Tag Archives: Obama
Will Obama fence off more of the ocean? US fishermen are fearful
American fishermen are deeply fearful that the Obama White House could cut them off as early as this week from major fishing areas of the U.S. continental shelf on both coasts, further restricting one of the most highly regulated fishing industries in the world. At stake are millions of dollars in fishing revenue and hundreds of jobs — and in some parts of the country, the survival of an embattled way of life that has persisted for centuries but is facing environmentalist pressures unlike anything before. “This totally affects us, but we don’t know what’s going on,” one fishing boat owner, who asked to remain anonymous, told Fox News. “We are just out of the loop. No one even wants to say what effect it will have.” “They are throwing all fishermen under the bus, along with their supporting industries”. Behind-the-scenes maneuvering to get influential Democratic legislators to support such new preservation areas publicly — a tough call, since the affected fishermen are also constituents. So far, many of the Democrats are keeping a low profile. One exception has been U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. Blumenthal was backed by some 40 environmental groups — but not by many of his neighboring Democratic Senate colleagues. Read the story here 14:10
U.S. Seafood Producers to White House: Don’t Harm Fisheries for Ocean Monuments
Today, in advance of the “Our Oceans” conference being held later this week at the State Department, the National Coalition for Fishing Communities (NCFC) delivered a letter to the White House calling on the President to refrain from designating new marine monuments under the Antiquities Act. Copies of the letter were also delivered to the offices of Senators representing the states of the signers. The letter, with over 900 fishing industry signers and supported by 35 fishing organizations that represent the majority of domestic seafood harvesters, instead urges the President to conserve marine resources through the federal fisheries management process established by the bipartisan Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Management Act (MSA). Read the story here 11:06
Will Obama use the State Departments “Our Oceans” Conference to designate canyons and seamounts National Marine Monument?
The third installment of the Our Ocean forum will convene in Washington, D.C., this week and the betting window is open on whether the Obama administration will use the event to announce the designation of new National Marine Monuments. No one — neither conservationists nor fishing stakeholders — claims to know exactly what will happen when the two-day, international event opens Thursday. But it has not escaped anyone’s attention that the Obama administration has used the same forum in the past to make similar announcements. The Obama administration’s decision not to use the Antiquities Act to designate any portion of Cashes Ledge as a monument validated fishing stakeholders and others who characterized the proposal — which originated with the Conservation Law Foundation, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Pew Charitable Trusts — as an end-run around the existing fisheries management system and wholly unnecessary given the existing protections already afforded the area. Read the story here 07:55
Obama brings fresh attention to an expanded marine sanctuary (and the fishermen it hurts)
Yesterday, while visiting Hawaii’s Midway Atoll, President Obama officially made the size of a marine monument twice the size of Texas while highlighting his Climate Change commitment. The monument’s new size has angered local fishermen and Native Hawaiians. The monument, created by President George W. Bush in 2006, puts more land and waters off limits to local fishermen and recreation, and Obama’s critics are calling his actions heavy-handed. The monument is now the largest protected marine Environment in the world or roughly 3.5 times the size of California. A native of Hawaii, Obama used his executive power to expand the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, making large swaths of fertile fishing grounds off-limits to fishermen. That means they now have to travel at least four times further out to sea to catch fish like tuna, a costly adventure that actually emits more greenhouse gas emissions because of the increased travel time. Hawaiians not only consume three times more fish than landlocked Americans but fishing is a major source of local commerce. Read the rest here 15:03
Pacific Council on proposed Marine Monument
Today, the 
Pacific Fishery Management Council sent a letter to President Obama expressing concern about “how these National Monument designations would impact our fishery management efforts in the west coast Exclusive Economic Zone.” In it, the Council stresses: 1. All of the areas proposed for designation already have significant protections from specific fishing activities. For example – Essential Fish Habitat requirements under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act; and Cowcod Conservation Areas off the Southern California coast. 2. Fishery management decisions are best done in a thoroughly transparent public process rather than being done with limited involvement of certain stakeholders. 3. The social and economic importance of those areas cannot be understated. Read the letter from the PFMC, and the letter from the Council Coordination Committee by clicking here 07:44
Hawaii fishermen upset at Hawaii monument expansion
President Barack Obama is to travel to Hawaii this week to mark the new designation of the expanded Papahanaumokuakea Marina National Monument which he signed despite strong opposition from the Hawaii fishing industry. President Obama who was born in Hawaii is expected to cite the need to protect public lands and waters from climate change. The Western Pacific fishery Management Council of which American Samoa is a member voiced disappointment with Obama’s decision, saying it “serves a political legacy” rather than a conservation benefit. Council member from American Samoa Taulapapa Willie Sword told KHJ News in a recent interview the territory should be concerned with the Hawaii monument expansion because “we could be next.” There was also opposition from the fishing industry in Hawaii. Sean Martin, the president of the Hawaii Longline Association, said his organization was disappointed Obama closed an area nearly the size of Alaska without a public process. “This action will forever prohibit American fishermen from accessing those American waters. Quite a legacy indeed,” he said in an email to The Associated Press. The Pew Charitable Trusts helped lead the push to expand the monument. Read the rest here 11:39
Nils Stolpe: Marine Monuments – Don’t let your piece of the ocean be next!
