US President Donald Trump announced he was opening a national marine monument off the coast of southern New England to commercial fishing during a visit to Maine on Friday, an administrative rebuke of government regulation that holds big political appeal for the Maine fishing industry but little practical value.
At an hourlong roundtable with Maine fishermen in Bangor, Trump also vowed to use retaliatory tariffs to help the Maine lobster industry get better access to foreign markets, putting former Maine Gov. Paul LePage in charge of a task force on the matter, and vowed to increase the amount of federal funding to help Maine’s fishing industry survive the COVID-19 pandemic.
You have never been treated properly, at least not for a long time, Trump told the group. Today I am signing a proclamation to reverse that injustice. We are reopening the Northeast Canyon and Seamounts Marine National Monument to commercial fishing. Is that OK? Is that what you want? That’s an easy one.
Seamounts is the only national marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean, created by executive order in September 2016 under the U.S. Antiquities Act in the final months of President Barack Obama’s administration. Commercial fishing was banned inside the 4,900-square-mile area, and commercial crabbing and lobstering was to scheduled to end in 2023.
Trump’s announcement drew applause from the eight-member fishing panel assembled inside a hangar at Bangor International Airport. The president was on his way to visit Puritan Medical Products, a medical swab manufacturer in Guilford, during his first visit to Maine since taking office in 2018.
Kristan Porter, a Cutler lobsterman who heads up the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, said the Seamounts proclamation won’t have much direct impact on the Maine fishing industry, but called it a symbolic victory. The creation of the monument, with its accompanying fishing prohibitions, was done outside of the traditional regulatory process.
The regulations are being written at the same time a federal court is considering a lawsuit brought by environmental groups that claim the federal government has failed to protect the endangered whale from the lobster industry. In April, a federal judge found regulators violated the Endangered Species Act by downplaying the lobster industry’s impact on the whales.
Environmental groups like the Conservation Law Foundation contend that Trump’s Seamounts proclamation is illegal. CLF Maine President Sean Mahoney asserts the Antiquities Act allows a president to create a national monument, but not to change it once it has been created. He said CLF is one of many groups that plans to challenge the legality of the proclamation in court.
Press Herald