Recently, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker called the requirement for fishermen to pay $710 per day for catch monitoring “the most perfect example of an unfunded mandate” and continued on to call the policy “ridiculous” and “outrageous.” As a fisherman with close to 50 years experience in the fishery, I could not agree more but think your readers and editors need more context to understand the fishermen’s anger.

Philosophically, we are opposed to this idea because other industries do not pay for their monitoring. The airlines do not pay for the TSA, agribusiness does not pay for meat inspection, and pharmaceutical companies do not pay for the FDA, to name a few. These are considered functions of government and so is catch monitoring.

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