Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Gloucester again at center of drilling fight

March 8, 2018 — GLOUCESTER, Mass. — In the late-1970s, an unlikely alliance between environmentalists and commercial fishermen in this storied seaport helped block plans to open up Georges Bank to oil exploration — an effort that ultimately led to a federal moratorium on offshore drilling.

Georges Bank, a shallow and turbulent fish spawning ground southeast of Cape Ann and 100 miles east of Cape Cod, has been fished for more than 350 years. It is once again the center of a battle over drilling, this time stemming from President Donald Trump’s plan to allow private oil and gas companies to work in federal waters.

And, once again, Gloucester is poised to play an oversized role in opposing the efforts.

“It was a stupid idea back then, and it’s a stupid idea now,” said Peter Shelley, a senior attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation, which teamed up with Gloucester fisherman to fight the proposal more than three decades ago. “But yet here we are, fighting it once again. It’s ridiculous.”

The Trump administration says existing federal policy keeps 94 percent of the outer continental shelf off-limits to drilling. A five-year plan announced by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke last year would open at least 90 percent of that area beyond state waters to development by private companies.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Protesters rally against Trump’s oil drilling plans

March 6, 2018 — CONCORD, Mass. — Dozens of protesters rallied in New Hampshire on Monday against a proposal by President Donald Trump’s administration to expand offshore drilling, saying it poses a grave threat to the state’s marine ecosystem and economy.

Protesters — some carrying signs that read “Stop Big Polluters” and “No Spill No Drill No Kill”– gathered outside a Concord hotel that was hosting an information session by federal officials to explain the process that could lead to drilling for oil and gas on the Outer Continental Shelf in the North Atlantic. The hearing is one of 23 the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is holding on drilling plans including one in Maine on Wednesday.

Tom Irwin, director of the Conservation Law Foundation of New Hampshire, told reporters before the protest that oil and gas drilling put fisheries, tourism and recreation at risk. He said ocean resources in New England support 250,000 jobs and $17.4 billion in economic activity.

“The last thing we need are more man-made threats to our oceans and New England’s natural resources heritage,” Irwin said. “The Trump administration’s proposal ignores the will of our coastal communities and millions of Americans who have voiced their opposition to offshore drilling.”

New Hampshire’s all-Democratic Congressional delegation and Republican Gov. Chris Sununu oppose the proposal. Rep. Renny Cushing, D-Hampton, said he and a bipartisan group of lawmakers will seek to suspend House rules this week to introduce a resolution making it clear that state lawmakers also oppose it.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portsmouth Herald

 

Trump plan to allow oil drilling off New England unites foes in opposition

March 5, 2018 — For decades, they have done battle — through street protests, in courtrooms, on Beacon Hill. It takes a lot, something broadly and viscerally opposed, to unite the traditional foes.

But the Trump administration’s new plan to allow drilling for oil and gas off the shores of New England has done just that, forging a bipartisan coalition of fishermen, environmental advocates, industry groups, and scientists against the plan.

At a recent press conference held to denounce the plan, Peter Shelley of the Conservation Law Foundation noted that the last time he stood on the same side as so many fishermen was some four decades ago, when the federal government last pressed such a proposal.

“It’s ridiculous, and very discouraging, that we’re back here 40 years later,” he said, noting that the previous coalition succeeded in blocking offshore drilling while opponents in other regions failed. “It didn’t make sense then, and it makes less sense now.”

When Angela Sanfilippo, president of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association, spoke at the press conference last Monday at the New England Aquarium, she smiled at Shelley, a longtime proponent of fishing regulations.

“Here we are again,” she said, calling the drilling proposal “a disgrace.” “We’re not going to allow it to happen . . . Georges Bank is the richest fishing ground in the world. We have to protect it with our lives.”

In January, the Trump administration announced it was lifting a drilling ban and would allow prospecting for offshore oil and gas deposits in nearly all the coastal waters of the United States.

