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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: Soul Crusher on July 05, 2011, 08:35:03 AM
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‘Beginning of the end for small fishermen’
Captains issue S.O.S., claiming new rules meant to save the fish are killing their way of life
By Jessica Fargen | Sunday, July 3, 2011 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Coverage
Photo by Patrick Whittemore
With the height of the New England fishing season getting under way this week, small family fishermen say controversial new rules are destroying their livelihood — forcing them to sell their boats and instead search for work as laborers on larger vessels.
“It’s a death knell. It’s the beginning of the end for small fishermen,” said Rhode Island fisherman Joel Hovanesian, 54, who recently sold his boat.
Plymouth fisherman Stephen Welch, 50, a father of two, said: “We’re in a crisis right now.”
The new rules — put into place one year ago — place hard catch limits that restrict how much groundfish, such as cod and haddock, a fisherman can catch. Fishermen are given allotments of fish and can buy and sell those.
Under the old system, fishermen were allowed a certain number of days at sea.
Figures from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show larger operations appear to have benefited. Annual revenue for boats larger than 75 feet increased approximately 33 percent in 2010 — up to $800,000, from $600,000 in 2009.
New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang, who, along with the city of Gloucester, sued NOAA over the new rules and recently lost, said he plans to ask the Commerce Department’s Inspector General to investigate.
“New Bedford and Gloucester are letting everyone know we will challenge anything that threatens the culture, history and traditions of our seacoast communities,” he said. “The average fisherman, the family fishermen, are being driven out.”
The fight over fishing rules has stretched all the way to the White House and crossed party lines.
Congressional members of both parties, including Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown and Democrat U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, are skeptical about the environmental ties of President Obama’s pick for Department of Commerce secretary, who oversees the nation’s fisheries. Environmental groups have backed the new rules.
“The industry is hurting deeply,” Brown told the Herald this week. “It’s putting people out of business,” he said of the new rules.
NOAA, which regulates fishermen, says the changes are necessary to protect the region’s fish stock. They say it’s too early to tell the impact of the new rules on small-boat fishermen and seacoast communities, but they are studying the issue.
NOAA spokeswoman. Maggie Mooney-Seus said overfishing would have killed the industry had the new rules not been in place.
“We are going to prevent the stocks from deteriorating,” Mooney-Seus said. “Every measure put in place over the last several years is helping to rebuild the stock. If you talk to fishermen they are saying, ‘I’m seeing more fish out there than I’ve ever seen before.’ ”
But locals say they’re struggling to survive.
“It’s very hard,” said Jim Keding, 42, as he stood on a dock in Plymouth Harbor on Friday.
Keding, a dad of two, recently sold his boat, the Zachary Nicholas, because his allotment of 15,000 pounds of groundfish wasn’t enough. In 2009, he brought in 73,000 pounds. “It’s putting us out of business,” said Keding.
Lifelong fisherman Rich Burgess, 57, is selling two of his four boats.
“They just can’t afford to go fishing,” said Burgess, as he cleaned up his boat, the Heidi & Heather, docked in Gloucester Harbor last week. Under the new rules last year, he caught 50 percent less groundfish — cutting his income in half.
Larry Ciulla, owner of the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction, where crews unload the day’s catch, has seen a downturn in the last year.
“There are a lot of boats that just don’t go fishing and that’s sad,” he said. “Each small boat is a business.”
Supporters of the new rules say they have brought stability and reduced wasteful discards of fish.
“What this all amounts to is more flexibility and predictability for fishermen, and the necessary ingredients for recovering groundfish stocks,” Johanna Thomas, director of Pacific and New England regions at the Environmental Defense Fund oceans program, said in an e-mail.
However, according to Tina Jackson, president of the American Alliance for Fishermen and their Communities: “This has been so devastating to communities up and down the East Coast. . . . It’s a bad program. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t save fish stock.”
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1349376
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http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1349376&format=comments&cnum=2
HOPE & CHANGE BITCHES!
OBAMA KILLING OFF ONE INDUSTRY AT A TIME.
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Sorry buddy fishing numbers world wide are in decline. If you don't cap it soon we'll have no fish to enjoy at all, or it'll be so costly and unaffordable like lobster.
I feel no sympathy for these people and i applaud this 100%.
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Good than stfu about obama causing job losses.
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Sorry buddy fishing numbers world wide are in decline. If you don't cap it soon we'll have no fish to enjoy at all, or it'll be so costly and unaffordable like lobster.
I feel no sympathy for these people and i applaud this 100%.
So, just admit that you are perfectly fine with people being tossed from employment and into povety in pursuit of your eco-marxist agenda.
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So, just admit that you are perfectly fine with people being tossed from employment and into povety in pursuit of your eco-marxist agenda.
I'm more than fine with the loss of fishing jobs if it means that fish stocks are not raped and pillaged. I can't express how happy i am there is now a fishing quota. That news is good to me brother!
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I'm more than fine with the loss of fishing jobs if it means that fish stocks are not raped and pillaged. I can't express how happy i am there is now a fishing quota. That news is good to me brother!
Good - so you admit you want people out of work and on welfare, just like I have said from Day 1 the goal of the eco-communists favor.
At least you are honest about it, my only wish was that it was every member of your family losing thei jobs as opposed to these hard working people.
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Good - so you admit you want people out of work and on welfare, just like I have said from Day 1 the goal of the eco-communists favor.
At least you are honest about it, my only wish was that it was every member of your family losing thei jobs as opposed to these hard working people.
Uh no. I want people to find work in jobs that don't destroy the environment and/or don't reduce the already depleted fish stocks.
So happy about this right now. Great news is here! Now they need to reign in the drag netters, polluters and huge corporate run fishing boats.
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Uh no. I want people to find work in jobs that don't destroy the environment and/or don't reduce the already depleted fish stocks.
So happy about this right now. Great news is here! Now they need to reign in the drag netters, polluters and huge corporate run fishing boats.
Yeah, funny how almost every industry the eco-marxists like yourself try to shut down.
You freaks want everyone in tents and under candle light.
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Yeah, funny how almost every industry the eco-marxists like yourself try to shut down.
You freaks want everyone in tents and under candle light.
Oh the hyperbole!
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Oh the hyperbole!
No, the natural and logical result of the policies you enviro freaks advocate.
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No, the natural and logical result of the policies you enviro freaks advocate.
No, the over the top statement which is grounded not in reality, but in stupidity.
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Agencies prepare to carve up coastal waters
SIGNONSANDIEGO ^ | noon, Sept. 17, 2011 | Mike Lee
Posted on September 20, 2011 4:05:36 PM EDT by Vob
"That planning process split the region into pro-fishing and no-fishing camps since it started in 2008, but it pales in comparison to the scope of a federal initiative that’s starting to take shape as a priority of the Obama administration.
The coastal and marine spatial planning process, launched by executive order in 2010, seeks to account for the full range of ocean uses, from wave energy and oil extraction to shipping and recreation. It’s supposed to span broad ecosystems instead of relying on the traditional sector-by-sector approach to regulating ocean activities."
(Excerpt) Read more at signonsandiego.com ...
