Saving Seafood

Biden Vows to Block Alaska Mine Project if Elected

August 10, 2020 — Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said on Sunday that if he’s elected, his administration would stop a proposed copper and gold mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region.

“It is no place for a mine,” the former vice president said in a statement to news media. “The Obama-Biden Administration reached that conclusion when we ran a rigorous, science-based process in 2014, and it is still true today.”

The Environmental Protection Agency under the Obama administration proposed restricting development in the Bristol Bay region but never finalized the restrictions. The agency retains the option to invoke that so-called veto process again if it decides to do so.

The mine would be built near headwaters of the Bristol Bay salmon fishery about 200 miles southwest of Anchorage. Conservation and local tribal groups say they fear the mine will devastate the fishery.

Biden said the salmon fishery is an economic powerhouse that should be protected for Alaska Natives and fishermen, according to The Anchorage Daily News.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The New York Times

New Hampshire fishing fleet seeks support from 2020 Democrats

February 10, 2020 — This is a rush transcript from “The Story with Martha MacCallum,” February 7, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Airtime for Fox News Sunday. We will be heading out to New Hampshire tomorrow. We’ll be there Monday for Special Report. Thanks for inviting us into your home tonight. That’s it for this Special Report. Fair, balanced and still unafraid. Here’s Martha. Have a great weekend. Hey, Martha.

MARTHA MACCALLUM, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: I’ll see you in New Hampshire.

BAIER: You bet.

MACCALLUM: All right. So, one hour from now, Joe Biden will be center stage at the New Hampshire Democratic debate tonight. That center spot reserved for the candidate with the best polling averages and that is still Joe Biden in New Hampshire tonight.

But Pete Buttigieg will be two to the left of him. He comes into New Hampshire with some growing momentum. Look at this brand new Suffolk University poll of the Granite State shows a surge from the former Mayor of South Bend who is now well within the margin of error to topple Bernie Sanders who has to be wondering how to deflect Mayor Pete’s advance at this point, practically on his home turf in New Hampshire next door to Vermont.

Joe Biden is fourth in that poll, but Biden is trying to fight his way back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have great respect for Mayor Pete and the service of this nation. But I do believe, it’s a risk to be just straight up with you, for this party to nominate someone who’s never held high office higher than mayor of a town of 100,000 people in Indiana.

Read the full story at Fox News

George Will on Merrick Garland and “Chevron deference.”

WASHINGTON (March 21, 2016) — The Republican party’s incoherent response to the Supreme Court vacancy is a partisan reflex in search of a justifying principle. The multiplicity of Republican rationalizations for their refusal to even consider Merrick Garland radiates insincerity.

Republicans instantly responded to Antonin Scalia’s death by proclaiming that no nominee, however admirable in temperament, intellect, and experience, would be accorded a hearing. They say their obduracy is right because:

Because they have a right to be obdurate, there being no explicit constitutional proscription against this.

Or because President Obama’s demonstrated contempt for the Constitution’s explicit text and for implicit constitutional manners justifies Republicans reciprocating with contempt for his Supreme Court choice, regardless of its merits.

Or because, 24 years ago, then-senator Joe Biden — he is not often cited by Republicans seeking validation — suggested that a president’s right to nominate judges somehow expires, or becomes attenuated, in a “political season,” sometime after the midterm elections during a second presidential term.

Or because if a Republican president tried to fill a Court vacancy during his eighth year, Democrats would behave the way Republicans are behaving.

Read the full column at the National Review