The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which will oversee the permitting process, estimates that opening the proposed areas could tap some 90 billion barrels of oil and 327 trillion tons of natural gas, potentially a major boost to the nation’s energy reserves.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

 

Rhode Islanders march against offshore drilling

March 5, 2018 — PROVIDENCE, R.I. — More than a hundred Rhode Island residents gathered at the State House Wednesday to protest the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management proposal to lift the long-standing ban on offshore fossil fuel drilling in large swaths of US coastal waters.

The protest, organized by Save the Bay, an independent, nonprofit organization devoted to protecting and improving Narragansett Bay, was preceded by a press conference wherein several state officials spoke out against BOEM’s proposal.

Concerned RI residents packed into the State Room as Governor Gina Raimondo, Senator Dawn Euer, Mayor Scott Avedesian of Warwick and others railed against the expansion of offshore drilling in RI and elsewhere.  The proposal came after President Donald Trump’s latest executive order to reverse existing policy that protects waters from oil and gas drilling.

According to BOEM, the proposal, “The Five Year Program, is an “important component” of the President’s executive order to allow domestic oil and natural gas production “as a means to support economic growth and job creation and enhance energy security.”

“While offshore oil and gas exploration and development will never be totally risk-free, since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill, the U.S. Department of the Interior has made, and is continuing to make, substantial reforms to improve the safety and reduce the environmental impacts of OCS oil and gas activity,” reads the proposal.

However at Thursday’s press conference, Raimondo said the proposal is a “terrifying” move in the wrong direction, citing “tragedies like Exxon Valdez and the BP oil spill.”

“We should be focusing on harnessing our offshore wind power – not digging for oil off our coast. The proposal that came out of Washington in January to open up our coastal waters to offshore drilling is terrifying,” Raimondo said, to thunderous applause.  “Rhode Island won’t stand for it.”

Reaching the coastlines of all five Gulf Coasts, the long-term impacts of the Deepwater spill are still felt today, taking a devastating impacts on birds, mammals, fish, and other creatures.

Read the full story at the Narragansett Times

 

Massachusetts: Trump’s offshore drilling plan panned at hearing

March 1, 2018 — Opponents of offshore drilling on Tuesday blasted President Donald Trump’s proposal to open up the New England coast to oil and gas exploration, saying the plan threatens the state’s fishing industry, coastal economies, public health and delicate marine life.

Officials from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management held a informational event about Trump’s plans in the Sheraton Hotel in Boston on Tuesday, but they only took written testimony from the public. They set up booths with experts to answer questions and a broadcast a video with information about the proposal.

Opponents staged a protest in another function room. Some wore lobster and shark costumes. Others held signs that read “Drilling is Killing.” A giant inflatable whale was displayed.

“Opening up our coast to offshore drilling would be terrible for Massachusetts,” Emily Norton, chapter director of the Massachusetts Sierra Club, told a packed room of opponents. “We will be fighting this with everything we’ve got, in the courts, on the streets and at the ballot box.”

Democratic attorneys general from a dozen coastal states — including Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey — have written Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke protesting the drilling plan. Tuesday’s hearing was one of dozens scheduled across the country through the end of March.

Democratic governors along both coasts unanimously oppose drilling, as do a number of Republican governors, including Massachusetts Gov. Charles Baker. Baker is scheduled to meet with Zinke on Sunday to discuss offshore drilling while he’s in Washington for the National Governors Association’s winter meeting.

Baker wrote to Zinke last year expressing concerns about the impact of oil exploration along the outer continental shelf on the state’s fishing industry and marine resources and ecosystems. He also noted the state’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop offshore wind resources.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Gloucester Times: Government must listen on ocean drilling

March 1, 2018 — Opponents of drilling for oil and gas in the offshore waters of New England are legion, and they have plenty to say.

If only they could find a way to get their government to listen.

What was touted earlier this year as a public hearing on the proposal by the Bureau Ocean Energy Management was anything but Tuesday. The event, which had been postponed and seen its location shift a handful of times, could be better described as an infomercial. There were business expo-style booths aplenty at the Sheraton Hotel in Boston, and even a promotional video touting the plan.

