Saving Seafood

Interior secretary visits Mass. to review marine monument

June 19, 2017 — Editor’s Note: At the request of the Department of the Interior, Saving Seafood’s National Coalition for Fishing Communities helped facilitate a meeting between Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and over 20 representatives of the commercial fishing industry. The meeting also included staff members from the offices of Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI):

Capping off a four-day New England tour, US Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke visited Boston Friday to meet with local scientists and fishermen in his review of the East Coast’s only — and highly controversial — marine monument.

The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, located approximately 130 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, covers more than 4,000 square miles. It includes three underwater canyons and four seamounts — mountains rising from the ocean floor —housing dozens of deep-sea corals and several species of endangered whales.

Former president Barack Obama proclaimed the area the country’s first marine national monument in the Atlantic Ocean in September 2016. The Antiquities Act, signed into law in 1906 by national parks champion Theodore Roosevelt, grants presidents unilateral authority to establish national monuments on federal land.

But now, under President Trump, the fate of the underwater zone is in doubt.

Trump signed an executive order in April directing Zinke to review all national monuments designated over the past 21 years, calling the practice of using executive authority to designate such monuments an “abusive practice.”

Zinke met with scientists from the New England Aquarium and the Massachusetts marine monument’s superintendent from the US Fish and Wildlife Service in the morning, before heading to a roundtable with local fishermen.

“Right now, I’m in the information collection stage, so everything is on the table,” Zinke said.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

Interior secretary set to visit Boston as enviros launch marine monument campaign

June 16, 2017 — When Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke visits the Boston area on Friday, environmentalists plan to greet him by rallying for the preservation of national monuments that are under review by the Trump administration.

The former Montana congressman has an 11 a.m. press event at a Legal Sea Foods location, according to his office. The Bay State visit could also afford the interior secretary a chance to meet with the state’s top Republican, Gov. Charlie Baker, although nothing has been announced.

The fishing industry opposed President Barack Obama’s 2016 designation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument on a roughly 4,900 square-mile area south of Cape Cod. The Obama administration had earlier removed Cashes Ledge, which sits about 80 miles off of Gloucester, from consideration as a possible site for the new national marine monument.

State Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Matt Beaton told the News Service in May that he hopes there will be modifications to the Seamounts monument, which restricts fishing in the area about 150 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, but did not specify his preferences.

Environmentalists worry the review ordered by President Donald Trump in April could be a precursor to rolling back restrictions on natural lands and waters.

According to a Zinke press aide, the secretary on Friday will meet with a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials and officials from the New England Aquarium about marine wildlife around the monument. The secretary will then attend a roundtable meeting with lobstermen and fishermen about the impact of the monument designation on their industry.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Members of Congress Call on Trump to Allow Fishing in Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — June 14, 2017 — Yesterday, nine Members of Congress wrote to President Trump, urging the Administration to lift restrictions on fishing in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument and to return fisheries management to the regional fishery management councils. The monument, designated via Executive order by President Obama last September, has prohibited commercial fishing in more than 4,900 square miles of ocean off the coast of New England.

According to the letter, this misuse of executive power will not only put commercial fishermen out of business, but will also harm many ocean communities that depend on a strong fishing economy. The letter calls for fisheries in the area to once again be managed under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which has long ensured the United States has one of the most sustainable and environmentally friendly fisheries management systems in the world.

The letter was co-signed by members Tom MacArthur (R-RJ), Andy Harris (R-MD), Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ), Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen (R-AS), David Rouzer (R-NC), Lee Zeldin (R-NY), and Walter B. Jones (R-NC).

Read the letter here

Every single N.J. lawmaker in D.C. is against Trump on this one

June 13, 2017 — All 14 New Jersey lawmakers in D.C. have asked President Donald Trump‘s administration to reject seismic testing in the Atlantic Ocean, a step that could lead to allowing oil drilling near the Jersey Shore.

“We are deeply concerned about the prospect of seismic testing being conducted within the Atlantic, and the damage such testing could cause to our coastal communities,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Donna Wieting, an official with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service.

The fisheries service proposed earlier this month to support granting five permits for the testing, which involves airgun blasting and can harm marine life, reversing a decision made under President Barack Obama.

