Saving Seafood

New England fishermen challenge Obama’s marine national monument

March 7, 2017 — The following was released by the Pacific Legal Foundation: 

A coalition of New England fishermen organizations filed suit today over former President Barack Obama’s designation of a vast area of ocean as a national monument — a dictate that could sink commercial fishing in New England.

The organizations filing the lawsuit are the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association, Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, Rhode Island Fisherman’s Alliance, and Garden State Seafood Association.

They are represented, free of charge, by Pacific Legal Foundation, a watchdog organization that litigates nationwide for limited government, property rights, and a balanced approach to environmental regulations.

Watch this brief video

The lawsuit challenges President Obama’s September 15, 2016, creation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, 130 miles off the coast of Cape Cod.

“By declaring over 5,000 square miles of ocean — an area the size of Connecticut — to be a national monument, President Obama set this entire area off-limits to most fishing immediately, with what remains of fishing opportunities to be phased out over the next few years,” said PLF attorney Jonathan Wood. “This illegal, unilateral presidential action threatens economic distress for individuals and families who make their living through fishing, and for New England communities that rely on a vibrant fishing industry.”

A monumental abuse of presidential power

President Obama claimed to be relying on the federal Antiquities Act. But as today’s lawsuit makes clear, his decree far exceeded the authority granted to presidents by that 1906 statute. The Antiquities Act was enacted to protect ancient antiquities and human relics threatened by looting, giving the president broad powers to declare monuments consistent with that purpose.

However, the statute permits creation of national monuments only on “lands owned or controlled” by the federal government. Moreover, any designation must be “confined to the smallest area” needed to protect the artifacts or objects that the monument is intended to safeguard.

“President Obama violated both of those core requirements of the law when he created the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument,” Wood noted. “Most fundamentally, the ocean, where the monument is located, is not ‘land,’ nor is it federally owned or controlled. The monument designation is also not confined to the smallest necessary area; on the contrary, its sprawling boundaries bear no relation to the underwater canyons and seamounts it is supposed to protect. In short, the designation of a vast area of ocean as a national monument was a blatant abuse of presidential power.

“Unfortunately, the Antiquities Act has morphed into a favorite tool for presidents to abuse,” Wood continued. “Today, presidents use it to place vast areas of federal lands off limits to productive use with little input. Monument designations are particularly common at the end of a chief executive’s term, once the president can no longer be held accountable.

“Former President Obama was the king of Antiquities Act abuse, invoking it more times than any prior president and including vastly more area within his designations than any predecessor,” said Wood. “Our lawsuit is intended to rein in abuse of the Antiquities Act and underscore that it is not a blank check allowing presidents to do whatever they want. The creation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument is a clear example of a president exceeding his authority, and we are suing to make sure this edict is struck down and the rule of law prevails.”

No environmental justification

“Beyond its violation of the law, the monument designation also threatens to harm the environment by pushing fishermen to other, less sustainable fisheries, and increasing conflicts between their gear and whales,” said Wood. “The president’s proclamation cites protection of coral as one of the reasons for the monument. But the corals remain pristine after more than four decades of commercial fishing because fishermen know where the corals are, and carefully avoid them, out of environmental concern and because coral destroys their gear.

“Instead of punishing New England’s fishermen — and shutting down their businesses — federal officials should be acknowledging their positive role as stewards of the ocean’s environmental resources,” Wood added. “This is shown in their laudable efforts to promote sustainability. PLF’s clients, for instance, have spent years working to improve their methods and equipment and to retire excess fishing permits, knowing that these costly sacrifices will provide long-term benefits to their industry and the environment. The monument designation undermines those sustainability efforts, by depriving the fishermen of any reward for their sacrifices.”

With a ‘stroke of the pen,’ Obama’s illegal action ‘puts men and women out of work’

“We are fighting every day to keep the men and women in the commercial fishing industry working, but with one stoke of President Obama’s pen — and his abuse of the Antiquities Act — they are out of work,” said Beth Casoni, executive director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association.

“The monument designation will have a negative rippling effect across the region as fishermen will have to search for new fishing grounds — only to find they are already being fished,” she said. “The shoreside businesses will also feel the impacts, as fishermen have to go further and further to harvest their catch, leaving less funds to reinvest in their businesses.