But if you wanted to let government leaders know in person how you felt about drilling into the seabed, you were out of luck — the bureau was accepting written comments only. It’s a common tactic used by officials to stifle public debate. By accepting written comments, you can pretend you’ve listened to the people without having to actually face them in an open, public and often messy forum.

And folks in these parts are demanding to be heard on the Trump administration’s plan to open 90 percent of the nation’s offshore waters to oil and gas exploration. When it was announced a few months ago, the proposal garnered immediate praise from the giant energy conglomerates who seem to have the president’s ear on issues ranging from the Keystone XL pipeline to so-called “clean coal.” Every other interest, meanwhile, came out against the plan. Republicans and Democrats — including Gov. Charlie Baker and Attorney General Maura Healey — are united in bipartisan opposition. The commercial fishing industry and the environmental lobby, which have been bitterly at odds over the last 30 years, are standing side-by-side.

“Opening up our coast to offshore drilling would be terrible for Massachusetts,” Emily Norton of the Massachusetts Sierra Club said Tuesday. “We will be fighting this with everything we’ve got, in the courts, on the streets and at the ballot box.”

Gloucester Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken, who cut her political teeth opposing drilling as a member of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association (she is still the group’s vice president), noted a single leak from an oil well in an offshore fishing area “could devastate us all.”

She’s right. It would be the end of New England commercial fishing, which is less an “industry” like the oil and gas behemoths and more a loose confederation of small businesses ranging from shoreside bait and ice providers to marine repair yards to the boats themselves, the oceangoing equivalent of a mom-and-pop store. Together, however, they comprise a $7 billion-a-year piece of the economy.”

And that’s not taking into account Massachusetts’ recreational fishing and tourism businesses, which rely on clean water and pristine beaches to attract visitors.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Don’t expect oil drilling off Jersey Shore, Trump official tells N.J. Republicans

February 28, 2018 — WASHINGTON — Don’t expect to see oil rigs off the Jersey Shore.

That was the message the state’s Republican lawmakers walked away with following a meeting Tuesday with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.

“If it’s not off the table, it will soon be off the table,” said Rep. Chris Smith, R-4th Dist., one of four GOP representatives from the state who joined other Atlantic Coast lawmakers and Zinke at the U.S. Capitol.

President Donald Trump, overturning a five-year plan that excluded the Atlantic Coast until at least 2022, proposed opening almost the entire continental shelf to oil drilling.

Zinke plans more meetings with state officials on proposal, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has planned 23 public meetings, and those who cannot attend a session can comment at www.regulations.gov by submitted by March 9, Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift said.

Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-2nd Dist., said Zinke acknowledged that the area off the coast off New Jersey met none of the criteria for opening the area to oil drilling.

Read the full story at NJ.com

 

Massachusetts: Promise of jobs, revenue not muting foes of offshore drilling

February 27, 2018 — BOSTON — The Trump administration proposal to open new tracts of ocean to the oil industry could create “hundreds of thousands of jobs,” according to an offshore energy group whose president said the plan is part of a “larger push to increase the global competitiveness of America and to spur jobs and economic growth at home.”

But the prospect of drilling off the Massachusetts coast also brought together advocates on Monday who are often at loggerheads but are now pulling in the same direction, against the Trump administration’s plans.

Decades ago, when oil exploration at George’s Bank last occurred, the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) joined together with the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives to fight the proposal, ultimately prevailing, and those groups and others are hoping for a repeat this time around.

“It was a remarkable moment,” said Peter Shelley, senior counsel at CLF, who said it is “ridiculous” that the idea has resurfaced.

“We knew this would not die completely,” said Angela Sanfilippo, of the Fishermen’s Wives, who said she saw the devastation an oil spill can bring to a fishing community when she visited New Orleans after Deepwater Horizon spewed fuel into the Gulf of Mexico eight years ago.

CLF often supports regulations on fishing that the industry opposes, but the two groups — and others — were on the same side for Monday’s event, organized by U.S. Sen. Ed Markey one day before the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s hearing on the offshore drilling proposal in Boston.

