Time to throw Maine’s lobstermen a lifeline

The economic downturn has permeated virtually every realm of our society. For sale signs blotch front lawns in our hometowns, prices at the corner gas station rise and drop with guaranteed unpredictability, and daily announcements of job losses have become as ordinary as morning weather forecasts. Yet one symbol of the depressing economy that has Mainers worried is the falling price of one of our state’s greatest sources of pride and identity: the lobster.     As one of the major stimulants to the state economy, the Maine lobster industry landed more than 63 million pounds of lobster in 2007, amounting to over $280 million. Lobsters also serve as a historic and symbolic Maine attraction, filling restaurants and attracting tourists for over one hundred years.
But as fuel costs and bait prices rose to astonishing heights over the summer months and continue to fluctuate, this once flourishing industry now faces the lowest prices since the early 1980s. The global scope of the economic crisis has drastically cut demand for lobster across the world, slashing the price paid to lobstermen from about $6 per pound in the spring, to less than $3 now. These dedicated members of Maine’s coastal workforce also face a looming Federal mandate to replace much of their rope to protect endangered whales. These factors have a created a perfect storm of hardship for our state’s lobster industry.
One contributing factor to the recent collapse of lobster prices has been the lack of processing infrastructure here in Maine. Currently, 70 percent of Maine’s lobster catch is sent to processing facilities in Canada, leaving our domestic lobster industry reliant on slumping global demand and unstable foreign credit markets. To counteract this damaging trend, I joined State Sen. Kevin Raye (R-Perry) to organize a meeting among leaders of the lobster industry and representatives from the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Department of Commerce to develop creative methods to encourage lobster processing facilities to return to the state. As one means of assistance for the struggling industry for the long-term, an increase in domestic value-added processing of Maine’s signature seafood will reduce the fishery’s reliance on volatile foreign financing and bring new jobs to the state.
Within the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act (MSRA) that passed in January 2007, I included language requiring that the Secretary of Commerce, the SBA, and other Federal agencies to establish methods to promote investment in domestic seafood processing facilities for fisheries that currently send large percentages of their catch overseas for processing. I called on these agencies to comply with the MSRA mandate and encourage investment in domestic fisheries, bringing lobster processing, and the jobs that come with it, back to our shores.
I am encouraged by the determination and strength of all those associated with the lobster industry. Dane Somers of the Maine Lobster Promotion Council has taken notable steps by launching a new advertising campaign. Patrice McCarron and the Maine Lobstermen’s Association are working with local financial institutions to help alleviate the burden that the economic decline is having on local businesses throughout the state. I vow to help industry members protect their livelihoods.