“We are extremely grateful to have PLF at our side as we fight back against this legal travesty, which is causing so much hardship for the commercial fishing industry here in the Northeast.”

The case is Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association v. Ross. More information, including the complaint (see attached), a video, photos, podcast, and an explanatory blog post, is available at: www.pacificlegal.org.

Read the full legal filing here 

About Pacific Legal Foundation

Pacific Legal Foundation, America’s most powerful ally for justice, litigates in courts nationwide for limited government, property rights, individual liberty, and a balanced approach to environmental regulations. PLF represents all clients free of charge.

Tred Barta: President Trump Should Stop the Obama Attack on New England Fisherman

February 28, 2017 — In the waning days of his administration, Barack Obama decided to seriously cripple the American fishing industry. By executive order, the former president designated a vast underwater expanse off the coast of New England as the nation’s first aquatic national monument. This decision, driven by evidence-free environmental concerns, effectively banned all commercial fishing in the area.

It’s well within President Trump’s powers to modify this decision, and he ought to do so immediately. Left alone, this designation will undermine the regional economy and deprive countless families of their livelihoods.

The monument, officially announced in September, covers about 5,000 square miles of ocean located 130 miles from Cape Cod. For over 40 years, commercial fishermen have harvested this area for crab, squid, swordfish, tuna, and other high-demand seafood. It’s particularly rich in lobster, of which some 800,000 pounds are caught every year.

This order ends all that activity. Some fishing companies had just 60 days to leave the area.

This exodus will bring economic ruin all along the coast. Bill Palombo, a Newport, Rhode Island lobsterman who runs three boats in the monument waters, says he expects to “just go out of business.” Jon Williams runs Atlantic Red Crab, which employs 150 workers in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and he says the drop in harvests will force him to “maybe sell my business”.

The central promise of the Trump White House is the protection of solid jobs for working families. This order kills exactly those positions: stable, well-paid, immune to outsourcing, and available to workers without a college degree. In the Maine lobster industry, which supports 6,300 local jobs, the average starting salary is over $50,000.

Read the full story at Breitbart

White House to eject its environmental advisers from their longtime main headquarters on Friday

February 24, 2017 — The following is an excerpt from a story published yesterday by the Washington Post:

The White House on Friday will move its Council on Environmental Quality out of its main headquarters at 722 Jackson Place, a red brick townhouse it has occupied since it was established nearly half a century ago.

Although some White House CEQ staffers will remain in adjoining townhouses, the shift means the council will lose its main conference room. While the influence of CEQ waxes and wanes depending on which president is in office, it traditionally plays a key role in executing the White House’s overall environmental agenda and coordinating key decisions among different agencies.

The number of staffers also varies widely at different times, and includes employees detailed from other agencies. Shortly after being established under Richard Nixon, it had 54 staffers: its first chair, the late Russell Train, recalled in an oral history interview with Bates College that it had the same number of employees as the Council of Economic Advisers “and I was told we couldn’t have any more than they did.” At the end of former president Barack Obama’s term, the number of career staffers was about 15 out of the roughly 50-person staff, and earlier in his term the total staff reached 60 employees.

Under several administrations, including Obama’s, Clinton’s and Nixon’s, the council has steered federal decision-making in a more environmentally-friendly direction. “We really put the environmental impact process into effect and was able to bring the various agencies somewhat to heel who didn’t want to comply,” Train recalled in the 1999 Bates interview.

Read the full story at the Washington Post

Maine fishermen hooked on Obamacare, but now benefits are threatened

January 19, 2017 — Chris Welch, a Kennebunk lobsterman, had never purchased health insurance before the Affordable Care Act started offering individual marketplace insurance in 2013. He’s maintained the benefits ever since, even though as a healthy 28-year-old he doesn’t need to use his insurance that often.

Welch is among the thousands of people who work in Maine’s iconic lobster and fishing industries who could have their ACA insurance taken away if the law is repealed without a comprehensive replacement. Congress has set the wheels in motion to repeal the ACA, and lawmakers are debating whether to immediately replace it, and if so, with what plan. Lawmakers have yet to coalesce around a replacement plan, and the incoming Trump administration has not yet revealed a proposal.

