September 18, 2017 — PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine’s U.S. senators are signing on to a request to keep the National Sea Grant College Program funded at least at its current level.
President Donald Trump has proposed to eliminate the program, which funds science that’s beneficial to commercial fisheries, conservation and coastal businesses. It has existed for about a half century.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at NH1
September 17, 2017 — Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has recommended that President Trump modify 10 national monuments created by his immediate predecessors, including shrinking the boundaries of at least four western sites, according to a copy of the report obtained by The Washington Post.
The memorandum, which the White House has refused to release since Zinke submitted it late last month, does not specify exact reductions for the four protected areas Zinke would have Trump narrow — Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, Nevada’s Gold Butte, and Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou — or the two marine national monuments — the Pacific Remote Islands and Rose Atoll — for which he raised the same prospect. The two Utah sites encompass a total of more than 3.2 million acres, part of the reason they have aroused such intense emotions since their designation.
The secretary’s set of recommendations also would change the way all 10 targeted monuments are managed. It emphasizes the need to adjust the proclamations to address concerns of local officials or affected industries, saying the administration should permit “traditional uses” now restricted within the monuments’ boundaries, such as grazing, logging, coal mining and commercial fishing.
The memorandum, labeled “Final Report Summarizing Findings of the Review of Designations Under the Antiquities Act,” shows Zinke concluded after a nearly four-month review that both Republican and Democratic presidents went too far in recent decades in limiting commercial activities in protected areas. The act, signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt, gives the president wide latitude to protect public lands and waters that face an imminent threat.
“It appears that certain monuments were designated to prevent economic activity such as grazing, mining and timber production rather than to protect specific objects,” the report reads, adding that while grazing is rarely banned “outright,” subsequent management decisions “can have the indirect result of hindering livestock-grazing uses.”
Read the full story at the Washington Post
Order seeks to expand access on public and private lands and to promote hunting and fishing among youth, veterans, and minority communities
September 15, 2017 — WASHINGTON — The following was released by the Department of the Interior:
Today, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke signed Secretarial Order 3356, which will support and expand hunting and fishing, enhance conservation stewardship, improve wildlife management, and increase outdoor recreation opportunities for all Americans. Secretarial Order 3356 is an extension of Secretarial Order 3347, issued on Zinke’s first day, March 2, 2017. That order identified a slate of actions for the restoration of the American sportsmen conservation ethic, which was established by President Theodore Roosevelt.
The new order comes days after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a survey that found there are 2.2 million fewer hunters in America now than in 2011. The order seeks to improve wildlife management and conservation, increase access to public lands for hunting, shooting, and fishing, and puts a new and a greater emphasis on recruiting and retaining new sportsmen conservationists, with a focus on engaging youths, veterans, minorities, and other communities that traditionally have low participation in outdoor recreation activities.
“Hunting and fishing is a cornerstone of the American tradition and hunters and fishers of America are the backbone of land and wildlife conservation,” said Secretary Zinke. “The more people we can get outdoors, the better things will be for our public lands. As someone who grew up hunting and fishing on our public lands – packing bologna sandwiches and heading out at 4AM with my dad – I know how important it is to expand access to public lands for future generations. Some of my best memories are hunting deer or reeling in rainbow trout back home in Montana, and I think every American should be able to have that experience.
“Today’s Secretarial Order is the latest example of how the Trump Administration is actively moving to support hunting and other forms of outdoor recreation on public lands. This means finding ways to expand hunting and fishing on public lands, improving access, and taking necessary actions to facilitate the enjoyment of these time-honored activities by any member of our society.”
September 12, 2017 — In the Garden State, we are lucky to have beautiful natural surroundings and strong industries. But it takes more than luck to maintain this balance – it takes science. Unfortunately, scientific research is threatened by drastic cuts to non-defense spending that President Trump has proposed and Congress is currently considering. While Congress is not expected to adhere to the president’s proposal, severe cuts are likely to remain and could have substantial impact on programs in northern New Jersey.
Another agency looking after our estuaries and coasts is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is also slated for major cuts. While military spending can help keep us safe, it is not the only budget that can do so – we also need protection from natural “assaults.” Our coasts can protect us and keep us safe – but only if we protect them, which is one role of NOAA. In addition to providing recreation and food, salt marshes are natural “infrastructure,” and damage to them weakens defenses against winds and flooding from storms, hurricanes, and other coastal hazards – a lesson from Houston.