The public meeting scheduled for 3 p.m. at Sheraton Boston Hotel is a “sham” because officials there will not take live testimony from the public and the meeting location was moved multiple times, according to Markey.

“We cannot allow George’s Bank to become Exxon’s Bank,” Markey said at Monday’s event, held at the New England Aquarium. The Trump proposal is an “invitation to disaster,” he said.

The Trump administration has proposed opening up waters to drilling and oil exploration, allowing companies to tap into some of the estimated 89.9 billion barrels of oil sitting undiscovered beneath the continental shelf. The idea has pitted food providers against fuel providers.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

North Carolina: Dozens board buses to Rally for Raleigh protesting offshore drilling

February 27, 2018 — Protestors are rallying in Raleigh Monday, speaking out against the Trump administration’s plan to open more waters to offshore drilling.

The federal government’s only scheduled public meeting in our state is happening until 7 p.m. Monday evening.

Officials with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management are discussing expanding oil and gas exploration.

Meanwhile, several environmental groups have gathered to oppose the plan.

Thirteen buses from Nags Head, Morehead City and Wilmington hit the roads Monday for Rally for Raleigh.

About four dozen citizens boarded buses in the Port City Monday afternoon. Some were activists with organizations; others were just concerned citizens, afraid of what offshore drilling could do to a place they call home.

“It’s enabling to see there are that many other people that feel this strongly about supporting our livelihoods and our way of life here,” said Dee Cortiglio.

Cortiglio and her husband retired to Wilmington 12 years ago.

“You have no idea what could happen. The risk is just too great. It’s not worth it,” Cortiglio said. “We all came here to enjoy this area and feel so threatened with these new policies. It’s not right and it shouldn’t happen here.”

In January, Governor Roy Cooper said the state will sue the Trump administration if North Carolina isn’t given an exemption from the Interior Department’s plan to open up locations in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to offshore oil and gas drilling.

Read the full story at WECT

 

Chefs heat up red snapper debate

February 27, 2018 — Priced at $32, the pan-roasted Gulf red snapper with coconut rice and Malaysian curry sauce is among the best-sellers at Carrollton Market in New Orleans.

But chef Jason Goodenough worries that it could someday disappear from his menu, if Congress goes too far in loosening regulations and allows more overfishing of the stock.

“On the macro level, my fear is that tourism is going to drop off because less and less Gulf seafood is available to us as chefs,” said Goodenough, named the 2017 chef of the year by New Orleans Magazine. “People come to New Orleans to eat, to drink and to hear music — food tourism is a major, major part of the fabric of the economy.”

Goodenough is one of 26 chefs, most of them from New Orleans, urging Congress to put the brakes on any proposed rollbacks of federal laws that protect fish populations.

Their latest target is the “Modern Fish Act,” which is set for a vote Wednesday by the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

Backers of S. 1520, sponsored by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and formally known as the “Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act of 2017,” say it would give sports anglers more access to federal waters.

While many recreational anglers cheered the Trump administration for extending the Gulf red snapper season by 39 days last year, they regarded the move as a temporary fix. They’ve touted the “Modern Fish Act” as a permanent solution and a much-needed way to bring more flexibility to fisheries management (Greenwire, Dec. 19, 2017).

Opponents, including the chefs, say the bill would weaken federal protections and result in more overfishing, damaging stocks in the long run.

Jeff Angers, president of the Center for Sportfishing Policy in Baton Rouge, La., said it is “utter folly to think that chefs are interested in conservation.”

“I know that it’s going to be of a lot of interest that some chefs want to pick a fight — ‘bless their hearts’ is what my mother taught me to say,” he said. “But I don’t think any responsible person in America looks to chefs who profit from these fishery resources to be guiding any discussion on conservation.”

Recreational fishermen have long complained that the nation’s premier fisheries law, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, has become too bureaucratic, fixated on quotas and catch limits.

Read the full story at E&E News