There’s no exact count of how many fishermen or lobstermen have purchased ACA insurance, but U.S. Census data indicate robust enrollment in the industry.

Coastal communities with large numbers of self-employed workers have some of the highest percentages of residents signed up for ACA insurance, according to a ZIP code analysis of 2016 enrollment data from the federal government and workforce data from the U.S. Census.

For instance, on North Haven and Vinalhaven islands, both on the midcoast and known for the lobster industry, 22 percent and 21 percent of the people on each island, respectively, have ACA insurance, among the highest rates in the state. Forty-seven percent of Vinalhaven households include a person who is self-employed, while on North Haven it’s 38 percent, among the highest levels of self-employment in Maine.

Other coastal fishing communities with high ACA enrollment levels include Pemaquid, Round Pond, Beals and Brooklin.

The ACA’s individual marketplace was designed to be a place where those who can’t obtain insurance through an employer – such as a self-employed fisherman or a part-time worker – can purchase subsidized insurance. About 80,000 Mainers have health benefits through the ACA.

“If a repeal happens, it’s going to be a big hurt for these communities,” said Emily Brostek, executive director of Consumers for Affordable Health Care, an Augusta-based health advocacy nonprofit. “These are industries that we care about in Maine, but that don’t traditionally offer medical benefits.”

Congressional Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump have vowed to repeal President Obama’s signature health care legislation, which could leave more than 20 million Americans without insurance, depending on what a replacement bill looks like.

Welch, who has operated his own lobster boat since he was 16, has had health insurance since 2014, seeing it as a way to protect his health and finances.

“I didn’t have insurance prior to the ACA, and I wouldn’t have got it if it weren’t for the ACA,” said Welch, who estimates he pays about $220 a month for the benefits.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald 

Trump’s rise may bring big changes to main US fishing law

January 12, 2017 — Previously unsuccessful efforts to reform the US’s main federal fishing law, the Magnuson-Stevens Act, are positioned to move ahead under a Donald Trump administration.

New efforts to amend the US Magnuson-Stevens Act are expected from the new Congress, leaving some in industry concerned with any move away from a law judged by many to have worked reasonably well for four decades.

Some in industry have told Undercurrent News that they fear pressures to add more “flexibility” could allow political considerations to undermine science-driven decision-making currently enshrined in the bill, which forms the basis for most federal fishing regulation in US waters.

“Right now you might be looking at potential for a whole lot of changes and revisions,” said an Alaska-based source who wished to remain unnamed. “I would say there should be some anxiety about how far you go giving people flexibility that moves outside the scientific realm.”

But how drastically Magnuson Stevens might change, if at all, remains to be seen, he added.

HR 1335

One such effort, a bill known as HR 1335 sponsored by Alaskan Representative Don Young, faced a veto threat from president Barack Obama, who will be replaced by Trump on Jan. 20.

One of the bill’s central provisions would have reformed Magnuson-Stevens’s mandatory 10-year stock rebuilding timeline, incorporating additional flexibility. Instead of formally defining all stocks in decline as “overfished”, Young’s amendment would allow the term “depleted” when the reason for a stock’s decline is due to depredation or other non-fishing factors.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

26 Senators Introduce Bill to Reform Monument Designation Process

January 10, 2017 — The following was released by the office of Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK):

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, today reintroduced the Improved National Monument Designation Process Act, a bill to facilitate greater local input and require state approval before national monuments can be designated on federal lands and waters.

The following senators are original cosponsors of the bill: Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Shelley Capito (R-W. Va.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Dean Heller (R-Nev.), Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), John McCain (R-Ariz.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Marco Rubio (R- Fla.), Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.).

The bill requires, before any national monument can be declared on public land or within the exclusive economic zone, that the following be met:

  • Specific authorization by an Act of Congress;
  • Approval by the state legislature, and for marine monuments, approval by each state legislature within 100 miles of the proposed monument; and
  • Certification of compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act.

“President Obama has locked up more acres through monument designations than the previous 18 presidents combined,” Murkowski said. “His unilateral withdrawals have routinely come with complete disregard for local concerns and opposition, threatening energy, mining, fishing, ranching, recreation, and other reasonable uses of public land and waters. At this point, we have no choice but to reform the Antiquities Act to ensure that the people being impacted by these designations are heard and respected.”

