October 14,  2009



There has been an e-mail going around with a link to the Shimano America site for the posting:

Feds to 60 Million American Anglers: We don't need you

I've looked into this report and feel this is a threat far worse than the consent degree and the potential damage of the final rule on ORVs on the beaches of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

The release details what may be one of the largest and most unconstitutional power grabs in quite sometime. The Obama administration put together the Oceans Policy Task Force in June and charged it with formulating a new federal agency -- The National Oceans Council (NOC).

This is from the Shimano site:

The report makes it clear that future authority for implementing the policy for coastal and inland waters will fall under White House jurisdiction with a new National Oceans Council comprised of over 20 federal agencies at Cabinet Secretary or Deputy Secretary level. No reference to Congressional jurisdiction is indicated.

The new agency being forged by this task force may be one of the largest regulatory hammers ever devised by the federal government.  The task force forming this agency is supposed to take into consideration the views of the many stakeholders in the formulation of this new agency and its policies. 

What is apparent from reading the Interim Report Of The Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, released last month, is that two primary sources were used for the design of this agency and its policies -- a 2003 Pew Oceans Commission report and the United Nations “Law of the Sea Treaty” (LOST).  The concerns of the sport fishing community and others were not given consideration. 

Again from the Shimano site:

Dave Pfeiffer, President of Shimano American Corporation, explained, “In spite of extensive submissions from the recreational fishing community to the Task Force in person and in writing, they failed to include any mention of the over one million jobs or the 6o million anglers which may be affected by the new policies coast to coast. Input from the environmental groups who want to put us off the water was adopted into the report verbatim – the key points we submitted as an industry were ignored.

The 2003 Pew Oceans Commission report sets its tone in the very first sentence of the report:

Marine ecosystems around the United States are the targets of intensive alteration by coastal development, pollution, commercial fishing, recreational fishing, tourism and a host of other human mediated activities.

The simple translation here is: Human activity = Bad.

The report goes on to make several direct recommendations. 

First, it suggests that typical management practice whereby any species of fish may be managed by setting catch limits or even bans doesn't work.  The writers of the report contend that each species is part of the entire ecosystem, and, therefore, the entire ecosystem must be managed. 

The Pew study makes as its major action point the implementation of marine reserves:

Implement reserves for all biological habitats in coastal U.S. waters. These habitats are under so many simultaneous threats that immediate protection is paramount.

So how far reaching would these reserves be?  From the glossary of terms in the report:

A Marine Reserve is a marine protected area in which no extractive use of any resource - living, fossil or mineral - nor any habitat destruction is allowed.

Once this new agency is formed (in complete violation of the U.S. Constitution Article I, Section 8 http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitut....articlei.html), these unelected bureaucrats under the control of the White House and environmental groups will have the power to declare areas "marine reserves," banishing almost all human activity within.

They won't need a consent degree, final rule, NEPA process, or critical habitat designation. They will advance straight to their goal. All they have to do is declare a reserve around Hatteras Island, and you won't be able to fish from the beach, a pier, or a boat. You won't be able to build a new bridge. Collecting seashells could be banned. They might close the docks, blaming pollution.  Hatteras Island could effectively become closed to humans and a ghost town like Portsmouth Island.

On Page 20 of the Pew report, there are these examples of the types of tourism damage that would be banned:

“Tourism can harm marine ecosystems in various ways, such as physical damage to kelp or corals by divers or boat anchors, sewage discharges by cruise ships, harassment of marine mammals or turtles by tour boats or beach driving, or sand pumping by beach communities.  Two cycle outboard engines are a significant source of oil and gas discharges into marine waters.  Recreational fishing by line or spear can remove substantial numbers of some target species.  Impacts of such activities can degrade ecosystems protected for their tourism value.”

