The Times prints an op-ed complaining about New England fishermen spending money to protect their economic interests:
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.
"More than a quarter of a million dollars a year"? That's not a lot of money as advocacy spending goes. The author of the op-ed is doubtless well aware of that. The Times identifies him as Gib Brogan, "the fisheries campaign manager at Oceana, an environmental advocacy group." Oceana spent $22.5 million in 2014, according to its financial statement, or nearly 100 times of the scallop companies' expenditure that the Times is so worked up about. Oceana "was established in 2001 by a group of leading foundations — The Pew Charitable Trusts, Oak Foundation, Marisla Foundation (formerly Homeland Foundation), and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund," its website says. Pew has more than $6 billion in assets and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund has about $860 million, so the idea that the "well-funded" group in this fight is the commercial fishermen rather than their nonprofit environmentalist enemies is laughable.