MAINE PUBLIC • March 1, 2023
Legislation introduced earlier this week by Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Arizona would eliminate a provision that pauses the development of new federal right whale regulations on the lobster and Jonah crab fisheries for the next six years, a measure that Maine's congressional delegation slipped into the latest federal spending bill during the final days of 2022. In joint statement, all four members of the Maine delegation defended the provision, which they described as a "lifeline" to the state's lobster industry that provides "time to pinpoint the true cause of the decline in the right whale population." The Rescue Whales Act, they said, would "unfairly target Maine’s lobster industry without any data or taking into account the reality in the Gulf of Maine."