With inadequate coastal protection, even small storms can cause floods that can become expensive by closing roads, overwhelming storm drains and damaging building foundations with saltwater. The marshes themselves are at risk of being overwhelmed by rising seas, and research is critical to learn how to best protect them. The economy, the protection of natural habitat and the vitality of our communities all depend on fully funded scientific agencies.
Congressional action supporting research to protect our estuaries and coasts is essential. Tell your congressional representatives that funding science is the best investment to keep New Jersey waters and residents healthy and safe.
September 11, 2017 — Environmental groups are bracing for the Trump administration to approve controversial testing along the Eastern seaboard that would mark a significant step toward offshore drilling in waters off the coast of Florida all the way north to the Delaware Bay.
Five geophysical survey companies are seeking federal permission to shoot pressurized air blasts into the ocean every 10 to 12 seconds around the clock for weeks and months at a time, seeking fossil fuel deposits beneath the Atlantic Ocean floor.
The testing, which would cover 330,000 square miles of ocean, faces fierce opposition from environmental groups and local officials due to the possible economic and environmental effects.
Because the underwater blasts are louder than a Saturn V rocket launch and can be heard by monitoring devices more than 2,500 miles away, scientists fear long-term exposure to the noise could cause hearing loss and impair breeding, feeding, foraging and communication activity among dolphins, endangered whales, other marine mammals and sea turtles.
Some worry the blasts could cause mother whales and their calves to become separated. Commercial and recreational fisheries could also be affected if fish change their breeding and spawning habits to avoid the noise. Others fear disoriented marine life could collide with the vessels that tug the air guns or become entangled in their lines. Oceana, an international conservation group, estimates that 138,000 marine mammals could be injured in the testing process.
Seventy-five marine scientists asked the Obama administration in 2015 to reject seismic air gun testing in the Atlantic because of these threats. Twenty-eight marine biologists did the same in 2016 over concerns that testing would harm the estimated 500 endangered North Atlantic right whales.
“That’s the species we are most concerned about,” said Doug Nowacek, associate professor of conservation technology at the Duke University Marine Laboratory in Beaufort, North Carolina. “They are in decline. They live coastally along the U.S. They were hunted (by whalers) and they were slowly recovering. And now they’re starting to decline again.”
Read the full story from the McClatchy Company at the Miami Herald
Interior Department does not recommend overturning any designations
August 28, 2017 — The Interior Department’s conclusion of a contentious review of national monuments might give Congress some impetus to revisit the Antiquities Act of 1906, which presidents of both parties have used to designate monuments through executive action.
House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop on Thursday called for Congress to overhaul the Antiquities Act to place “reasonable limits” on the way presidents use the statute. Bishop’s statements came shortly before the Interior Department submitted recommendations to the White House after an executive-ordered review of monument designations made over the last two decades.
Bishop, a Utah Republican and forceful critic of federal control of public lands in the West, said in a call with reporters that the Obama administration had abused the statute that allows presidents to designate national monuments without congressional action. The Interior review, he said, was necessary because some of the designations were a result of abuse of the statute and did not allow for adequate input by local communities.
“If we don’t reform the Antiquities Act, we will have a replication of failures,” Bishop said. “If the procedure is flawed, the product is going to be flawed.”
Former President Barack Obama’s most contentious designation, the creation of the 1.3 million-acre Bears Ears monument, drew much opposition from Bishop and other Utah lawmakers, who lobbied the Trump administration for its reversal. Another of the more contentious ones is Maine’s Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, which marked its first anniversary Thursday.
August 25, 2017 — BOSTON — The future of a national monument off the coast of Massachusetts is unclear Thursday after Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke wrapped up a review of 27 monuments, but did not publicly disclose his recommendations.
The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine Monument, a roughly 4,900 square-mile area south of Cape Cod designated as a monument by President Barack Obama in 2016, was among those targeted for review by the Trump Administration.
While environmental advocates applauded Obama’s decision, made under powers granted through the Antiquities Act, the commercial fishing industry, port communities and some elected officials pushed back against its strict limits on fishing.
Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration had knocked what they described as a lack of public process and conflicts with existing marine planning processes. Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Matthew Beaton said in May that he hoped the review would yield modifications “recognizing the work that went into the ocean management plan and the public process around this issue.”