In an effort coordinated by the National Coalition for Fishing Communities (NCFC), thirty four domestic fishing industry trade groups have signed on to a letter to President Obama opposing a strong push by environmental groups and the billion dollar foundations that support them to create marine sanctuaries on both coasts during his last days in office. I don’t need to tell you how much industry effort has been expended over the last several decades to make fishery management under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act an effective and transparent science-based process. Anyone with an interest in our domestic fisheries, whether on the water, in a shore-based fishing-dependent business or in any way associated with fishing should be committed to improving this process, and President Obama is being urged to circumvent it to bolster his “environmental legacy.” Yesterday the White House announced that the President will be expanding the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument off Hawaii, which was originally created by President Bush in 2006. This will be a no-fishing zone of over half a million square miles. Needless to say, it’s a big hit with the enviros, but it was done without any public process.
The letter, with a list of the fishing organizations that are on board so far, is at a web portal set up by the NCFC > Click Here <. Even if you are a member of one of those organizations, please take the few minutes required to personally sign. If you are in a fishing organization that hasn’t, please encourage the leadership to do so. And please encourage as many other folks as possible. The time for top-down governmental dictates was over years ago. We have a system that is starting to work both for the fishermen and the fish and we can’t let it be short circuited. There’s too much at risk.
Anti Fishing Obama Expands Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument
Obama on Friday will expand a marine national monument off the Northwest Hawaiian Islands to make it the world’s largest marine protected area, encompassing nearly 600,000 square miles and thousands of species of sea life, including endangered sea turtles, whales and black coral beds. The action will make it illegal to conduct any commercial fishing and any type of mineral extraction in the expanded Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, the original 140,000 square miles of which was first protected by President George W. Bush in 2006 and designated a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 2010. Obama will travel to Hawaii next week to commemorate the new monument with a trip to Midway Atoll, located within the newly protected area, to highlight “how the threat of climate change makes protecting our public lands and waters more important than ever,” the White House said. Read the rest here 03:54
Antiquities Act Proposal would devastate California’s fishing industry – D.B. Pleschner
California’s fisheries provide healthy, sustainable food, but that could change under a dangerous new proposal being circulated, until recently, behind closed doors at the Legislature. California’s fishing community – more than 40 harbors, chambers of commerce, seafood processors and recreational and commercial fishing groups – has united to oppose the proposal to declare virtually all offshore seamounts, ridges and banks off the coast as monuments under the Antiquities Act and permanently close these areas to commercial fishing. After pursuing rumors, fisheries groups discovered the proposal, along with a sign-on letter encouraging legislative support. But no one bothered to seek any input from recreational and commercial fishermen. Even worse, there has been no scientific review or economic analysis, no public participation and no transparency. Read the rest here 10:46
WPFMC asks for transparent analysis of proposed marine monument expansion
The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council on Wednesday agreed to a resolution that asks the U.S. government to address a suite of concerns before acting on the proposed expansion on the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument or MNM in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Council members Suzanne Case, Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources chair, and Julie Leialoha, Conservation Council for Hawaii president, voted against the proposal. National Marine Fisheries Service or NMFS Pacific Islands Regional Administrator Michael Tosatto abstained. The resolution requests a “public, transparent, deliberative, documented and science-based process” to address the proposed expansion, which could prohibit fishing in two-thirds of the U.S. exclusive economic zone, i.e., waters out to 200 miles from shore, around Hawaii. The resolution is being sent to President Obama, the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the secretaries of Commerce, the Interior and State. Read the rest here 16:47
California Offshore National Marine Monuments Proposal Would Ban Commercial Fishing of SRB’s
More than 40 West Coast commercial and recreational fishing groups, working in conjunction with the National Coalition for Fishing Communities, has written to the White House, the Secretaries of Commerce and Interior, and officials in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in opposition to the proposed designation of marine monuments off the coast of California that prohibit commercial fishing. A recent proposal called on President Obama to declare as National Monuments virtually all Pacific seamounts, ridges, and banks (SRB’s) off the California coast using his executive authority under the Antiquities Act. If enacted by executive order, these new monuments would permanently close virtually all of California’s offshore SRB’s to commercial fishing. Read the rest here 10:00
Nils Stolpe: MPA’s – ENGOs and Foundations next attempt to halt fishing – Déjà vu all over again
Back in 2002, when various groups and people had figured out that the creation of things called marine protected areas (MPAs) could be sold politically as a mechanism for “saving the oceans,” the people at the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Conservation Law Foundation hired a marketing firm, Edge Research, to demonstrate that New Englanders and Maritime Canadians would be firmly behind using them to put even more fishermen out of work. Well, borrowing from a line made popular by the late Heather O’Rourke in the movie Poltergeist II, they’re back! Only this time they’re trying to convince the Obama White House that two areas off the New England coast are deserving of protection in perpetuity by being designated as National Monuments. Read the rest here 11:36
California fishermen, enviros fight over proposal to protect underwater seamounts.
