This is an email we received from a fisherman who fishes off the coast near Moorehead City.
I enjoyed speaking with you yesterday. I hope I was able to explain the problem well. Albert Einstein said that “a problem well defined is a problem half solved.” I will try to give you some information in this e-mail that I did not cover yesterday.
The bureaucrats on the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (SAFMC) told me that I should talk with my congressmen if I did not like the way they were mismanaging our fisheries. They said the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) forced them to take these swift and drastic actions. I called Rep. Walter Jones and spoke with Joshua Bolin. He was very helpful and understanding of the problems the hard deadlines in the MSA were creating. He explained to me that PEW “charitable” Trust had lobbied congress for those hard deadlines. They threaten to sue the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) if they do not follow the hard deadlines that require the use of admittedly flawed best available data. Mr. Bolin told me that the House had bipartisan support for two bills that would relax the hard deadlines and allow for some flexibility in fishery management. Barney Frank of all people supports this. The two bills in the house are HR 3307 and HR 1584. I also called Senator’s Hagan and Burr. Hagan’s people were not very helpful and did not want to get involved. Senator Burr’s women in charge of fishery policy is Kara Weishaar. She was a little more sympathetic to the problem. She told me that the Senate bill S 1255 was similar to the ones in the House. It also has bipartisan support from people like Sen. Schumer of NY. I called many other Congressmen and women only to be told that I was not their constituent and I needed to contact my congressmen. The politicians and bureaucracies have created a vicious cycle that gives unelected bureaucrats the power to rule us with an iron fist and give you the run around if you try to do something about it.
PEW “charitable” Trust is the environmental group most responsible for this attack on our GOD given freedom. There are many others like Oceana and EDF that are involved as well. You can read PEW’s view of things at here . They make a good case with their data based on bad science. I told them that I am not against regulations and wanted to work together on ways to allow us to responsibly harvest our Nation’s resources and give the public access to them. They did not want to work with me on anything. Our President appointed Dr. Jane Lubchenco to the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). She is a special interest insider from the billion dollar multi national PEW “charitable” Trust. That seems like a conflict of interest. PEW has the money, power, and influence to attack a minority group without the money, power, or numbers to defend itself. I believe our only hope is to get the support of the American people. They need to know that this is their freedom to recreationally fish on our sea floor or access our Nation’s seafood through commercial fisherman.
The Sec. of Commerce, Gary Locke, still has to sign Amendment’s 17A and B into law. He is the head bureaucrat over NOAA, NMFS, and the SAFMC. We the people must flood his office with snail mail, e-mails, and phone calls asking him not to sign 17A or B. These two amendments along with another closure they passed last year will close most of the US South Atlantic sea floor to all recreational and commercial bottom fishing. This is all based on bad science and blissful ignorance of the fishery. This was a fishery that was recovering from overfishing in the 70’s and 80’s. The regulations these bureaucracies had put in place over the past couple of decades have been working. They claim to have continued to mismanage our fishery to the point of collapse. Only a government bureaucracy could claim to do a worse job than they really are and receive more money and power. You can learn more about what the SAFMC is doing at their website. www.safmc.net.
For More Information.
If you fish in federal waters more than three miles off the South Atlantic coast, chances are there is a meeting scheduled in the coming weeks regarding federal fisheries that is of interest to you. Please see the list below and mark your calendars. All meetings are open to the public and public comment is being solicited as noted below. Additional information, including meeting agendas and briefing book materials will be posted on the meeting information page as they become available
A common sense approach to regulating the South Atlantic Snapper Grouper Fishery. I have mentioned most of these things in other post. These plans may not necessarily be what I would do in a perfect world. We are bound by law to work within the guidelines of the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) and we must make the best of a bad situation. Read more here.
From the PEW Environmental Group
Fish filled the seas 500 million years ago in a burst of new life on Earth. Ever since, they have kept the ocean ecosystem delicately balanced, fed people, supported a critical industry and brought recreation to millions who enjoy fishing, diving and boating.
Yet today, fish are disappearing at an alarming rate.
The South Atlantic coastal region boasts a complex ecosystem of estuaries, coral gardens, deepwater canyons and shallow tropical waters. These environmental jewels draw divers, anglers and tourists from around the world who expect healthy waters and robust fish populations. Chronic overfishing has put all of this at risk. Many of this region’s fish live long—some for decades—but they are snapped up before reaching their best spawning years. Like an orchard harvested before its fruit is ripened, overfishing is destroying what takes years to nurture.
You can see their website here.
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