Zinke announced Thursday that he had sent his recommendations and findings to President Donald Trump. The announcement named the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts as among eight monuments Zinke visited during his 120-day review, but did not specify if he was suggesting any changes to that area or others.
Read the full story from State House News Service at the New Bedford Standard-Times
Responsibly and sustainably caught Atlantic red crab, harvested from the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Monument region, and landed in New Bedford, Massachusetts, being served at Luke’s Lobster in Washington, D.C.
August 24, 2017 — WASHINGTON — The following was released by Saving Seafood’s National Coalition for Fishing Communities (NCFC):
This afternoon, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke delivered his recommendations to President Trump on changes to existing national monuments. While the details of the Secretary’s recommendations have not been made public, the AP reported today that they pertain to a “handful” of monuments, and include boundary adjustments and restoration of public access for uses such as fishing.
In March, Mayor Jon Mitchell of New Bedford, Massachusetts, the nation’s top-grossing commercial fishing port, submitted testimony to Congress on behalf of the NCFC expressing concern over marine monuments. The mayor released the following statement in light of Secretary Zinke’s findings and recommendations today on national monuments:
“The fisheries management process under the existing Magnuson Act is far from perfect but its great strength is that it has afforded ample structured opportunities for all stakeholders to study and comment on policy decisions and for peer review of the scientific basis for those decisions. The marine monument designation process may have been well intended, but it has simply lacked a comparable level of industry input, scientific rigor, and deliberation. That is why I think the decision to step back and reassess how best to proceed on marine monument designations ought to be welcomed no matter where one stands in the current fisheries debates. We are now presented with an opportunity to integrate the monument designation process with the proven processes established under Magnuson, and that will lead to better policy and better outcomes for all stakeholders.”
Robert Vanasse, Executive Director of Saving Seafood and the NCFC, released the following statement:
“We appreciate Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s comments to the Associated Press regarding his report to the President on the review of national monuments created by prior administrations. We are encouraged by his statement that in certain national monuments, public access for uses including fishing would be maintained or restored. We agree with the Secretary that regions inside monuments can be protected ‘by keeping public access to traditional uses.’ The Secretary’s review has been professional, open, and transparent. The Secretary and his staff have been respectful and courteous. They have listened and paid attention to the concerns of our members whose interests were damaged by actions of previous administrations. The vitriol aimed at the Secretary and his staff, and the inaccurate mass e-mail campaigns from numerous groups who oppose a thoughtful review of these monuments has been unfortunate. We look forward to seeing the Secretary’s recommendations in full after they are reviewed by the White House, and we are hopeful for a return to the management of fisheries under the Magnuson-Stevens Act in the regions contained in these marine monuments.”
The following members of our National Coalition for Fishing Communities will comment upon the release of the Secretary’s full recommendations:
August 24, 2017 — WASHINGTON — The following was released by the House Committee on Natural Resources:
Today, Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) issued the following statement in reaction to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s final review of national monument designations under the Antiquities Act (Act):
“I am encouraged by the recommendations to revise previous designations that were inconsistent with the law and outside the Act’s size limitations. It is my hope that President Trump takes this opportunity to begin realigning uses of the law with its intended purpose. It’s also incumbent on Congress to pursue reforms to the Act that ensure it is being used to protect antiquities while providing meaningful local input in the designation process and reasonable continued public access to these iconic areas. Ultimately, only Congress can restore integrity to this law and prevent future abuses.”
Additionally, Chairman Bishop hosted a press call this morning to discuss the Trump Administration’s review of national monuments and reforms to the Antiquities Act:
August 24, 2017 — BILLINGS, Mont. — The following is excerpted from an Associated Press story published today:
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said he’s recommending that none of 27 national monuments carved from wilderness and ocean and under review by the Trump administration be eliminated.
But there would be changes to a “handful,” he said.
Zinke told The Associated Press that unspecified boundary adjustments for some monuments designated over the past four decades will be included in the recommendations he planned to give President Donald Trump on Thursday. None of the sites would revert to new ownership, he said, while public access for uses such as hunting, fishing or grazing would be maintained or restored.
“There’s an expectation we need to look out 100 years from now to keep the public land experience alive in this country,” Zinke said. “You can protect the monument by keeping public access to traditional uses.”