A group of commercial fishermen and industry advocates from across the country sat down at a table in NOAA’s Silver Spring, Maryland headquarters with Assistant Administrator Eugenio Piñeiro Soler, who runs the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). Like many meetings they have had with policymakers, the fishermen talked about unnecessary regulatory burdens, needless closures, an unequal playing field, under-investment, instability, inadequate science, lack of training and other barriers to their success. It was clear that the leader of NMFS, on the job for a little less than a year, had been having many similar conversations around the country.
Piñeiro Soler nodded and said those hurdles “distract you from what you do well, which is fishing.”
