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EXCLUSIVE: Democratic Maine Rep. Jared Golden blasted the Biden administration for targeting his state’s lobster industry with eco regulations while ignoring the environmental impacts of offshore wind projects.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Golden said the federal government has held Maine lobstermen to an unfair standard over their impacts on the endangered North Atlantic right whale species compared to how it has treated offshore wind developers and other ocean-based industries. He added the administration’s actions were aimed at appeasing environmental groups that have similarly targeted lobstermen.
“The hypocrisy part is what pisses me off because we know that right whales, other whales, get struck by freight vessels all the time. Cruise ships that are out there carting people around hit them,” he told Fox News Digital. “You see very little effort by the federal government to do anything.”
“And yet they see a small business lobster fishery up in Maine that’s not politically important to them and they try to crush it just to try to prove to the environmental groups that they’re actively trying to protect the right whales,” he continued.
DOZENS OF NJ MAYORS CALL FOR IMMEDIATE OFFSHORE WIND MORATORIUM AFTER LATEST WHALE DEATHS
Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, is pictured during a congressional hearing on March 6, 2019. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
In recent years, federal agencies have attempted to crack down on Maine’s lobster fishery despite scant evidence of whale impacts. Lobster industry groups, though, have pointed to federal data which shows that there has never been a recorded right whale death caused by lobster fishing equipment in Maine and the last recorded whale entanglement in fishing gear came more than two decades ago.
Industry groups and lawmakers including Golden have also said the rules, which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) first rolled out in May 2022 with more set for 2024 and 2030, would threaten thousands of…
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