Big Government Moves Closer to Taking Away Your Right to Fish
Thanks to our friend Sam Root of SaltyShores.com -- and one of the nation's leading outdoor photograpers -- gives us permission to use his outstanding work. We all think we're photographers. We're not. Visit Sam's site for a real visual treat.
A federal scheme to tell you where you can and cannot fish is shifting into the second phase. A confidential source tells me that the process “appears to be moving ahead behind closed doors, and we (fishing industry) are pretty much in the dark as to any details.” Big surprise, huh?
The first phase began with creation of an Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, which I investigated through a series of articles for the ESPN Outdoors website (now defunct) that caused national controversy in 2010. Using the recommendations of that task force as an excuse, President Obama bypassed the legislative process and used an executive order to create a National Ocean Council (NOC). Mission of the NOC is to zone uses of our oceans, coastal waters, and Great Lakes, with the government asserting an option to also move onto inland lakes and rivers. Visualize federal “no fishing” zones at Texas’ Lake Fork, Florida’s Lake Okeechobee, or even that little county lake down the road from you. Defenders of this Big-Government takeover insist that the process will be “bottom up,” with local shareholders making decisions. But documents clearly indicate otherwise; decisions must be approved by the NOC.
The Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) tells Activist Angler that this strategy matches a piece of failed legislation called Oceans 21, which was introduced into Congress by Rep. Sam Farr of California. That bill was a “nonsense piece of bureaucratic hogwash that Congress defeated for nearly a decade, which led eventually to the President running an end run around the legislative process to steamroll through executive process,” RFA said. But there is some good news: On Oct. 4, the House Committee on Natural Resources will hold an oversight hearing on “The President’s New National Ocean Policy --- A Plan for Further Restrictions on Ocean, Coastal, and Inland Activities.” RFA said that the hearing is “slated to examine the job, energy, and economic impacts” of the policy “that could severely restrict recreational access to U.S. coastal waters.”
"The President's new National Ocean Policy is one more example of this administration imposing burdensome federal regulations and policies that could destroy American jobs and hinder economic growth," said Committee Chairman Doc Hastings of Washington State. "This policy requires a new federal initiative called Marine Spatial Planning, otherwise known as ocean zoning, which could place huge portions of our oceans off-limits to recreation, energy production, transportation, and other commercial activities.”
Jim Donofrio, RFA executive director, added, "RFA has made it very clear that the new National Ocean Council threatens to override all of our current federal fisheries management processes, threatens the integrity of our regional fishing councils, and creates an overarching bureaucracy which could summarily dismiss all input from stakeholders. “Yes, it has the very real possibility of arbitrarily banning sport fishing activities throughout U.S. coastal waters, and we are absolutely opposed to this presidential decree."