“After President Obama abused the Antiquities Act worse than any president in history, now is the perfect time for some common sense public lands reform,” Lee said. “This bill would take power from the federal government and give it back to the people where it belongs.”

“I’ve long advocated for extensive consultation with the communities most affected by federal land management decisions,” Flake said. “By requiring state and congressional sign-off on all future national monuments, this bill will ensure that local stakeholders finally have their voices heard in the designation process.”

“This legislation would allow for greater transparency in the monument designation process and would allow Idahoans to have greater input on monument proposals,” Risch said.“Further, congressional authorization would be required before any national monument can be declared on public land, which would prevent the president from designating a monument based on the administration’s agenda.”

“As a fifth generation Montanan and avid sportsman, I know how important it is for Montanans to play a strong role in the management of these precious parts of our state,” Daines said. “Any designation should be driven locally, not by out-of-state Washington, D.C. bureaucrats.”

“For too long, Utahans and Westerners have been the victims of unjustified federal land grabs,” Hatch said. “The President’s recent designation of Bears Ears National Monument goes well beyond the original intent of the Antiquities Act, which was intended to give presidents only limited authority to designate special landmarks, such as a unique natural arch or the site of old cliff dwellings. The President was never meant to set aside millions of acres through the Antiquities Act. I believe we can strike a balance—through Congress—that allows us to maintain our rural towns and communities and also protects the cultural integrity of our lands.”

“Last month, with the quick stroke of a pen, Nevadans watched as this Administration locked up millions of acres of public land in Nevada and nearby Utah,” Heller said. “These types of unilateral federal land grabs by the executive branch should not be allowed. As an advocate for public input and local support to the decision-making process of federal land designations, I’m proud to support Senator Murkowski’s effort to legally require local approval of future designations.”

“I am proud to cosponsor this legislation that would reform the monument designation process, a process particularly important to Arizona,” McCain said. “The proposed Grand Canyon Watershed Monument in Arizona will threaten hunting, grazing, water resources and wildfire prevention in one of the most celebrated and enjoyed regions of my home state.”

The Antiquities Act provides the president with authority to create national monuments, but explicitly requires the reservation of “the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.” This has not been the case with designations in recent years, however, as the Antiquities Act has become a tool to sidestep Congress and create sweeping conservation areas despite opposition from local residents. The Obama administration alone has now designated a total of 554 million acres—equal to 865,625 square miles, an area five times the size of California—onshore and offshore as national monuments.

Murkowski is chairman of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. She sponsored the previous version of this bill, S. 437, in the 114th Congress. In July 2016, the committee held a field hearing to examine the impacts of large-scale monument designations in Blanding, Utah, which was chaired by Sen. Lee. Audio and background from that hearing are available here.

See the press release at Sen. Murkowski

US issuing new rules to curb illegal fishing, seafood fraud

January 3, 2017 — PORTLAND, Maine — The Obama administration is issuing new rules it says will crack down on illegal fishing and seafood fraud by preventing unverifiable fish products from entering the U.S. market.

The new protections are called the Seafood Import Monitoring Program, and they are designed to stop illegally fished and intentionally misidentified seafood from getting into stores and restaurants by way of imported fish.

The rules will require seafood importers to report information and maintain records about the harvest and chain of custody of fish, officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

The program will start by focusing on “priority species” that are especially vulnerable to illegal fishing, such as popular food fish like tuna, swordfish, Atlantic cod and grouper. The government hopes eventually to broaden the program out to include all fish species, NOAA officials said.

“It sends an important message to the international seafood community that if you are open and transparent about the seafood you catch and sell across the supply chain, then the U.S. markets are open for your business,” said Catherine Novelli, a State Department undersecretary.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Seattle Times

OPINION: Obama’s Political Monuments

January 3, 2017 — President Obama is settling accounts before leaving office, and then some. This week he delivered a parting gift to Democratic Senator Harry Reid and parting shot at Utah Republicans by designating two new national monuments in their respective states.

