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Jared Golden of Lewiston represents Maine’s 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
This piece was originally published on July 31 in “Dear Mainer,” Golden’s Substack. It is reposted here in its entirety, with permission.
I had a few goals when I successfully pushed to get a seat on the House Natural Resources Committee, but chief among them was using the position to advocate for the men and women who work on Maine’s waters.
It was only three years ago that Maine’s lobster industry was on the verge of shutting down because of a regulatory process that was based on flawed interpretation of federal law and biased modeling that relied heavily on hypothetical threats that fisheries posed to the North Atlantic right whale.
That is why one of my proudest accomplishments in Congress was the successful effort in 2022 — working with the entire Maine delegation and our governor on a bipartisan basis — to enact a moratorium on these regulations until 2028, coupled with additional funding to support right whale research.
However, based on developments in the last few years and my conversations with fishermen, I believe more time is needed to incorporate the research and data collected during the pause into future right whale regulations.
That’s why I’m working with one of my colleagues on the Natural Resources Committee, Rep. Nick Begich of Alaska, on legislation to amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) that would, among other things, extend the regulatory pause until 2035. This extra time will ensure that any future actions taken to protect right whales are informed by a greater volume of data.
The MMPA has a tremendous impact on the lives and livelihoods of the thousands of Maine lobstermen and fishermen I have the privilege to represent. This legislation hasn’t been amended or updated in more than a decade, and I believe that changes need to be made to the law to ensure that it cannot be used to shut down entire fisheries and the communities they support. Simply put, the federal government should not be in the business of destroying the lives of hardworking Americans and thousands of small, family-owned businesses based on assumptions that are not grounded in sound data.
This is particularly true when it comes to regulations seeking to protect the right whale. Many of my colleagues and others who care deeply about the protection of endangered species are skeptical of extending the regulation moratorium. I understand and share their conservation goals, but we owe it to Mainers to get it right.
Let me share some facts:
Perhaps most importantly: It remains the case that Maine lobstermen do not pose an existential threat to the North Atlantic right whale. In the decades since we began tracking the cause of marine mammal serious injury and mortality, there has been only one instance when a right whale’s death has been attributed to Maine lobster gear — though even that linkage was tenuous at best. Maine lobstermen have a proven track record of leading the way when it comes to ocean resource conservation and mitigating the risk of whale entanglements, including the adoption of weak links and gear marking.
The entire premise behind the original regulations has since been struck down by the courts. In 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the National Marine Fisheries Service had distorted the science and relied on egregiously wrong interpretations of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in crafting its proposed rules. The court admonished the agency for basing its edicts on arbitrary, worst-case scenarios that were “very likely wrong.”
Fishermen need more time. In part because the court order forced regulators to go back to the drawing board, the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team won’t hold its first meeting on new regulations until 2026. If the moratorium expires in 2028, lobstermen will have insufficient time to plan for new regulations and may well find themselves unable to comply and forced to stop fishing entirely.
Maine’s lobster fishery has most recently been valued at more than half a billion dollars — and that’s just the value of the catch. It supports tens of thousands of jobs. It is an iconic part of our state’s economy, heritage, and its appeal to visitors. As the largest source of lobster in the country, this fishery is an integral part of domestic and international supply chains.
Maine’s fishermen are responsible stewards of our marine resources. No one is more invested than they are in ensuring a healthy ocean ecosystem. Extending this regulatory pause will give the government the time it needs to craft regulations based on real science, reliable data and input from Mainers. And it will give lobstermen the time they need to prepare for whatever additional costs and changes to their harvesting practices may be required by new regulations.
Fishermen on both coasts are supporting our draft legislation, including my constituents in the Maine Lobstering Union, Maine Lobster Association, New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association and Downeast Lobstermen’s Association.
This month, I’d like to give them the last word. In a letter to the Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries, they wrote:
“Over the past three decades, U.S. fisheries have implemented countless mitigation and monitoring requirements, suffered closures, and expended thousands of hours in “take reduction team” meetings in good faith attempts to comply with the MMPA. But [the National Marine Fisheries Service’s] application of the MMPA, as described above, has created an untenable situation that Congress did not contemplate. Heavy regulation comes at a heavy cost, and the costs are becoming too much to bear for vessel owners with thin profit margins and for American fleets that compete daily with aggressive, largely unregulated foreign fleets. It is time for Congress to step in and clarify and amend the MMPA.”
I couldn’t agree more.