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VIDEO: Dem Mayor Pleads for Obama to Stop New Regulations
Town Hall ^ | 10-18-11 | Town Hall
Posted on Tuesday, October 18, 2011 10:36:57 AM by joinedafterattack
Mayor Carolyn A. Kirk, Democrat Gloucester Massachusetts, pleads for President Obama to stop new regulations driving small businesses out of business. This Mayor "of the oldest fishing port in America" voted for Obama, went to his inauguration, and says she is now, "Losing Faith in Our Government." Kirk pleads for the President to get personally involved and stop the Commerce Department's overzealous enforcement of fishing regulations (something the Commerce Department Inspector General just slammed NOAA for) and the costly and burdensome regulations brought on by The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) new "Catch Shares" commercial fishing scheme. Kirk reiterates her invitation for President Obama to come to her city to see firsthand the problems NOAA has wrought on her city.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
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I grew up near Gloucester. Obama wants to turn every town into a 3rd world shithole so he can further destroy the country. U fucking libs need to lit on fire. All he's done is make it easier for the massive ships to operate. Fuck him and the EPA.
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New Bedford fisherman forced to give up 800-pound tunaText Size: A | A | A
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Carlos Rafael conducts business on the bridge of the F/V Athena. New Bedford fishing boat owner Carlos Rafael is on of the most influential person on the waterfront. Mr. Rafael who owns over 40 fishing boats is an icon on the waterfront.
PETER PEREIRA/The Standard-TimesBy DON CUDDY
doncuddy@s-t.com
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111121/NEWS/111129971/-1/NEWS01
November 21, 2011
This fish story may lack the epic qualities of Ernest Hemingway's 1952 classic“The Old Man and the Sea,” but for New Bedford's Carlos Rafael, the outcome was about the same. In both cases, despite capturing and bringing home a huge fish, powerful circumstances conspired to deprive the luckless fishermen of a potentially huge reward.
Boat owner Rafael, a big player in the local fishing industry, was elated when the crew of his 76-foot steel dragger Apollo told him they had unwittingly captured a giant bluefin tuna in their trawl gear while fishing offshore.
“They didn't catch that fish on the bottom,” he said. “They probably got it in the midwater when they were setting out and it just got corralled in the net. That only happens once in a blue moon.”
Rafael, who in the last four years purchased 15 tuna permits for his groundfish boats to cover just such an eventuality, immediately called a bluefin tuna hot line maintained by fishery regulators to report the catch.
When the weather offshore deteriorated, the Apollo decided to seek shelter in Provincetown Harbor on Nov. 12. Rafael immediately set off in a truck to meet the boat.
“I wanted to sell the fish while it was fresh instead of letting it age on the boat,”he said.“It was a beautiful fish.”
It was also a lucrative one. Highly prized in Japan, a 754pound specimen fetched a record price at a Tokyo auction in January this year, selling for nearly $396,000. These fish can grow to enormous size. The world record for a bluefin, which has stood since 1979, was set when a 1,496-pound specimen was caught off Nova Scotia.
However, when Rafael rolled down the dock in Provincetown there was an unexpected and unwelcome development. The authorities were waiting. Agents from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of Law Enforcement informed him they were confiscating his fish — all 881 pounds of it.
Even though the catch had been declared and the boat had a tuna permit, the rules do not allow fishermen to catch bluefin tuna in a net.
“They said it had to be caught with rod and reel,” a frustrated Rafael said.“We didn't try to hide anything. We did everything by the book. Nobody ever told me we couldn't catch it with a net.”
In any case, after being towed for more than two hours in the net, the fish was already dead when the Apollo hauled back its gear, he said.
“What are we supposed to do?” he asked. “They said they were going to give me a warning,” Rafael said. “I think I'm going to surrender all my tuna permits now. What good are they if I can't catch them?”
No charges have yet been filed in connection with the catch, but a written warning is anticipated, according to Christine Patrick, a public affairs specialist with NOAA who said the fish has been forfeited and will be sold on consignment overseas. Proceeds from the sale of the fish will be held in an account pending final resolution of the case, NOAA said. No information on the value of the fish was available Friday.
“The matter is still under investigation,”said Monica Allen, deputy director with NOAA Fisheries public affairs. “If it's determined that there has been a violation, the money will go into the asset forfeiture fund.”
“I think I'm going to surrender all my tuna permits now. What good are they if I can't catch them?”
Every obamabot deserves to run over by a steamroller for what these thugs are doing to this nation.
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‘Beginning of the end for small fishermen’
Captains issue S.O.S., claiming new rules meant to save the fish are killing their way of life
By Jessica Fargen | Sunday, July 3, 2011 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Coverage
Photo by Patrick Whittemore
With the height of the New England fishing season getting under way this week, small family fishermen say controversial new rules are destroying their livelihood — forcing them to sell their boats and instead search for work as laborers on larger vessels.
“It’s a death knell. It’s the beginning of the end for small fishermen,” said Rhode Island fisherman Joel Hovanesian, 54, who recently sold his boat.
Plymouth fisherman Stephen Welch, 50, a father of two, said: “We’re in a crisis right now.”
The new rules — put into place one year ago — place hard catch limits that restrict how much groundfish, such as cod and haddock, a fisherman can catch. Fishermen are given allotments of fish and can buy and sell those.
Under the old system, fishermen were allowed a certain number of days at sea.
Figures from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show larger operations appear to have benefited. Annual revenue for boats larger than 75 feet increased approximately 33 percent in 2010 — up to $800,000, from $600,000 in 2009.
New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang, who, along with the city of Gloucester, sued NOAA over the new rules and recently lost, said he plans to ask the Commerce Department’s Inspector General to investigate.
“New Bedford and Gloucester are letting everyone know we will challenge anything that threatens the culture, history and traditions of our seacoast communities,” he said. “The average fisherman, the family fishermen, are being driven out.”
The fight over fishing rules has stretched all the way to the White House and crossed party lines.
Congressional members of both parties, including Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown and Democrat U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, are skeptical about the environmental ties of President Obama’s pick for Department of Commerce secretary, who oversees the nation’s fisheries. Environmental groups have backed the new rules.
“The industry is hurting deeply,” Brown told the Herald this week. “It’s putting people out of business,” he said of the new rules.
NOAA, which regulates fishermen, says the changes are necessary to protect the region’s fish stock. They say it’s too early to tell the impact of the new rules on small-boat fishermen and seacoast communities, but they are studying the issue.
NOAA spokeswoman. Maggie Mooney-Seus said overfishing would have killed the industry had the new rules not been in place.
“We are going to prevent the stocks from deteriorating,” Mooney-Seus said. “Every measure put in place over the last several years is helping to rebuild the stock. If you talk to fishermen they are saying, ‘I’m seeing more fish out there than I’ve ever seen before.’ ”
But locals say they’re struggling to survive.
“It’s very hard,” said Jim Keding, 42, as he stood on a dock in Plymouth Harbor on Friday.
Keding, a dad of two, recently sold his boat, the Zachary Nicholas, because his allotment of 15,000 pounds of groundfish wasn’t enough. In 2009, he brought in 73,000 pounds. “It’s putting us out of business,” said Keding.