The agency said it would seek comments through July 7 before making a final decision on granting the permits for an area from the Delaware-New Jersey border to Florida’s Space Coast.

The delegation asked for public hearings on the permits in New Jersey and the other affected states, as well as 60 days of comments for each of the five applications.

“Coastal communities should have the opportunity to weigh in on these pending permits,” the lawmakers wrote. “Environmental groups should have an official forum to present their research into the harmful effects of seismic testing.”

One of those environmental groups, the New Jersey Sierra Club, welcomed the delegation’s action, calling it a “clear message” to Trump.

“By allowing seismic testing, Trump is actually opening up our coast to offshore drilling,”  director Jeff Tittel said in a statement.

Under the Obama administration, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in January said there was no need for the testing because the region had been placed off limits to oil and gas drilling through 2022.

In addition, Obama permanently closed off almost 6,000 square miles of ocean territory from Massachusetts to Virginia, including off New Jersey coast, to drilling.

Read the full story at NJ.com

New Jersey Congressman Blasts Plan To Use Underwater Air Guns To Look For Oil In The Atlantic

June 9, 2017 — The Trump Administration wants to look for oil and natural gas under the Atlantic Ocean using seismic air guns, a proposal that doesn’t sit well with a South Jersey congressman.

The National Marine Fisheries Service wants permits to use those air guns from Delaware to Central Florida. Republican Congressman Frank LoBiondo is dead set against the proposal.

“This was started by President Obama while he was in office with his Department of Commerce,” LoBiondo told KYW Newsradio. “It was a dangerous and dumb idea then and it continues to be a dangerous and dumb idea now.”

The oil and gas industry is pushing for these surveys, and five companies have applied through the Interior Department to get those permits.

LoBiondo’s reasons for opposing the plan are mostly economic.

“Why would we want to take a risk on endangering our tourist season, endangering our fishing, commercial and recreational? It is beyond me, and there’s no good reason why, if they had to do this, it couldn’t be done in February,” he added.

Read the full story at CBS Philly

NJBIZ: We must fight any plan to drill off the Jersey Shore

June 11, 2017 — Drilling for oil and natural gas off the coast of New Jersey is a bad idea that never goes away.

Former President Barack Obama was for it — before, at the very end of his term, he signed an executive order reinstating a moratorium on offshore drilling from Massachusetts to Virginia. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump issued an executive order of his own to reopen the possibility of drilling off the East Coast. And then, last week, the Trump administration announced plans to issue five permits for offshore seismic testing from the Delaware-New Jersey border to Florida. The tests, which involve loud blasts that critics say harm whales and other sea creatures, are a first step to oil exploration.

(The National Marine Fisheries Service is seeking public comment on the proposal until July 7.)

And that’s only the recent history of this perennial issue. Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, oil companies actually drilled exploratory wells off Atlantic City. They didn’t find significant enough deposits to continue the effort.

But here we are again.

New Jersey’s two U.S. senators and House members from coastal districts are opposing the latest push for offshore drilling, just as they have done every time this issue has bubbled to the surface, no matter their party. And the argument — a good one — against offshore drilling is always the same: Why endanger the state’s $44 billion-a-year tourism industry and the 500,000 jobs it supports? Half of that revenue is generated from counties along the coast. Offshore drilling could also threaten the state’s $7.9 billion-a-year fishing industry and the 50,000 jobs it creates.

The fear, of course, is that a spill off the state’s coast could blacken New Jersey beaches with oil. Furthermore, oil spills from drilling off states to the north and south of New Jersey could also end up drifting onto the state’s beaches.

Massive oil spills can cause catastrophic damage. The Gulf of Mexico still has not recovered, and may never recover, from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill. Once pictures of oil-coated wildlife fade from the news, the spills are largely forgotten by the general public — but not in the region where the spills occur, where the damage is lasting.

Read the full editorial at NJBIZ

JOHN TIERNEY: The Tyranny of the Administrative State

June 12, 2017 — What’s the greatest threat to liberty in America? Liberals rail at Donald Trump’s executive orders on immigration and his hostility toward the press, while conservatives vow to reverse Barack Obama’s regulatory assault on religion, education and business. Philip Hamburger says both sides are thinking too small.

