Your Thoughts? New rule would turn back clock for US fishing industry
A Proposed Rule – Shipping Act, Merchant Marine, and Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act) Provisions; Fishing Vessel, Fishing Facility and Individual Fishing Quota Lending Program – >click to read< In the second half of the 20th century, the U.S. fishing industry was plagued by too many boats chasing too few fish. Overfishing was rampant, profits for fishermen were low and the federal government fueled the flames by subsidizing the construction of new fishing vessels with taxpayer dollars. By the mid-1990s,,,, Now the Trump administration wants to forget all of those hard lessons learned and begin subsidizing new fishing vessel construction again in a rule proposed last November that could be finalized any day. >click to read<09:11
This author is completely biased. He ignores the needs of fishermen to have jobs in every “economy” evaluation he makes. He COMPLETELY ignored the fact that with current laws & fisheries management that 80% of the seafood eaten in the U.S. is both imported and almost completely unregulated.
The imported seafood Americans are eating is often filled with antibiotics, bacteria, and even silicone in some cases!!! Testing has recently shown the presence of e.coli is much more prevalent than anyone believed. Yet, nothing is being done!!
Meanwhile here in the U.S. our fishermen DISPUTE the numbers of fish that are recorded as caught by NOAA or the CCA…. and in at least one case in NC, they PROVED IT.
I am disappointed that fisherynation would publish SUCH A BIASED ARTICLE. A good reporter will present both sides of an issue, and at the very least in this case interview some of the people who might benefit from the proposed change. Ask them why they need the loan… What it would be used for….
It wouldve made better reading than this opinionated rant.
Amy, the last thing we want is to disappoint you. That’s certainly not our intent. We don’t always agree with the content we post here, but we post it because we feel you should be allowed to review, and provide something you might not see. I agree with much of what you said, however knowledge is power, and you’ve been enriched! The comments below indicate you’re in good company!
Mr. Moderator can you erase, or at least disregard, the first two comments posted from Dick Grachek. In my usual “ye of little faith” way, I kept posting thinking they weren’t going through, but they were. And I understand Amy’s dismay. Some of this stuff is totally nuts, not to mention disrespectful and destructive. All we can do though is call it out for what it is!
Dick, I saw the other two in the moderation panel but not on the display, I thought, he means business, and I liked that! Thank you Dicky!
When people say that fisherman pay nothing for harvesting a natural resource, they are failing to note that, said fishing boat, and its fishermen employees all pay very high income tax on the money that they earned by fishing, and would not have earned otherwise. I’d bet the average rate at 30% of their income, besides that the income earned allows them to pay state taxes, local taxes, gas taxes, sales taxes and on and on, none of which would be paid unless he caught those fish for “FREE”. Fishermen don’t catch fish as much as they catch money, and they are highly taxed already for that privilege, so the author needs to go back to school, and not push his own anti-fishing agenda, if he can’t see that simple fact.
Oh Brother! Get a load of this hill of a load that appeared on “The Hill.com”: “The proposed rule change would allow use of taxpayer dollars to offer low-interest, fixed-term loans for new commercial fishing boat construction.” “This seemingly small rule change represents a major policy reversal that looks more like Soviet-style central planning than regulatory rule-making in a market economy.”
Soviet-style central planning??? Dear Lord! C’mon man, get you some sobriety! (…too much caffeine?)
If the government comes up with a plan to support loans to fishermen for upgrading their aging fleet— and therefore, reducing some of the life-threatening aspects of their occupation (going to sea in 30 to 50 year old vessels)— it is called by this author “Soviet-style central planning”? I guess that would put it somewhere beyond, and much worse than, the dreaded “socialism”. But hey, when it comes to “subsidizing…with taxpayer dollars”, the oil, gas, and wind industries, enjoying hundreds of $billions in tax credits, cheap loans and grants, and delinquent or non-existent royalties payments, all from our “market economy” government—I guess that’s all good with this author?
For Exxon Mobil since recent tax breaks: “Total revenue rose 17.9% to $66.5 billion for the quarter. Revenue was up 17.4% to $244.4 billion for the year.”
(https://www.usatoday.com/…/exxon-mobil-profit-tr…/300076002/) And Exxon Mobil traditionally winds up with a tax credit, not a tax bill, at the end of the year (a la Amazon, Apple, etc.)!
And can you believe this load of fallacious anti-fishing talking points—right out of the Pew, EDF, Oceana BS brochure: “In the second half of the 20th century, the U.S. fishing industry was plagued by too many boats chasing too few fish. Overfishing was rampant, profits for fishermen were low and the federal government fueled the flames by subsidizing the construction of new fishing vessels with taxpayer dollars.”
When this kind of crap is an opening premise, no matter how ridiculous and downright wrong it happens to be, any invectives that follow about fishing seem justified, and even righteous, to the uninitiated and now eco-outraged public!
This writer is either completely ignorant of decades of fishing industry history; or he’s a total pawn in the hands of the anti-fishing Eco-NGOs—or both. And he apparently knows nothing about “Fisheries Economics”. That accompanying photo of the spinning reel is about the level of the Fisheries “Marine Resource Economics” sophistication in this article! When a fisherman goes to a local bank for vessel improvement funding, it’s the fishing pole in the image below that the banker most liikely has in mind as he/she shows you the door…giggling!
This “opinion piece is from “Martin D. Smith the George M. Woodwell distinguished professor of environmental economics in the Nicholas School of the Environment and the department of economics at Duke University. He is the president-elect of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade and is former editor-in-chief of the journal “Marine Resource Economics.”
Don’t forget yer’ Dramamine if you’re gonna’ read this article below from the “distinguished professor of environmental economics”!