Lifelong fisherman Rich Burgess, 57, is selling two of his four boats.
“They just can’t afford to go fishing,” said Burgess, as he cleaned up his boat, the Heidi & Heather, docked in Gloucester Harbor last week. Under the new rules last year, he caught 50 percent less groundfish — cutting his income in half.
Larry Ciulla, owner of the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction, where crews unload the day’s catch, has seen a downturn in the last year.
“There are a lot of boats that just don’t go fishing and that’s sad,” he said. “Each small boat is a business.”
Supporters of the new rules say they have brought stability and reduced wasteful discards of fish.
“What this all amounts to is more flexibility and predictability for fishermen, and the necessary ingredients for recovering groundfish stocks,” Johanna Thomas, director of Pacific and New England regions at the Environmental Defense Fund oceans program, said in an e-mail.
However, according to Tina Jackson, president of the American Alliance for Fishermen and their Communities: “This has been so devastating to communities up and down the East Coast. . . . It’s a bad program. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t save fish stock.”
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1349376
Well, maybe they can get a job at Long John Silvers ;D
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so obama said take it away ::)
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so obama said take it away ::)
Have you not been following this issue Mr. "I am informed cuz I watch MSNBC" ? ? ?
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i read what you posted tell me more
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VIDEO: Dem Mayor Pleads for Obama to Stop New Regulations
Town Hall ^ | 10-18-11 | Town Hall
Posted on Tuesday, October 18, 2011 10:36:57 AM by joinedafterattack
Mayor Carolyn A. Kirk, Democrat Gloucester Massachusetts, pleads for President Obama to stop new regulations driving small businesses out of business. This Mayor "of the oldest fishing port in America" voted for Obama, went to his inauguration, and says she is now, "Losing Faith in Our Government." Kirk pleads for the President to get personally involved and stop the Commerce Department's overzealous enforcement of fishing regulations (something the Commerce Department Inspector General just slammed NOAA for) and the costly and burdensome regulations brought on by The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) new "Catch Shares" commercial fishing scheme. Kirk reiterates her invitation for President Obama to come to her city to see firsthand the problems NOAA has wrought on her city.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
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whats that have to do with him catching the tuna
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whats that have to do with him catching the tuna
Again fool - its about eh NOAA officials and regulations obama put in to place. They had to call it in and the obama admn goons swooped in and took his catch.
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you have to catch it with a reel that's the law is it not
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lol.. 3333 is one dumb shit
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you have to catch it with a reel that's the law is it not
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Please. Did you read the story? This s more nanny state police state big brother crap.
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call it what you want the law is the law,
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call it what you want the law is the law,
Right, like it being illegal to cross the border, but the govt bending over backwards to accommodate the wetbacks?
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their the ones that get our crops out of the fields, i don't think you be happy buying a 5 dollar tomatoe ;D
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their the ones that get our crops out of the fields, i don't think you be happy buying a 5 dollar tomatoe ;D
If I knew an American was getting a decent wage to do it, damn right I would pay it. I try to buy American whenever I can.
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yeah ok have fun going to your restaurant and eating your 40 dollar salad
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yeah ok have fun going to your restaurant and eating your 40 dollar salad
False. That is a lie. I try to do my part. For example - I used to drink a lot of corona. Now? No way - I buy only Brooklyn Brewery , Saranac Lake, and other brew from NY.
I know it costs more than other stuff, but I don't mind paying a little more knowing the beer is made in NYS.
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corona in the summer,can't beat it ;D
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corona in the summer,can't beat it ;D
I know it tastes good, but I rather give my alcohol money to local business.
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lol.. 3333 is one dumb shit
No shit. Mother Nature obviously had a sense of humor when she created him minus a frontal lobe.
Now let's sit back and watch the gay talk and picture posting commence.
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No shit. Mother Nature obviously had a sense of humor when she created him minus a frontal lobe.
Now let's sit back and watch the gay talk and picture posting commence.
Read it and weep you disgusting gay stalking leech
________________________ ________________________ ___
Mayor of America's top-producing fishing seaport calls on Obama to replace NOAA chief
The following statement was released this evening by Mayor Scott Lang of New Bedford, Massachusetts, America's financially top-producing seaport:
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. - Oct. 5, 2011 -- "Like many others in attendance at Mondays Boston field hearing of the Senate Oceans Subcommittee, I'd hoped that in her testimony, NOAA administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco would provide solid solutions, and a clear vision for a better future for our fishing families. Instead, question after question from Senators Begich, Kerry, and Brown, and Congressmen Frank, Tierney, and Keating were answered evasively and with equivocation. New Bedford has tried, since her appointment, to work with Dr. Lubchenco and her appointees at NOAA Fisheries. After witnessing her performance on Monday, I have decided to add my voice to the chorus of elected officials who disapprove of her performance and call on President Obama to replace Administrator Lubchenco with an individual who will work with fishing communities around the country. We need a leader in NOAA who understands that the welfare of communities is a priority and that there can be a balance between economic sustainability and conservation."
http://www.savingseafood.org/fishing-industry-alerts/mayor-of-americas-top-producing-fishing-seaport-calls-on-obama-to-replace-noaa-2.html
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September 22, 2011
Death of an Industry: The President's Impoverishment of America's Fishermen
By Mike Johnson
Déjà vu: President Obama vacationed again on Martha's Vineyard. While Barry lazed here last year, the fishermen of New England ran a full-page ad in the Vineyard Gazette titled "Mr. President, We Need Your Help." The fishermen came to the Vineyard in their boats and paraded in the harbor to emphasize their plight. The American Thinker ran a piece on the events.
The ad was in the form of a letter from Russell Sherman, the captain of the fishing vessel Lady Jane out of Gloucester, MA. The letter was well-written, elegant in its simplicity and comprehensive in its content, befitting Captain Sherman's Harvard education. It read in part:
My business is only one of hundreds facing extinction. While there will be a small handful of "winners" under these new rules [Catch Shares], the vast majority of us will be losers. And when we "losers" are forced out, jobs will be lost, coastal communities gutted, and crucial commercial fishing infrastructure gone forever. ...
Mr. President, we desperately need your leadership.
How much help did the fishermen get from the president? None! Nada! Not even an acknowledgement of their efforts. Not even a receipt from the White House for the copy of the letter they sent directly to the president by "Certified Mail, Return Receipt Requested."
And what has happened to the fishermen since? How has the past year gone for them? Badly!
Catch shares (see Nils Stolpe's "Is this the future of fishing?") has worked to perfection...if you are a malevolent, vindictive, bureaucratic eco-zealot. As Dr. Jane Lubchenco predicted, the fishing fleet has consolidated -- a euphemism for "most of the fleet has been driven out of business."
The heavy-handed regulatory management continues, as shown by a recent independent review by Preston Pate. Fishing jobs are gone; NOAA jobs are not. The number of regulators and observers assigned to each fisherman has increased dramatically. Needless to say, this is not the help the fishermen were seeking.
