Saving Seafood

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

PRESIDENT: “FISHERMEN FOR TRUMP, I LIKE THAT”

June 12, 2017 — Regardless of your political persuasion, when’s the last time you remember the President of the United States talking about recreational fishing?

More specifically, as a New Jersey angler, do you recall if there was ever a moment that the Commander in Chief spoke directly to a group of New Jersey fishermen and boat builders from the Garden State? How about a personal “shout out” to Viking Yachts on the Bass River or the New Jersey based Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA)?

President Donald J. Trump came to New Jersey on Sunday to headline a fundraiser for the re-election of Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ 3rd District) at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster.

While the event was closed to the media, cellphone video posted from the event shows the President speaking to assembled guests – who sources say helped raise more than $800,000 for the MacArthur campaign – and asking where his fishermen were seated as he reaches into his suit pocket and fishes out a Fishermen for Trump bumper sticker created during the 2016 election by the RFA.

“Fishermen for Trump, I like that,” the President said on Sunday at Bedminster while holding up the bumper sticker in front of the audience, flanked by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Rep. MacArthur. “My brother loved fishing, loved fishing, and he loved Viking by the way too,” President Trump said while tucking the bumper sticker back into his jacket pocket.

For Jim Donofrio, executive director of the RFA, the president’s personal interaction with saltwater anglers and fishing industry representatives should give plenty of reason for optimism.

“I’ve had such an extraordinary response from this White House, it’s just amazing,” Donofrio said on Sunday after leaving the Bedminster event. “Just two weeks ago we were down in Washington meeting with Earl Comstock, director of policy and strategic planning at the Commerce Department, and I feel we finally have an administration that’s focused on the socioeconomic impact of recreational fishing, from fluke and sea bass all the way out to offshore tuna and billfish.”

Read the full story at The Fisherman

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

Scientists Warn About Effects Of Seismic Blasting Off Of East Coast

June 8, 2017 — Scientists are concerned about a proposal to search for oil and gas below the Atlantic Ocean floor. The proposal comes after President Donald Trump’s executive order to roll back a 5-year ban on drilling for oil off the East Coast.

The National Marine Fisheries Service is looking to authorize seismic air-gun surveys. That means explosions go off in the ocean looking for signs that oil may be available underneath.

The explosions would happen every ten seconds. Senior Science Advisor at the New England Aquarium Scott Kraus said adding sound in the water would be a problem for marine mammals like whales, who depend on sound for survival.

“So they use acoustics for finding food, finding mates, maintain social cohesion, they use sound for migration, they use sound for everything that is critical for their lives,” said Kraus.

Read the full story at Rhode Island Public Radio

Lawmakers move to protect funding for climate change research

June 8, 2017 — A bipartisan group of lawmakers is urging appropriators not to cut funding from one of the federal government’s climate change research accounts.

In a letter penned by Reps. Don Young (R-Alaska) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.), the members told appropriators to preserve the $25.3 million in funding for the National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers.

The program, established in 2008 during the George W. Bush administration, provides climate-related research to fish and wildlife managers as a way to help them “prepare for, respond to, and reduce the negative consequences of climate extremes,” according to the letter.

The Trump administration has requested $17.3 million for the program in 2018, a $7.9 million cut from current levels.

In a letter to Reps. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) and Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), the chairman and ranking member of the Appropriations Committee’s Interior and Environment panel, the members said the program has “helped natural and cultural resource managers assess climate-related vulnerabilities in their local jurisdictions as a first step in enhancing preparedness.”

“We support the reputable and important work of the [Department of Interior’s] National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers,” they wrote. “We understand that their return-on-investment is large and we encourage continued stable support and full funding for the program.”

The Trump administration proposed slashing funding for several science research accounts in its 2018 budget request, which lawmakers are beginning to consider this week.

Read the full story at The Hill

Maine senators say Congress should save Sea Grant program

June 8, 2017 — 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 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.

Maine Sens. Susan Collins, a Republican, and Angus King, an independent, are joining an effort led by Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy to save the program. The group is sending a letter to the chairman and ranking member of the commerce appropriations subcommittee to stress the importance of Sea Grant.

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

UN chief warns oceans are ‘under threat as never before’

June 7, 2017 — UNITED NATIONS — Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened the first-ever U.N. conference on oceans Monday with a warning that the seas are “under threat as never before,” with one recent study warning that discarded plastic garbage could outweigh fish by 2050 if nothing is done.

The U.N. chief told presidents, ministers, diplomats and environmental activists from nearly 200 countries that oceans — “the lifeblood of our planet” — are being severely damaged by pollution, overfishing and the effects of climate change as well as refuse.

The five-day conference, which began on World Environment Day, is the first major event to focus on climate since President Donald Trump announced last Thursday that the United States will withdraw from the landmark 2015 Paris Climate Agreement — a decision criticized by Bolivia’s President Evo Morales and other speakers.

Guterres said the aim of the conference is “to turn the tide” and solve the problems that “we created.”

He said competing interests over territory and natural resources have blocked progress for far too long in cleaning up and restoring to health the world’s oceans, which cover two-thirds of the planet.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Sen. King tells researchers that data is the key to protecting lobster industry

June 6, 2017 — Calling proposed cuts in federal science funding “unacceptable,” U.S. Sen. Angus King told lobster researchers Monday that data is the key to protecting Maine’s most valuable fishery.

Maine’s independent senator asked the 250 biologists, oceanographers and fishery managers at a global conference on lobster biology in Portland this week to give him data on the impact of the changing sea environment on lobster, including temperature, salinity and acidification, and whether that is prompting a migration of Maine’s $533.1 million a year fishery to Canada.

“If lobsters are moving toward Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, that’s a serious practical issue that will get the attention of politicians,” he said. “It’s when you start seeing jobs go away that politicians start saying ‘Gee, we’d better do something about this.’ Are they moving, if they are why, and if they are, what’s the timing? Is it five years? Twenty years? A hundred years?”

But federal funding for scientific research is under fire. President Trump’s budget calls for a 17 percent cut to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the national fisheries programs and funded almost a fifth of Maine Department of Marine Resources’ annual budget. It would eliminate the Sea Grant program, which funds research by the University of Maine’s Rick Wahle, conference co-chairman, among others.

“The lobster industry in New England is valued at close to $500 million and yet we know very little about how ocean acidification may affect this species,” Libby Jewett, NOAA’s ocean acidification director, said last fall when awarding Wahle’s team a $200,000 grant for lobster research. “These projects should help move the needle forward in our understanding and, as a result, enable broader resilience in the region.”

King said it is unlikely that Trump’s budget, containing what he considers drastic cuts in scientific funding, will pass Congress.

“The last thing we should be doing on a federal level is cutting research funding,” King said. “That is one of the most important functions of the federal government, whether it is climate change or cancer. It’s how we solve problems. To cut research, and particularly to cut research when you get the feeling that the motivation is that we don’t want to know, is unacceptable. … Congress understands this.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press 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