Yet the limits of this National Oceans Council will go way beyond the simple regulation of our oceans and the Great Lakes, its boiler-plate labeling suggests.  The Interim Report borrows language from the United Nations “Law of the Sea Treaty.”  LOST was scuttled by President Reagan in 1982 because of violations of U.S. sovereignty and resurrected by President Clinton after some negotiated changes. In March, 2004, President G. W. Bush agreed to the conventions.  The U.S. Senate has not ratified the treaty.  Yet many of the problems with LOST are still present.

LOST's Article 194, says:

States shall take ... all measures consistent with this Convention that are necessary to prevent, reduce and control pollution from any source ... and they shall endeavor to harmonize their policies in this connection.

And Article 194 goes on to say that the measures taken shall be designed  "to minimize to the fullest possible extent" pollution "from land-based sources" as well as "from or through the atmosphere." 

The powers of LOST would extend far beyond just the waters. It would have sway over all land masses and the atmosphere.
 
Continuing, Article 213 says:

States shall ... adopt laws and regulations and take other measures necessary to implement applicable international rules and standards established through competent international organizations or diplomatic conference to prevent, reduce and control pollution of the marine environment from land-based sources.  

It would bind us to the conventions of “international law,” which many view as a back door means of ratifying the Kyoto Treaty or any other future treaties and environmental regulations the United Nations might pass circumventing the U.S. Constitution.

Reflecting the far-reaching regulatory language in LOST, the Interagency Report on page 11 shows how similarly broad its proposed powers will be:

Many of these concerns are attributable not only to activities within marine and Great Lakes ecosystems, but also to actions that take place in our Nation’s interior. For example, our industries, agricultural and transportation operations, cities, and suburbs generate various forms of pollution. Industrial operations emit pollutants, such as nitrogen and mercury, into the atmosphere that often find their way into the ocean and Great Lakes. Rain washes residues, chemicals, and oily runoff from our roadways into our estuaries and coastal waters. Heavy rainfall events can wash sediment, pesticides, and nutrients from our fields, lawns, and agricultural operations into our waters. Urban and suburban development, including the construction of roads, highways, and other infrastructure, as well as modification to rivers and streams, can adversely affect the habitats of aquatic and terrestrial species.

The Interim Report of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force contains another interesting change. 

In past dealings with National Park Service or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, we have all heard the debates over “best available science” and the need to see that studies are properly peer reviewed before being acted on. 

In a departure from past policies regarding peer review, the Interim Report states on page 14:

Decision-making will also be guided by a precautionary approach as reflected in the Rio Declaration of 1992 which states in pertinent part, “[w]here there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.

With this, the regulators will be free to substitute the opinion of a scientist for science.  If Chicken Little says the sky is falling, we can all be told to build bunkers.  When Chicken Little changes his mind and next says the oceans are rising, we will quickly be told to put our bunkers on stilts. 

Will there have to be scientific evidence to support the assertions?  Apparently not, as long as the claimed peril is severe enough, officials will be free to implement regulations!

Currently the time line for the creation of this regulatory leviathan is that a final draft is to be submitted to the President on Wednesday, Dec. 9 -- rather a break-neck pace for such a far-reaching agency.  What is amazing is that at this time a Google search provides almost no hits in reference to the task force, the interim report, or the proposed new agency.  It would seem Congress and the news media are too busy with the current debates on health care and cap and trade. 

This proposal is literally flying under the radar.  We need to see that it is recognized.  The Web site Keep America Fishing has a petition you can sign to help notify your elected representatives.  We also need to spread the word to friends and media sources to inform the public of this threat to our liberties.  One thing is apparent -- if this agency comes to be and gets its way, the sportfishing community will likely be the first casualty.


Another link to an article:

http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/fishing/news/story?id=4522316
And a tip of my hat to Kim for sending me the first Shimano e-mail.

(Dennis Gray lives in Dayton, Ohio.  His family owns a house in Frisco.  He is a frequent visitor, an avid fisherman, a voracious reader of all news on beach access and fishing, and a defender of the rights of commercial and recreational fishermen.)

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