Desert and canyon landscapes in the West are among the most majestic in America, and Mr. Obama has cited cultural treasures as a pretext for consecrating 1.3 million acres in southeastern Utah (Bears Ears) and 300,000 acres in southern Nevada (Gold Butte). The real goal is to shield land-use decisions from public input.

Sixteen presidents have invoked the Antiquities Act to establish 152 national monuments, though rarely in defiance of state and local lawmakers as President Obama has now done. The 1906 law was intended to let Presidents act expeditiously to protect national treasures from desecration. Mr. Obama has used it to wall off more land than any of his predecessors.

The Antiquities Act instructs the President to designate “the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected,” yet Bears Ears is nearly twice the size of Rhode Island and one million acres bigger than Utah’s largest national park. Most desert land around Gold Butte is already protected, but the Obama Administration says the national monument is needed as a wildlife corridor for desert bighorn sheep and the Mojave Desert tortoise. Don’t expect predator species to respect the sanctuary habitat.

Read the full opinion piece at the Wall Street Journal

KIMBERLY STRASSEL: Barack Obama’s Midnight Regulation Express

December 23, 2016 — The technical definition of a midnight regulation is one issued between Election Day and the inauguration of a new president. The practice is bipartisan. George W. Bush, despite having promised not to do so, pushed through a fair number of rules in his final months. But Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were more aggressive, and Mr. Obama is making them look like pikers.

Mr. Obama has devoted his last year to ramming through controversial and far-reaching rules. Whether it was born of a desire to lay groundwork for a Clinton presidency, or as a guard against a Trump White House, the motive makes no difference. According to a Politico story of nearly a year ago, the administration had some 4,000 regulations in the works for Mr. Obama’s last year. They included smaller rules on workplace hazards, gun sellers, nutrition labels and energy efficiency, as well as giant regulations (costing billions) on retirement advice and overtime pay.

Since the election Mr. Obama has broken with all precedent by issuing rules that would be astonishing at any moment and are downright obnoxious at this point. This past week we learned of several sweeping new rules from the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, including regs on methane on public lands (cost: $2.4 billion); a new anti-coal rule related to streams ($1.2 billion) and renewable fuel standards ($1.5 billion).

This follows Mr. Obama’s extraordinary announcement that he will invoke a dusty old law to place nearly all of the Arctic Ocean, and much of the Atlantic Ocean, off limits to oil or gas drilling. This follows his highly politicized move to shut down the Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota. And it comes amid reports the administration is rushing to implement last-minute rules on commodities speculation, immigrant workers and for-profit colleges—among others.

Any action that is rushed is likely to be shoddy, especially if it’s from the federal government. The point is for Mr. Obama to have his way and to swamp the Trump administration with a dizzying array of new rules to have to undo. That diverts manpower from bigger and better priorities.

Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal 

President Obama bans oil drilling in large areas of Atlantic and Arctic oceans

December 21st, 2016 — President Obama moved to solidify his environmental legacy Tuesday by withdrawing hundreds of millions of acres of federally owned land in the Arctic and Atlantic Ocean from new offshore oil and gas drilling.

Obama used a little-known law called the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to protect large portions of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas in the Arctic and a string of canyons in the Atlantic stretching from Massachusetts to Virginia. In addition to a five-year moratorium already in place in the Atlantic, removing the canyons from drilling puts much of the eastern seaboard off limits to oil exploration even if companies develop plans to operate around them.

The announcement by the White House late in the afternoon was coordinated with similar steps being taken by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to shield large areas of that nation’s Arctic waters from drilling. Neither measure affects leases already held by oil and gas companies and drilling activity in state waters.

“These actions, and Canada’s parallel actions, protect a sensitive and unique ecosystem that is unlike any other region on earth,” the White House said in a statement. “They reflect the scientific assessment that, even with the high safety standards that both our countries have put in place, the risks of an oil spill in this region are significant and our ability to clean up from a spill in the region’s harsh conditions is limited.

White House officials described their actions to make the areas off limits to future oil and gas exploration and drilling as indefinite. Officials said the withdrawals under Section 12-A of the 1953 act used by presidents dating to Dwight Eisenhower cannot be undone by an incoming president. It is not clear if a Republican-controlled Congress can rescind Obama’s action.

Read the full story at The Washington Post