The lawsuit brought by the fishermen based on NOAA exceeding their mandate in imposing catch shares has been rejected based on NOAA having the authority to do just about whatever they please. See Dr. Briand Rothschild's "Fish, the Intent of Congress, and Jobs" and the related American Thinker piece.
Catch allocations, the key to successful fishing under catch shares, remain extremely low because of the government's uncertainty in its science. See the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Institute (MFI) study report.
The Secretary of Commerce rather rudely rejected a request from the fishermen for emergency relief of the restrictive catch allocations based on the MFI document previously linked.
The fishermen weren't alone in having a bad year. President Obama spent his 2010 Vineyard vacation under a Joe Btfsplk perpetual rain cloud, spent most of the intervening year under one form or other of Joe Btfsplk political clouds, and was driven from the Vineyard this year by a Joe Btfsplk hurricane, courtesy of Dr. Lubchenco and NOAA. The country has had a tough year as well. The reader can ponder the synergy at his leisure.
How did Captain Sherman fare in 2010? Pretty much the same as the overall industry. First, the good news, or the illusion of good news: Russ had the highest gross revenues of his 40-year career in 2010. The offsetting bad news: his net was an appreciable loss.
NOAA did their normal disingenuous PR release trumpeting the high revenues as proof of the effectiveness of catch shares while completely ignoring the increased costs. See the Gloucester Times article by Richard Gaines.
Captain Sherman recently invited me to his home in Gloucester. The first words out of his mouth: "We needed regulation in the worst way." He emphasized that point. But -- and it is a big but -- the government has gone too far and become too rigid.
Overfishing, the condition that led to the need for regulations, has ended. No less an expert than Dr. Steve Murawski, recently the NOAA Fisheries chief scientist, has so stated in an interview given in January 2011.
The commercial fishing industry of New England could be made to work under the catch shares system if the government wanted it to work. They could simply expand allocations within the overfishing limits imposed by the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA). See this American Thinker essay.
But Dr. Lubchenco and President Obama do not want the industry to survive; they want it to be transformed into a commodity-based industry where shares are traded like pork-bellies. (See Nils Stolpe's "The Big Green Money Machine" and explore his extensive database on the financial inroads the eco-zealots have made into our government and specifically NOAA.) The present-day fishermen are in the way. The oppressive allocations are a tool for thinning the herd, reducing the fleet.
There are other, dirtier bureaucratic tricks being used.
In 2000, Captain Sherman made a business decision to get a newer and safer vessel. He found a vessel in New Jersey that "needed a little work." It took a year and a slug of cash, but he was back at sea in 2002. The operating paradigm imposed by the government at the time was days at sea and capacity. Not a problem -- Russell followed the rules.
A few years later, the government changed the operating paradigm to catch shares, allocations, and landings. Landings were based on the history from 1996 to 2006. Russell's new boat had no history, and thus no landings from 1996 to 2002, because it wasn't being used in New England. (NOAA would not count his landings in his older vessel.) Russell received about 40% of the allocation of other fishermen. The government changed the rules, and Russell and many others suffered. The heartless and soulless bureaucracy didn't care.
In the 1990s, the government requested that fishermen avoid overfished species such as cod and haddock. Many of the fishermen -- the more responsible ones like Russ -- complied and fished for underutilized species such as whiting, skate, and dogfish. Others said it was not an order and continued to take cod and haddock. These less responsible fishermen were rewarded by higher allocations for cod and haddock based on their landings during the 1996-2006, period while the responsible fishermen were penalized for a lack of landings. No good deed goes unpunished.
The meanest of the NOAA fisheries misdeeds came about by accident or by sloth. The record-keepers of NOAA made several mistakes in the landing records of individual fishermen. As a result, some fishermen received as little as a zero allocation for 2010. Not to worry, said the government; we will fix the errors in next year's allocations. Try running a small business when you're forced to shut down for a year.
Russell gave me insight into his operating expenses. The government's "typical" estimate is a real lowball compared to Russell's actuals. The biggest difference is the cost of leasing allocations -- not considered at all by the government, but equal to the cost of fuel in Russell's case (and his vessel burns almost 20 gallons an hour). As a result, Russell has had to cut his crew from four to three. This of course means more work for each of them, but they are not afraid of working. It also means more risk with one fewer set of eyeballs to watch the others' backs.
Illegitimi non carborundum. Russ is bound and determined not to let the bastards grind him down. But he is at the edge. Next year, FY2013, the government will no longer subsidize the required observers for catch shares. The fishermen have to pick up the cost -- about $700 a day. This goes onto overhead and comes directly out of paychecks. This may push Captain Sherman over the line.
The mistreatment of fishermen has been independent of the party in power, although Obama has exacerbated the problem by ceding NOAA to the environmentalists with the appointment of Dr. Lubchenco. Most fishermen are small businessmen and naturally conservative, though there are exceptions. Captain Sherman voted for Obama in 2008, but Russell says, in no uncertain terms, that he will vote against him in 2012.
Russell Sherman is a Harvard graduate with all the talent and drive that goes with the territory. Why has he spent forty years fishing? I asked him, and he told me that upon graduation, he wanted to be independent, on his own in someplace scenic and fun. He chose Gloucester and ended up going fishing because he needed the money. He has been fishing ever since, and not without tragedy. The vessel he was in sank off the coast of Maine in November 1978. Two crewmates were lost, two others rescued, and then Russell, at death's door, was plucked from the small rowboat he had clung to for 14 hours.
There is something in the psyche of some individuals that makes them fishermen, seemingly through no choice of their own. Russ speaks of the majesty, the grandeur of the sea, and his personality sparkles and his eyes shine. You cannot, in good conscience, ask this hardworking man to give up his life's work so that some bloated bureaucrat can make a fortune selling fishing rights.
Fishing as a way of life has endured for four centuries along the coast of New England. Turning the fisheries into a commodities-based enterprise is tantamount to the destruction of the fishing community and its culture.
Mike Johnson is a concerned citizen, a small government conservative, and a live-free-or-die resident of New Hampshire. E-mail mnosnhoj@comcast.net.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2011/09/death_of_an_industry_the_presidents_impoverishment_of_americas_fishermen.html
at November 22, 2011 - 07:39:01 AM CST
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Good lawdy 333 iz dumb ha ha ha ha
Pass the gravy n buscuits while i dem dare laff at dis dumb azz white boy
You iz so stoopid
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Come on option FAIL and that gay piece of shit stalker Lurker - Defend this.
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Good lawdy 333 iz dumb ha ha ha ha
Pass the gravy n buscuits while i dem dare laff at dis dumb azz white boy
You iz so stoopid
Yet not one of these hacks can dispute anything posted in this thread. These obamabots are a real joke.
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No shit. Mother Nature obviously had a sense of humor when she created him minus a frontal lobe.
Now let's sit back and watch the gay talk and picture posting commence.
Defend this asshole
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http://reason.com/archives/2011/10/24/obama-fishing-czar-divides-dem
Reason Magazine
Obama Fishing Czar Divides Democrats
Why John Kerry and Barney Frank are lining up against the administration's "catch share" policy
Ira Stoll | October 24, 2011
The next battle over President Obama’s job-killing regulations may take place on the Atlantic Coast, where fishermen, and the senators and congressmen who represent them, are voicing mounting frustration at the Obama administration’s “catch-share” rules for the fishing industry.
