Near the end of April, a bill in the Maine legislature threatened to undo nearly 20 years of struggle toward agreement on limited entry into the lobster industry by amending license eligibility requirements to allow a small number of state residents to bypass a mandated two-year apprenticeship program.
The bill, “An Act to Amend the Eligibility Requirements for a Lobster and Crab Fishing License,” was reported out of the Marine Resources Committee with an 8-5 “ought not to pass” recommendation. Three of the eight votes against the bill were cast by the three senators on the committee.
The House of Representatives debated the bill for more than two hours before finally voting it down by a narrow margin, 78-61, despite the fact that testimony by lobstermen before the Marine Resources Committee ran overwhelmingly against the bill.
Senators killed the bill handily, but lobstermen are still angry that the bill came so close to passage. “We fought extremely hard to turn that back,” said David Cousens, a lobsterman from South Thomaston who is president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.
Members of the lobster industry blame term limits for the bill, saying none of the legislators who proposed or considered the bill had been in the legislature when the hard-fought limited entry plan was passed.
Industry members believe the defeated bill is a warning.
“It’s dead for now, but I’m sure we haven’t heard the end of it,” said Patrice Farrey, executive director of the 1,200-member MLA. Following the vote, the Marine Resources Committee asked the Department of Marine Resource’s Lobster Advisory Committee to consider establishing an appeals board to investigate alleged abuses to the apprentice program.