Like the blind men in the fable who try to describe an elephant by feeling different parts of its body, they’re not perceiving the whole problem: the enormous rogue beast known as the administrative state.

Sometimes called the regulatory state or the deep state, it is a government within the government, run by the president and the dozens of federal agencies that assume powers once claimed only by kings. In place of royal decrees, they issue rules and send out “guidance” letters like the one from an Education Department official in 2011 that stripped college students of due process when accused of sexual misconduct.

Unelected bureaucrats not only write their own laws, they also interpret these laws and enforce them in their own courts with their own judges. All this is in blatant violation of the Constitution, says Mr. Hamburger, 60, a constitutional scholar and winner of the Manhattan Institute’s Hayek Prize last year for his scholarly 2014 book, “Is Administrative Law Unlawful?” (Spoiler alert: Yes.)

“Essentially, much of the Bill of Rights has been gutted,” he says, sitting in his office at Columbia Law School. “The government can choose to proceed against you in a trial in court with constitutional processes, or it can use an administrative proceeding where you don’t have the right to be heard by a real judge or a jury and you don’t have the full due process of law. Our fundamental procedural freedoms, which once were guarantees, have become mere options.” ​

In volume and complexity, the edicts from federal agencies exceed the laws passed by Congress by orders of magnitude. “The administrative state has become the government’s predominant mode of contact with citizens,” Mr. Hamburger says. “Ultimately this is not about the politics of left or right. Unlawful government power should worry everybody.”

Read the full opinion piece at the Wall Street Journal

Fishermen lawsuit against marine monument to progress slowly

June 9, 2017 — A fishermen group’s lawsuit against the creation of a marine monument off New England is likely to progress slowly while the federal government reviews national monuments around the country.

President Barack Obama created the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument in September using executive authority. A coalition of fishing groups filed a lawsuit challenging its creation in federal court in March.

Since then, President Donald Trump has ordered the review of more than two dozen national monuments, including the marine monument. Attorneys for the fishermen who sued say their case is likely to proceed slowly since it could be made irrelevant by Trump’s review of the monuments.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Jersey Herald

Trump admin proposes seismic surveys for Atlantic drilling

June 6, 2017 — The Trump administration is seeking permission to use seismic air guns to find oil and gas formations deep underneath the Atlantic Ocean floor, a reversal from the Obama administration that is outraging environmental groups and some East Coast lawmakers.

The National Marine Fisheries Service said Monday it is seeking permits under the Marine Mammal Protection Act for five companies to use air guns for seismic surveys in the mid-Atlantic, from Delaware to central Florida.

The air guns are so loud they can disturb or injure endangered whales and other marine mammals and increase the risk of calves being separated from their mothers. Environmental groups and many East Coast lawmakers oppose the surveys, complaining that air-gun noise can injure marine life and harm commercial fishing and tourism.

The oil and gas industry has pushed for the surveys, which would map potential drilling sites from Delaware to central Florida. No surveys have been conducted in the region for at least 30 years.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in April aimed at expanding drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, part of his promise to unleash the nation’s energy reserves in an effort to reduce imports of foreign oil.

Under Trump’s order, the Interior Department is reviewing applications by five energy companies that were rejected by the Obama administration.

Read the full story at The Washington Post 

Fishermen hoping to reel in Obama-era conservation

May 31, 2017 — New England fishermen are looking for a seat at the table as the Trump administration mulls whether to make any adjustments to an Obama-era marine monument off Cape Cod that has drawn criticism for the potential impact on the fishing industry.

“The monument was put in place with probably less than full input by the fisheries’ people,” New England Fishery Management Council Chairman Dr. John Quinn said. “In reviewing it, we should be included in this process.”

Quinn is one of eight signatories of a letter drafted earlier this month and sent to Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke and Secretary of Commerce Wilbur L. Ross Jr. asking the Trump administration to consult with the nation’s eight regional fishery management councils before taking any action.

Trump signed an executive order last month calling for a review of national monument designations made under the Antiquities Act since Jan. 1, 1996. The order, dated May 1, calls for an interim report to the president within 45 days and a final report within 120 days.

The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, created by former President Barack Obama last September, protects an area roughly the size of Connecticut 130 miles off the coast of Cape Cod.

Read the full story at the Boston Herald