California fishermen first learned of the proposal in May, out of the blue. In a six-page, unattributed document, the proposal suggested turning several of the state’s offshore seamounts, ridges and banks into national monuments, permanently closing them to fishing as well as oil and gas development. Under the federal Antiquities Act of 1906, presidents have the power to designate monuments, and implicitly, the proposal asked President Barack Obama to exercise that executive power. “It’s fishing management by fiat,” says Diane Pleschner-Steele, director of the California Wetfish Producers Association. Among the partners behind the proposals is Marine Conservation Institute, and MCI President Lance Morgan, a marine biologist, disagrees that he’s trying to avoid due process, and says that’s just how these things get done. Read the rest here 08:08
The Envirocons keep pressing for Atlantic Ocean monuments
In the final months of President Barack Obama’s term, they’re hoping he’ll protect an underwater mountain and offshore ecosystem in the Gulf of Maine known as Cashes Ledge. They also want him to protect a chain of undersea formations about 150 miles off the coast of Massachusetts known as the New England Coral Canyons and Seamounts. The White House Council on Environmental Quality said in March, and reiterated last week, that while the New England Coral Canyons and Seamounts area is under consideration, Cashes Ledge currently is not. There are no marine national monuments in the Atlantic Ocean. The Conservation Law Foundation, which has been leading the Cashes Ledge effort, is continuing its campaign. It says that a coalition of environmental groups collected more than 250,000 signatures between August 2015 and this month in support of protecting both areas. Read the rest here 09:56
The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands monument expansion should be opposed – Lyn McNutt
If you eliminate the U.S. (Hawaiian) fishery, then the area will be completely open to Illegal, Unregulated, Unreported (IUU) fisheries. U.S. fishers are regulated in equipment, species interactions (takes), amount of fish caught and they have VMS onboard as well as observers. The White House supposedly wants to regulate IUU fishing, but this action opens the door for IUU in the area. Who will stop IUU and how will they enforce rules? The state of Hawaii (DLNR) is very quick to claim how they are trying to create a “community” managed system of fisheries ecosystem management with consultation and community involvement in the planning, implementation and operation of community-based fishing. This top-down edict is a complete 180 from “community.” The Antiquities Act does not require any public input. A small group is forcing their view on the people of Hawaii Nei without any discussion of the public (local — not Mainland) perception on the use of the area. This is not pono. Read the op-ed here 10:31
Who’s Behind A Stealth Ad Against The Marine Monument Expansion?
