BANGOR DAILY NEWS • July 9, 2020
Maine’s lobster industry, despite coming off a six-year period of historic demand, is beset by traps on all sides: the uncertainty of a global pandemic, the ongoing fight over right whale conservation and regulation, impacts of climate change, a trade war with China. A recent memo from President Donald Trump, which directs the U.S. Department of Agriculture to “consider” allowing the lobster industry to access assistance like what has already been available to farmers who have been impacted by China’s retaliatory tariffs, represents a potentially encouraging, if long overdue, step in helping this critical part of Maine’s economy. But encouragement cannot be a substitute for concrete action, clarity and actual funding.