Trump to Rescue Maine’s Lobstermen

The end is coming for overregulation – including fisheries. Good ideas can become excessive, necessitating curtailment, and a restoration of balance. Maine’s lobstermen – pounded by regulations – represent a shocking example of industry overregulation. Trump is about to save them.

Even before last week, Maine’s lobstermen were suffering. In my youth, growing up in Maine limits on who, how, and where one lobstered were largely self-set, lobstermen knowing well where they put their traps, respecting others, one trap per line, and no overfishing.

The reason for respect among lobstermen, no overfishing, limits what was kept (no breeders, no shorts), how many traps, when seasons started and finished, was self-preservation. Boats were handed from fathers to sons, sometimes daughters, with respect for the sea.

No lobsterman needed the federal government to tell him how to fish, track where they fished, demand reports, question what he caught, when he caught it, whether he was in someone else’s lane, or when he could bring lobsters to market.

Then, things began to change. The federal government got into the act, supported by New England States led by those who wanted to aggressively regulate fisheries.

In fairness, Maine lobstermen – like all fishermen – know their catches, that they rise and fall, some years better, some worse. They know when their harvest is down, being cherrypicked by outsiders, and when Canadians dump their lobsters on the market, forcing prices to plummet.

They also care about their trade. Perhaps surprising – especially to radical environmentalists and disconnected regulators – fishermen care about the sea they farm, no less than inland farmers care about their land, herds, and the intergenerational legacy they will leave.

Those who make their lives on the sea care about the sea. They are just as awed by Right Whales as tourists, know migratory birds better than fair weather ornithologists, and are painfully attentive to changes in weather, catch, when and where lobsters crawl, and overfishing.

To imagine anything other is to imagine a pilot disinterested in his wings’ tensile strength, an engineer indifferent to his building’s integrity, or a farmer blasé about the health of his herds.

Yet here we are, watching Maine’s lobstermen treated like baitfish by bureaucrats, told they are killing whales, must be GPS tracked by the Feds, must file reports, and are not respecting their trade.

Now, the latest outrage: A multistate compact, codified in federal law, called the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), has long told fishermen how to do their business.

In principle, the idea is not all bad, recommendations based on science to help keep sustainable stocks, prevent overfishing, and conserve – in particular – New England fisheries. But good ideas can grow tentacles, pile up with barnacles, and sometimes go rogue and overstep origins.

That just happened. In short, this group – in whose waters Maine catches 90 percent of all lobsters – decided, in their ASMFC wisdom, that Maine lobstermen need more regulation. With lobster catch down – and it oscillates – minimum lobster size for “keepers” would be raised.

Lobstermen already throw back all “breeders” (those with eggs or a notched tail showing they had eggs, and lobsters with shells smaller than 3.25 inches). Having sterned with lobstermen, they measure religiously and have for at least 40 years.

All of a sudden, these regulators – who have the power to crush a non-compliant State’s fishermen by asking the Secretary of Commerce for a moratorium on the State’s fishing –have decided Maine needs to fish only bigger lobsters – or be punished.

The impact, by reasonable estimates, would be to disincentivize lobstering, already down two-thirds from my youth, and to cost lobstermen tens of millions of dollars annually.

The alternative, which Maine’s Democrat leadership just reluctantly agreed to – under intense pressure from Maine’s lobstermen – is to dare the incoming Secretary of Commerce to put a moratorium on Maine lobsters, for non-compliance.

Here is where politics come in. Maine’s pro-regulation Democrats, who always accept ASMFC mandates, know Trump’s new Commerce Secretary, like his last, is pro-fisheries, not extreme.

They know this because Trump’s last Commerce Secretary sided with fishermen against extreme regulations pushed by ASMFC on New Jersey summer flounder. In short, Maine lobstermen will, like New Jersey fishermen in 2017, be saved by Trump’s “rule of reason” Commerce Secretary.

So, what are the lessons?  There are three.

First, extreme regulations by federal regulators – even collaborative state regulators – can nonsensically upend an industry that has every reason to preserve itself and has for centuries.

Second, Democrats content with an anti-business climate, such as in Maine, know when they are beaten. They are here since Trump’s Commerce Secretary will side with Maine’s lobstermen.

Finally, what does this exercise tell us? What does the push to override Maine lobstermen, coyly withdrawn by Maine’s Democrat Governor as Trump arrives, say? Simple: Elections have consequences. And … thank goodness.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC. Robert Charles has also just released an uplifting new book, “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024).