Well endowed and powerful environmental philanthropies — notably thePew Charitable Trusts — have wrested control over the agenda for oceanpolicies from traditional, broad-based political forces, according tolawyers writing in an American Bar Association newsletter.
The authors James P. Walsh and Gwen Fanger of the SanFrancisco firm Davis Wright Tremaine LLP warn that Pew and similargroups — though no others are named — are moving aggressively and evencynically to shape ocean policies.
The case study in point was Pew’s alliance with andsupport for former President George W. Bush who claimed what Walsh andFanger describe as dubious constitutional authority to unilaterallydeclare three massive Pacific Ocean sectors to be Marine ProtectedAreas — together representing an ocean area of 335,488 square miles,larger than the land mass of California.