The Republican senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown, on Saturday stood with fishermen in Gloucester and called on Mr. Obama to fire the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Jane Lubchenco.
But the frustration at Ms. Lubchenco, who also serves as under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere, extends well beyond Republican, Tea Party-backed senators or libertarians for whom the idea of a federally enforced “share” program sounds like some nightmare out of an Ayn Rand novel.
A surprising and growing number of Democratic elected officials are also expressing annoyance and outright opposition. Sen. Kerry, the Democrat of Massachusetts who was his party’s presidential nominee in 2004, said Friday, “Because of federal regulations limiting fishing in our waters, a lot of our fisherman have been put out of business or pushed the brink.” Also last week, he sent a stern letter to Ms. Lubchenco, warning her, “tensions between federal regulators and the fishing community have reached a boiling point beyond anything I’ve ever witnessed in my 26 years in the Senate.”
This 2010 Reason.tv video explores the ways in which "catch shares," if properly structured and enforced, can help save the ocean's fisheries and the industry that depends on them. Watch by clicking on the image.
Earlier this year, the two senators from New York, Charles Schumer and Kristin Gillibrand, both Democrats, joined with Democratic congressmen Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Frank Pallone of New Jersey to write the secretary of commerce a letter “to express our concern that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) catch share policy will further endanger the economic vitality of the already-struggling fishing industry.” A Schumer press release warned that the “flawed catch share policy…. could irreparably damage our fishing industry.”
The Democratic mayor of New Bedford, Mass., Scott Lang, denounced the catch-share policy. “We’ve got the worst economy since the Great Depression, and we’re keeping people from working. … It’s really, I think, done a tremendous amount of damage to the fishing community.”
And earlier this year, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat who socializes with Mr. Obama when Mr. Obama is vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard, filed a brief in support of a lawsuit against the catch-share regulations, calling them “poorly thought through and poorly implemented.”
The story hasn’t yet hit The New York Times, Politico, or the Drudge Report. But when it does, it won’t be pretty. At the center of the storm is Ms. Lubchenco, whose official biography fits what to the Obama administration’s critics will seem like a familiar pattern. Like President Obama himself and like Mr. Obama’s initial economic adviser, Lawrence Summers, Ms. Lubchenco has an advanced degree from Harvard. Like Mr. Obama and Mr. Summers, Ms. Lubchenco has little private sector experience, but spent a lot of time teaching at a university—in her case, more than 20 years at Oregon State University. When President Obama nominated her to the NOAA job, she was vice chairman of the board of the Environmental Defense Fund, an environmental advocacy group that promotes catch shares, which are kind of like a cap-and-trade emissions scheme transferred to fishery management. When her appointment was announced, EDF’s president, Fred Krupp, praised her by saying, “her depth of understanding of climate change is unmatched.”
Her official biography also notes that she is a recipient of 14 honorary doctoral degrees and of one of the MacArthur Foundation’s “genius” awards.
Which raises the question—if Ms. Lubchenco is such a “genius,” how has she managed to so thoroughly frustrate, irritate, and annoy so many small fishermen and the politicians who represent them?
Partly it is by displaying a kind of arrogance towards those not blessed with her genius. She reportedly minimized the job losses under catch-share by describing them as “marginal jobs where people are squeaking by.”
She snubbed Massachusetts elected officials by departing early from a subcommittee hearing to go meet with the Boston Globe editorial board. A representative of the Gloucester Fishermen's Wives Association, in a letter to the Gloucester Times, called Ms. Lubchenco’s testimony about one of their own programs “disingenuous, dishonest and disrespectful to all our community's fishing fleet.”
I tried to get Ms. Lubchenco’s side of it, but her communications and legislative teams didn’t return my phone call.
Memo to President Obama: When Charles Schumer, John Kerry, Barney Frank, Deval Patrick, and the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association are all warning that your regulations are destroying jobs, maybe it’s time to start putting prioritizing people ahead of fish. And, along with that, to start wondering whether your NOAA administrator may not be such a genius, after all.
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Once again proving Option FAIL, Blackass, and Licker have no idea WTF they are talking about.
Go vote for obama again you morons - you guys deserve each other.
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Good lawdy 333 iz dumb ha ha ha ha
Pass the gravy n buscuits while i dem dare laff at dis dumb azz white boy
You iz so stoopid
Why are you typing like that..
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If I knew an American was getting a decent wage to do it, damn right I would pay it. I try to buy American whenever I can.
dont you drive a Rav4.... Thats a Toyota..
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dont you drive a Rav4.... Thats a Toyota..
Ford Explorer. Next car will be most likely a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sahara
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Yet not one of these hacks can dispute anything posted in this thread. These obamabots are a real joke.
dispute what. Tha fuck are you blabbering about. EPA Regulations placed on Fishermen. Um ok.
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No shit. Mother Nature obviously had a sense of humor when she created him minus a frontal lobe.
Now let's sit back and watch the gay talk and picture posting commence.
And my point was proven in the very next post.....
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Defend this asshole
BUMP
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And my point was proven in the very next post.....
BUMP
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BUMP
What that you are a stalker who can't refute anything in this thread? correct - you proved your point that you are a joke and obssessed stalker.
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The point I proved is your little fake ass is so predictable in your little crybaby habits and queer projections that it is no surprise.
Does mommy make you wear a helmet when you are on the internet?
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The point I proved is your little fake ass is so predictable in your little crybaby habits and queer projections that it is no surprise.
Does mommy make you wear a helmet when you are on the internet?
Please refute one article I posted here. Otherwise - STFU and stop sinking lower than you already are.
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My reply wasn't about any article or post. It was about your little gay projections and whining.
Thanks for proving me correct. Not that it is a surprise for anyone here.
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My reply wasn't about any article or post. It was about your little gay projections and whining.
Thanks for proving me correct. Not that it is a surprise for anyone here.
Cheers - still doesnt change the fact that you cant refute one thing I posted. Take responsibility for your mistake in 2008, many others already have.
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Since 99% of what you say is bullshit, it doesn't need refuting. Your reputation for bullshit and lack of credibility refutes anything you post right off the bat.
Now you going to keep crying? Maybe post some pictures for us here? Hmmm?
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Since 99% of what you say is bullshit, it doesn't need refuting. Your reputation for bullshit and lack of credibility refutes anything you post right off the bat.
Now you going to keep crying? Maybe post some pictures for us here? Hmmm?
LMFAO - so again - go refute one thing posted in this thread.
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Why refute when I can predict. Just like I predicted your little gay projections would get the best of you in the very next post you made and you would advertise them here for the whole board to see.
Pathetic little girl. Now are you going to keep crying?
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Why refute when I can predict. Just like I predicted your little gay projections would get the best of you in the very next post you made and you would advertise them here for the whole board to see.
Pathetic little girl. Now are you going to keep crying?
So you accept that Obama is destroying jobs? Yes or no?
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I accept Obama has completely destroyed the little cesspool that passes for your mind. That much is completely evident.
