First, the council is preparing to drastically reduce the amount of protected habitat in New England waters, including by nearly 80 percent around the Georges Bank. The plan would allow for expansion of bottom trawling and dredging, two of the most destructive fishing methods, into protected habitats.

In addition to gutting habitat protections, the council wants to suspend a program that places observers on fishing vessels to monitor compliance. But without monitoring the numbers of fish being taken out of the ocean, there is no way to accurately determine the health of their populations or ensure that quotas are respected.

The fishing industry had agreed to eventually pay for the monitoring. But as federal funds near expiration, later this year, the industry is trying to renege on its responsibilities by pressuring the council to eliminate the program. When the bank balance is low, it isn’t time to fire the accountant.

Pressure for even more change looms. Atlantic scallops are one of the most lucrative parts of the American fishing industry, responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars worth of shellfish every year. Scallop companies have a well-funded industry group, paradoxically named the Fisheries Survival Fund, which spends more than a quarter of a million dollars a year advocating for their interests, often at the expense of other fisheries. Dissatisfied with its current profits, the scallop industry is pushing the council to reopen portions of the most important New England cod habitat on Georges Bank, where the bottom-scraping scallop dredges would destroy any hope of rebuilding cod populations.

Similar pressure is coming from the cod, haddock and flounder industries, which are in a perpetual state of crisis as fishermen work with small catch limits that were set by managers trying to rebuild the populations. In the last two years, the New England fishery was declared a disaster and received more than $30 million in relief funding from the federal government to help with the losses. To stay viable for another year, the industries claim that they need additional access to closed areas.