EXTRA...

New report supports lobstermen's line on fishing rules; Insurance chief backs Fair Plan rate hike; British PM won't visit; Rep. Turner to honor injured Trooper

Tony Blair's replacement stays home this year

For the first summer in year's Gordon Brown won't be spending his holiday here. He  normally goes off to Cape Cod - a stolid and sensible choice of vacation mirroring his personality - and rubs hide with the local Democrats who also vacation here each summer. This year, as the new Prime Minister of Great Britain, he has vowed to stay in England, leaving 1,000 bed and breakfasts from The Lizard up to Cape Wrath living in terror lest he and his family crash squawking, suitcases and all, into their
vestibule.  Read the Yorkshire Post column here for more on our English cousins.
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 Trooper injured by drunk driver may receive a highway honor here
Rep. Turner proposes named Mid-Cape interchange for Ellen Englehardt

Brian Gilmore, owner of Cape & Islands Shredding Service, never met Trooper Ellen E. Engelhardt, at least not formally. But he saw her smiling face every day, as did thousands of other motorists on Route 6 near Exit 7 on Cape Cod, where Engelhardt was a regular detail officer during highway reconstruction work...

Hit 4 years ago today
Doctors said Engelhardt, 54, is in a permanent vegetative state; she can no longer walk, talk, eat, or communicate

It was exactly four years ago today that Engelhardt of Marion was seriously injured on Route 25. Her parked cruiser was rear-ended by a vehicle operated by a drunk driver at nearly 100 miles per hour. She is now a resident of the Middleboro Skilled Nursing and Specialized Care Center, said her daughter, Lora Tedeman of Plymouth...

(When asked for permission to set-up a roadside memorial) State Representative Cleon Turner went one better: He suggested naming the interchange off Exit 7 on the westbound side of Route 6 the "State Trooper Ellen Engelhardt Interchange."  "From all I'm told, she did a great job there, and this seems a fitting tribute," Turner said. "There aren't a lot of interchanges named after people. Bridges, yes, but naming an interchange is more unusual."   Read the rest of this Globe story here.   See previous BU report here.
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Insurance chief backs Fair Plan rate hike
Cape Cod group objects

Insurance Commissioner Nonnie S. Burnes yesterday filed a legal brief supporting her predecessor's decision to increase the rates of the state's insurer of last resort by an average of 12.4 percent statewide and 25 percent on Cape Cod. Attorney General Martha Coakley is suing the Division of Insurance and the Massachusetts Fair Plan, alleging the state's former insurance commissioner, Julianne M. Bowler, made several procedural errors in approving the hefty rate increases last year. A Cape Cod citizens group last week urged Burnes to side with the attorney general and show her opposition to what the group's spokeswoman called illegal rate increases. See Globe story.
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New report supports lobstermen's line on fishing rules
Maine lobsterman's group says rules OK here but not there

“The federal government is trying to find a one-size-fits-all approach. The regulations just don’t work for us, and they don’t make sense. In Cape Cod Bay they make sense. In the Bay of Fundy they make sense. But in Maine there’s a huge economic burden for what?” -Patrice McCarronA report from the federal Government Accountability Office supports claims by Maine lobstermen that proposed new fishing gear rules that would require changes in the rope that connects lobster pots could be prohibitively expensive and put some fishermen out of business.

The report was released on Friday. The Maine Lobstermen’s Association is heading to Washington, D.C., this week to lobby Maine’s congressional delegation using its results.

“The timing of their ruling is beneficial to the fishing industry,” said Patrice McCarron, director of the MLA. “The final rules have not been released, and this report can actually be included in the final record.”

Those rules are the latest iteration of regulations from the National Marine Fisheries Service designed to protect the North Atlantic right, humpback and fin whales, whose numbers are declining. Data show that three-quarters of the right whale population and half of the humpbacks have scars caused by entanglement with fishing gear.

Some whales can free themselves from gear entanglements, but others die. The situation is particularly critical for the right whale, because scientists estimate there are only about 300 of them in existence....  Read the rest of this VillageSoup story here.