The author seems to believe a stealth video created by an unknown source, most likely a very tiny group of individuals and citizens with a very meager budget, is outrageous, and destructive to a cause created by a billion dollar ENGO PEW, that has unlimited resources, paid soldiers, and a mega network of PEW spawned ENGO’s like Oceana, EDF! Burgeoning grass-root groups are ramping up their campaigns for and against the proposed expansion of Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument as President Obama weighs whether he should single-handedly create the world’s biggest marine reserve around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Civil Beat requested lists from both groups — Expand Papahanaumokuakea and Fishing Means Food — to better assess who actually backs the campaigns. Read the rest here 09:54
Obama’s moving closer to creating the world’s largest marine reserve — in Hawaii
Obama may have chosen to locate his library in his adopted home state of Illinois, but a new move by Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) suggests he may leave his biggest environmental footprint in his home state of Hawaii. Schatz sent a letter Thursday to the president asking him to consider expanding the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, which President George W. Bush created a decade ago, to more than four times its current size of 139,800 square miles. The senator, who has emerged as a key broker between Hawaiian fishing and other local interests and the federal government, has included a carve-out in his proposal so recreational and subsistence fishing operators from Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau can continue to use certain areas that are outside the monument’s current boundaries. An active fishing spot around the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s weather buoy 51101 would remain open, though all the areas within the expanded monument would be closed to fishing or other forms of exploitation such as deep-sea mining. Read the rest here 08:05
Alaska pushes back on Arctic plan with Canada
Alaska’s leaders in Juneau and Congress had harsh words for a joint March 10 statement from the White House and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announcing plans for new emissions caps on the oil and gas industry and preservation of significant chunks territory in each country’s Arctic. The statement was released as Trudeau made the first official visit by a Canadian prime minister to the White House in nearly two decades. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and Gov. Bill Walker all noted the omission of Alaska in drafting the 10-page agreement in formal statements of their own. The sentiment is similar to comments made following the president’s three-day visit to Alaska last summer, which was used as a vehicle to promote his climate change policies. Read the rest here 12:41
Obama Proposes New Rules For Offshore Oil Wells – How about Observer Coverage??
The proposal Monday by the Interior Department builds on standards industry has set for so-called blowout preventers since the April 2010 disaster on the Deepwater Horizon rig, and establishes schedules for maintenance and repair. If adopted, the rules would mandate outside audits of equipment, require each device to have a backup shear to cut a pipe, and call for real-time monitoring onshore for heat and pressure at the well. Read the rest here 10:37
Obama accuses the China of ‘using its size and muscle’ to push other nations out of the South China Sea
China’s leadership has hit back at U.S. President Barack Obama who condemned the country for constructing an artificial island in the disputed South China Sea. Only yesterday, Obama claimed Beijing was ‘using its sheer size and muscle to force countries into subordinate positions’ amid reports of controversial land reclamation efforts. Read the rest here 08:57
President Obama Protects Bristol Bay from Oil and Gas drilling
Today, he signed a Presidential Memorandum that withdraws these beautiful and pristine waters from all future oil and gas drilling. “These waters are too special and too valuable to auction off to the highest bidder,” the President said. Here are five things you need to know about Bristol Bay: Read the rest here 17:53
Natural News gets an A+ for integrity! – Obama now seizing ocean territory via executive orders
I mean, What the Hell is an extra 700,000 square miles, right?
(NaturalNews) President Obama’s efforts to destroy American commerce by limiting U.S. companies’ abilities to explore new sources of energy took another turn recently when the nation’s chief executive used his phone and pen to put new vast areas of ocean off-limits. The announcement was made in June by Secretary of State John Kerry , who also urged leaders at an international summit to take rapid steps to reduce “overfishing” and pollution. Read more here 11:08
Greenhouse gases endanger the B.C. coast’s economy – British Columbia’s scallops
Karl Nerenberg has been reporting on federal politics from Parliament Hill for rabble.ca since September, 2011. In his long career, he has won numerous awards as a broadcaster and documentary filmmaker. From Keystone, Obama (speaks with what appears to be genuine conviction), Harper, (greenhouse gas emissions argument in a somewhat sly way.) and British Columbia’s scallops are victims of carbon dioxide emissions opinion. Read more here rabble.ca 11:26
Department of the Interior, Obama, consider sanctions over Iceland’s whaling
Iceland may face trade sanctions after U.S. officials formally declared that the island nation’s whaling is undermining an international ban on commercial trade in whale products. “Killing endangered fin whales is not only brutal, it’s short-sighted,” said Taryn Kiekow Heimer of the Natural Resources Defence Council. “Iceland should not be allowed to ignore the fact that, regardless of some temporary financial reward, this practice is simply unsustainable and cruel,” she said. Read more@ smh,com 08:10
Frank backs White House fishery push
Recently retired Congressman Barney Frank said Thursday he would “absolutely” be willing to go to the White House as an advisor to and friend of Sen. Elizabeth Warren to seek President Obama’s support for executive orders and congressional appropriations to relieve the Northeast groundfishery disaster.
Frank, a staunch critic of Lubchenco’s policies almost from the start of her NOAA reign, described her in a telephone interview as an intellectually dishonest environmental zealot and enemy of the fishing industry. Read more