Now we are on day two of this thread and I am sure you will get another 36 hours of crying about it stretched out.
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I accept Obama has completely destroyed the little cesspool that passes for your mind. That much is completely evident.
Now we are on day two of this thread and I am sure you will get another 36 hours of crying about it stretched out.
Nice deflection, so again do you agree that Obama's policies are destroying jobs as even democrats senators, congress people, and mayors are saying?
YES OR NO?
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HAHAHAHA look at this fuckwit trying to ask a yes or no question.
When he spent all of Friday running around the board like a chicken with his head cut off dodging a simple yes or no question about Cain.
Maybe I should bump that thread and you can continue on the rest of the week talking around it?
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HAHAHAHA look at this fuckwit trying to ask a yes or no question.
When he spent all of Friday running around the board like a chicken with his head cut off dodging a simple yes or no question about Cain.
Maybe I should bump that thread and you can continue on the rest of the week talking around it?
Yes or No - do you agree with Kerry or Frank that Obama regs are killing jobs?
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Tell you what... when you can answer the question you have ran away from for the last 4 days, I will answer yours.
Fair enough. Now either answer or continue to whine and cry.
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Yes or No - do you agree with Kerry or Frank that Obama regs are killing jobs?
It is a simple question. Why can't the stupidest Obama nut hugger on the board answer it?
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It is a simple question. Why can't the stupidest Obama nut hugger on the board answer it?
because Rachel Madcow and the comedians have not told him how to answer this yet.
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because Rachel Madcow and the comedians have not told him how to answer this yet.
now thats funny more than half this board repeats rush and as a credable news source and you write that :D
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because Rachel Madcow and the comedians have not told him how to answer this yet.
What's your excuse since Friday?
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It is a simple question. Why can't the stupidest Obama nut hugger on the board answer it?
Gee... someone claiming it is possible to be half a religion and claiming Jesus himself created Earth and the universe... calling someone else stupid?
Isn't that a new low even for your own idiotic mental state?
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What's your excuse since Friday?
For what/ Is cain qualified? no. He is not. Next.
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Reply on the bumped thread. Just for you.
I know it isn't like, 2 years old or something but still worth a bump.
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Reply on the bumped thread. Just for you.
I know it isn't like, 2 years old or something but still worth a bump.
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Since you finally answered mine, (after 5 days of crying and running from it), I will answer the one you posted below :
So you accept that Obama is destroying jobs? Yes or no?
Yes.
While the economy itself has lead to a cycle of job loss that would still exist no matter who was in office, Obama has implented policies that have also directly contributed to this as well.
See? It wasn't so hard to to answer something when asked.
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For what/ Is cain qualified? no. He is not. Next.
so he's not qualified and you were ready to vote for him,that makes you no better than the people who voted for obama that your always complaining about :o
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so he's not qualified and you were ready to vote for him,that makes you no better than the people who voted for obama that your always complaining about :o
I have changed my mind on that seeing him in the last few debates and some of the recent interviews.
He would make a good Commerce Secretary or something like that.
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so he's not qualified and you were ready to vote for him,that makes you no better than the people who voted for obama that your always complaining about :o
He thinks Obama is incompetent and not qualified and his solution is to back and cheerlead someone else that he admits is not competent and qualified either.
Nice.
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He thinks Obama is incompetent and not qualified and his solution is to back and cheerlead someone else that he admits is not competent and qualified either.
Nice.
Did you read my last post? God forbid you obamabots EVER admit you were wrong. I admit Cain has changed my mind over the last two months or so.
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Yet, you still claim you prefer him over Obama.
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Yet, you still claim you prefer him over Obama.
Of course - Cain may not be quealified - but he has not made it his lifes' work to collapse this nation.
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He thinks Obama is incompetent and not qualified and his solution is to back and cheerlead someone else that he admits is not competent and qualified either.
Nice.
x2
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x2
I think this quote from Cicero explains the situation perfectly. While Cain may be a fool - he is not a traitor like obama _
________________________ ________________________ ____
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero quotes (Ancient Roman Lawyer, Writer, Scholar, Orator and Statesman, 106 BC-43 BC)
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He thinks Obama is incompetent and not qualified and his solution is to back and cheerlead someone else that he admits is not competent and qualified either.
Nice.
x3
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x3
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A national alliance of fishing groups, including the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, and advocates for the nation's farmers, ranchers, builders and miners have urged Congress to negate President Obama's National Ocean Policy, rolled out in 2010 via executive order.
Fishing interests warn that the policy entails a kind of ocean zoning that threatens fishing industry jobs, while the land-based alliance expressed concern about executive overreach that might lead to decisions based on uncertain values and priorities, squelching business along inland waterways.
The White House has denied the policy is akin to ocean zoning, and, in two heated hearings by the House Natural Resources Committee this fall, Congressman Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, has scoffed at the worries.
"Opposing ocean planning is like opposing air traffic control," Markey argued at the second hearing on Nov. 7. He described the opposition as engaging in "scare tactics."
But the Republican majority, led by the committee chairman, Congressman Doc Hastings of Washington, agreed with the ocean zoning characterization in sparring with Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, who was representing the president.
Congressman Jon Runyon, a New Jersey Republican, said the top-down approach to the National Ocean Policy reminded him of the way that Lubchenco's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration introduced her catch share policy by top-down leverage.
"NOAA does not impose catch shares," Lubchenco countered.
"I've never seen anybody dance around the answers like that, you never answer the questions," Congressman Don Young, an Alaska Republican, told Lubchenco and Sutley.
Hastings said he doubted that the White House had the legal authority to introduce the National Ocean Policy by executive order.
Lubchenco also introduced catch shares — which has created a commodities market within fisheries and is widely blamed for accelerating job losses and fleet consolidation — without congressional input or approval in 2009.
"It's a new fad bureaucracy, whether states want it or not," said Hastings. "I've asked for the statutory authority, but I've only been given a hodgepodge list. They haven't been concise. The Obama administration has decided that the president's signature along is all that's required."
The National Ocean Policy involves new concepts, including marine spatial planning and ecosystem-based management, championed for years by Lubchenco.
Marine spatial planning's closest terrestrial parallel is simple zoning. But, as White House officials told the Times last year, "instead of mapping it out," nine regional advisory committees reporting to the National Ocean Council would attempt to work out how shipping, commercial and recreational fishing, recreation, aquaculture, mining and drilling and other uses might be fit together, if continued mining and drilling are allowed at all.
In the executive order, Obama said he was providing for the "development of coastal and marine spatial plans that build upon and improve existing federal, state, tribal and regional decision-making and planning processes."
The eight regions of NOAA Fisheries — plus the Great Lakes as a ninth — are to be organized into regions over which newly established bodies of federal, state and tribal officials preside to debate and decide recommended marine spatial plans.
Each region would have its own values and uses for the seas — inland or off-shore. But those plans must pass muster for compatibility with federal policies at the National Ocean Council.
