Sen. Collins’ legislation and, even more so, because of Sen. Stevens’ fishing bill, her office reported.

The decision to vote against a bill that included many of the programs she had spent the year trying to obtain because of fishing concerns seemed, from here, like roiling pique. Her spokesman, Ted McEnroe, allows that the senator was mad about the fishing bills, “but it’s mad with a philosophical purpose to it,” he said. Sen. Snowe, in a press release, lamented voting against the essential programs. “But I must represent what is in the best long-term interests of the state as a whole, and this omnibus measure could cause significant harm to an industry that has defined Maine for centuries.” I don’t think that’s quite right. A small fraction of the state is affected by fishing regulations; the state as a whole is best served by the omnibus.

No matter. The spending bill passed and it appears the future of Maine fishermen was helped too. The rider Sen. Collins put in the bill had its intended effect. Last week, David Borden, chairman of the fishery council, told her in a letter that, “Your legislation and concern provided the necessary focus for the fishery management process to address these issues on a timely basis, and that process is well under way.” The council had heard from its groundfish committee that it needed to increase the amount of fishing for healthy stocks, make fishing more affordable for fishermen who want to use one boat instead of several and review its rule about how to count the time it takes to get to fishing grounds. All are measures that help Maine fishermen; none of which might have occurred without the rider. Sen. Collins said Thursday she would see to it the funding for Amendment 13 was not withheld.

Some take their adventure in the gales of the gulf, others in the halls of Congress, where uncertain political winds can be just as treacherous. The rest of us may be better off experiencing both at a comfortable distance.

Todd Benoit is the BDN editorial page editor.