"The National Ocean Policy creates a federal ocean zoning regime that will likely result in substantial new regulations and restrictions on ocean users," read a statement from The Seafood Coalition, a broader umbrella organization that includes Gloucester's Northeast Seafood Coalition and the New Bedford-based Fisheries Survival Fund. The coalition claims to represent harvesters of 85 percent of domestic seafood landings.
Another concern expressed by the fishing industry is the diversion of funding to the National Oceans Policy from stock assessment and monitoring.
The land-based interests expressed concern about "upstream watersheds and airsheds, as well as any activities that might have a connection to ocean resources, coastal waters and the Great Lakes.
"We believe congressional oversight must proceed any further action on Executive Order 13547 (which was signed in July 2010)," those groups said in their letter.
It was signed by the Agricultural Retailers Association, CropLife America, National Association of Home Builders, National Cattlemen's Beef Association, National Mining Association, National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association, the Public Lands Council and the Fertilizer Institute.
Richard Gaines can be reached at 978-283-7000 x3464, or at rgaines@gloucestertimes.com.
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Sen. Scott Brown Exposes NOAA’s Illicit $300k Party Boat (Video-misappropriated fishing fines)
Gateway Pundit ^ | 2-20-12 | Jim Hoft
COMPLETE TITLE:
Senator Scott Brown Exposes NOAA’s Illicit $300,000 Party Boat (Video)
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Last week, U.S. Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) filed a Freedom of Information Act request for an Inspector General report on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) illicit purchase and use of a $300,000 luxury fishing boat.
The request was granted, and Senator Brown spoke from the Senate floor to reveal the numerous abuses detailed in the previously unknown findings of the Inspector General.
The following are the Senator Brown‘s remarks as prepared for delivery on the Senate floor:
Here’s the transcript:
I rise today to inform you and the public of some highly disturbing information that I’ve just learned about a broken agency within our federal government – The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
We all know that Washington doesn’t spend our money wisely. But sometimes it is worth highlighting examples of the corruption and waste.
Yesterday morning, I contacted the Commerce Department Inspector General to request a copy of their report on NOAA’s purchase of a $300,000 luxury boat.
It would be bad enough if they had purchased this boat with taxpayer dollars.
But they didn’t. They paid for it with money that should belong to our struggling fishermen. They paid for it out of the fines that fishermen pay into the pot when they mistakenly catch the wrong kind of fish. Those dollars are supposed to stay in fishing communities to help the fishermen.
Here’s the boat. For a government vessel, that’s pretty flashy. Take a look inside. That’s a fully-appointed bar, the latest in on-board entertainment systems, and leather furniture complete with the ice chest and tackle rack.
Furthermore, the fines that fishermen have been paying are putting fishermen out of business. The stories will break your heart.
Complete speech - YouTube Video
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Government offers Mass. fishermen money not to fish
itemlive.com ^ | 3/1/12 | wire report
Posted on Friday, March 02, 2012
BOSTON(AP)— The federal government is paying Massachusetts sport fishermen to give up their fishing licenses for a year.
Federal officials tell The Boston Globe that the offer isn't about reducing fishing, but is part of an experiment to calculate the loss if an environmental disaster forced sport fishing to stop.
(Excerpt) Read more at itemlive.com ...
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« on: Today at 10:41:33 AM » Quote Modify Remove
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http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=50880
WTF is this shit!
FUBO!!!!
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President Barack Obama has an ambitious plan for Washington bureaucrats to take command of the oceans—and with it control over much of the nation’s energy, fisheries, even recreation in a move described by lawmakers as the ultimate power grab to zone the seas.
The massive undertaking also includes control over key inland waterways and rivers that reach hundreds of miles upstream, and began with little fanfare when Obama signed an executive order in 2010 to protect the aquatic environment.
“This one to me could be the sleeping power grab that Americans will wake up to one day and wonder what the heck hit them,” said Rep. Bill Flores (R –Texas).
“This is pure administrative fiat,” said Sen. David Vitter (R –La.). “It’s very troubling.”
“This is purely a unilateral administrative action with no real congressional input or oversight,” Vitter said. “I think it clearly threatens to have a big impact on a lot of industry, starting with energy, oil and gas, and fishing.”
But in his zeal to curb sea sprawl, lawmakers say the president’s executive order also gives Washington officialdom unprecedented reach to control land use as well.
“The order says they shall develop a scheme for oversight of oceans and all the sources thereof,” Flores said. “So you could have a snowflake land on Pikes Peak and ultimately it’s going to wind up in the water, so as a result they could regulate on every square inch of U.S. soil.”
Impacts on industry, consumers
The effects of Obama’s far-reaching policy would be felt by numerous industries including wind farms and other renewable energy undertakings, ports, shipping vessels, and other marine commerce, and upstream it would also affect mining, timber, even farming.
It will impact consumers directly through rules addressing recreational uses such as fishing and boating, and restricting the multiple use development of the ocean’s resources would also increase the cost of fuel and food, lawmakers say.
The idea to create a policy to oversee multiple uses of the ocean originated during the Bush administration, but after push back from within the ranks, including Vitter, the idea was dropped.
Critics of this revised plan say it is more narrowly focused, and that the Obama administration is taking their marching orders from environmental groups who want to move away from a multiple-use ocean policy to a no-use policy.
“If you look at the catalyst for the entire initiative, it comes from the playbook of environmental groups that think the ocean ought to be controlled by the federal government,” Flores said.
Added Vitter: “This (Obama) administration is more aggressive and left-leaning, and they are going whole hog. I think it’s clearly a threat, and in terms of negatively impacting jobs, it’s a very, very big threat.”
Blocking new oil, gas production
The ocean policy has already impacted oil and gas development in the Mid and South Atlantic, where more environmental analysis is now required to determine whether new studies must also be conducted to determine its safety, according to Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar.
Jack Belcher, managing director of the Ocean Policy Coalition that represents numerous industries affected by Obama’s initiative including oil companies, says Salazar’s action is one example of how the administration is already blocking new production “on a policy that hasn’t even been developed yet.”
Still in its draft form, the plan released in January contains vague goals that call for more than 150 milestones to be accomplished by next year that will determine how the ecosystem is managed.
“Right now, we can only speculate on the impacts,” Belcher said. “But all of a sudden, there’s a new authority creating a new plan that may not allow oil and gas leasing or development in (some) areas.”
“But what we are worried about, and already seeing, is it’s being used as a tool to say we’re not going to do something, or delay it,” Belcher said. “It creates another layer of bureaucracy and another opportunity for litigation. We see this as an opportunity to tie things up in complete uncertainty.”
Belcher said his members are not opposed to having a process in place to manage all of the industries that depend on the ocean, but that they are already operating under numerous and sometimes onerous regulations that guide energy development, the shipping of goods, wind farm construction, and commercial fishing.
“It isn’t just chaos on the high seas, but this ocean policy takes the assumption that it is,” Belcher said. “We’re fearful that (Obama’s policy) will result in a more draconian system.”
The regulatory uncertainty created by the draft plan for industries and its employees that depend on the ocean has prompted numerous Republican senators to ask for congressional oversight hearings.
“In these tough economic times, it would be unfortunate if Congress chose to ignore responsibility for limiting bureaucratic hurdles to prosperity,” the lawmakers said in a March 20 letter. The letter was signed by Sens. Vitter, Marco Rubio of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah, John Barrasso of Wyoming, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Mike Crapo of Idaho and John Cornyn of Texas.
The ocean policy has been a sleeper issue with very little media coverage, but now that it is starting to affect industries such as gas and oil production, lawmakers say congressional hearings are needed to take a broader look at its impact and consider public input from all of the stakeholders, not just environmentalists.
“This has largely been completely under the radar,” Vitter said. “And that is exactly the way the administration and their environmental allies want to do it—announce the administrative fiat is complete and that we have this new way of life that nobody knew was coming.”
House Republicans are fighting back by tightening the purse strings they control and hope that by cutting off funding to implement the policy, and putting a stop to officials they believe are siphoning money away from other programs, they can block it from going forward.
Rep. Hal Rogers (R -Ky.), who heads the powerful House Appropriations Committee, has been asked to put a stop to the administration’s “cloaked funding” by Rep. Doc Hastings (R–Wash.), chairman of the House Resources Committee.
“The Obama administration continues to move forward with zoning the oceans through implementation of the president’s National Ocean Policy without requesting funding specifically for this broad initiative and without answering basic questions about how funds are currently being diverted from other missions to fund this initiative,” Hastings said in an April 2 letter to Rogers.
Although critics of the plan say it will create an unprecedented aquatic zoning commission, the administration has repeatedly denied it.
Administration’s defense
Nancy Sutley, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and co-chair of the newly created National Ocean Council in charge of the new policy, said the plan “has been mischaracterized as ‘ocean zoning.’”
“The National Ocean Policy does not create any new regulations,” added Jane Lubchenco, undersecretary of Commerce for oceans and atmosphere. “It is a planning process, it’s not zoning.”
Calls to CEQ, which oversees the policy, were not returned.
However, critics point to an Interior Department memo that says the plan “has emerged as a new paradigm and planning strategy for coordinating all marine and coastal activities and facility constructions within the context of a national zoning plan.”
Additionally, former Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen, a member of the Ocean Policy Task Force, told OnEarth Magazine in May, 2010, the plan is “basically taking the notion of urban planning and putting it into the water column, as well as the estuary systems that connect it to everything that impacts ocean ecosystems.”
Rep. Don Young (R–Alaska) explained the new bureaucracy to his constituents during an April 3 Alaska field hearing as “a complicated bureaucratic scheme which includes a 27-member national ocean council; an 18-member governance coordinating committee; 10 national policies; nine regional planning bodies—each involving as many as 27 federal agencies as well as states and tribes; nine national priority objectives; nine strategic action plans; seven national goals for coastal marine spatial planning; and 12 guiding principles for coastal marine spatial planning.”
“Are you confused yet?” Young asked the crowd.
“The administration claims that this whole National Ocean Policy is nothing more than an attempt to coordinate federal agencies and make better permitting decisions,” Young said. “Forgive me if I am a little suspicious when the federal government—through an executive order—decides to create a new bureaucracy that will ‘help’ us plan where activities can or cannot take place in our waters and inland.”
Competing values
Environmental groups that support the president’s efforts include the Pew Charitable Trusts, which says that the fragile health of the oceans is being threatened by the increasing industrialization of the seas.
“If poorly planned or managed, drilling for oil and natural gas in federal waters, developing aquaculture and building wind, wave and tidal energy facilities all have the potential to damage America’s marine environment,” Pew said in a statement supporting the president’s policy.
But some believe bureaucratic interference on such a large scale is the real threat.
“The last thing we need is the federal government running the damn ocean and a bunch of bureaucrats running around trying to determine whether you can fish in one spot or another,” said Dan Kish, senior vice president for policy at the Institute for Energy Research.
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Audrey Hudson, an award-winning investigative journalist, is a Congressional Correspondent for HUMAN EVENTS. A native of Kentucky, Mrs. Hudson has worked inside the Beltway for nearly two decades -- on Capitol Hill as a Senate and House spokeswoman, and most recently at The Washington Times covering Congress, Homeland Security, and the Supreme Court. Follow Audrey on Twitter and Facebook.
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New England Fishermen Freak Out After The Government Closes The Bay Of Maine For Two Months
Business Insider ^ | 4/29/12 | ap
Posted on April 29, 2012 3:35:23 PM EDT by Nachum
BOSTON (AP) — Fisherman Lou Williams sees plenty of harbor porpoises, usually swimming in small pods well away from his boat, unlike the herds of lookalike dolphins that get close enough to ride his vessel's wake.
A place Williams doesn't see many porpoises is his nets.
"It's a rare occasion," said Williams, 55, who fishes out of Gloucester. "I don't think more than a couple this year."
But federal regulators say far too many porpoises in the Gulf of Maine are drowning in fishing gear, specifically the stationary nets that Williams and other fishermen use, called gillnets.
The estimated fatalities are so high, they triggered a provision in federal rules that will close a busy fishing ground that extends from Gloucester to southern Maine to gillnets for two months annually, starting this Oct. 1.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
NEVER LET A CRISIS. GO TO WASTE!
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Fishery disaster declared in New England
Industry is devastated by federal regulations
Updated: Thursday, 13 Sep 2012, 1:43 PM EDT
Published : Thursday, 13 Sep 2012, 1:27 PM EDT
BOSTON (AP) - Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee is applauding the U.S. Commerce Department's decision to declare a national fishery disaster in New England. The move opens the door for tens of millions of dollars in relief funds for fishermen.
U.S. Sen. John Kerry said he's secured a commitment from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to include $100 million for fishermen and fishing communities in emergency assistance legislation. He said the job after Thursday's declaration is to fight for the money in a potentially reluctant Congress.
Kerry and others have long pursued the disaster declaration, saying the industry is being devastated by federal fishing regulations.
They say fishermen have been following rules designed to stop overfishing, but key fish stocks continue to decline, mandating ruinous catch limits.
Gov. Chafee said the declaration will provide badly needed help to the state's commercial fishing business, which is facing huge cuts in catch limits for species including cod, haddock, and yellowtail flounder.
He says the commercial fishing industry is one of Rhode Island's most important economic assets and calls the declaration important for both the local economy and the health of the state's waters.
Kerry says the $100 million request includes direct aid and funds to improve fishery science.
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Fishing's decline looms; will fish eaters notice?
ap ^ | Feb 18, 2013 | JAY LINDSAY
Posted on March 24, 2013 8:25:53 PM EDT by george76
In May, New England's fishermen will again see a cut to the number of fish they can catch, this time so deeply that the historic industry's existence is threatened from Rhode Island to Maine. But as hard as the cuts are likely to hit fishing communities, local seafood eaters may not notice at all. In the region's markets, grocery stores and restaurants, imported fish dominate, and the cuts make that less likely to change.
The cuts will shrink the catch limit 77 percent for cod in the Gulf of Maine and 61 percent for cod in Georges Bank, off southeastern Massachusetts. That's the worst of a series of reductions to the catch of bottom-dwelling groundfish, such as haddock and flounder, that many fear could be fatal to the industry.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...