Washington

WASHINGTON — Jan. 21, 2011 (Saving Seafood) In an email sent today to subscribers of WhiteHouse.gov, David Plouffe, Senior Advisor to the President writes that in Tuesday's State of the Union Address (9 p.m. EST)., "The President will talk about what America needs to do to create jobs today, make America more competitive tomorrow, and win the future for our children and our country."

Members of the Commercial Fishing Industry who have feelings about how current Obama Administration policies are affecting jobs, competitiveness, and the future for their children and the country, may wish to participate in an online forum to take place immediately after the State of the Union, when, accoding to Mr. Plouffe "White House policy experts will be available at WhiteHouse.gov to discuss the issues the President raised in the speech and to take your questions and feedback."

The link to participate is:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/state-of-the-union-2011?utm_source=email93&utm_medium=image&utm_campaign=sotu

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke is featured prominently in the promotional photo on the site, which appears to be from last year's State of the Union Address.

Accoording to Mr. Plouffe's email the White House has "also lined up a series of live online events with President Obama and other senior Administration officials on Wednesday and Thursday to answer as many of your questions as possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over the past several years, there has been an increasingly bitter adversarial relationship between the federal government and the commercial fishing industry, particularly in New England.  The relationship has further deteriorated under Dr. Lubchenco.  Shortly after Lubchenco's confirmation, the Massachusetts Congressional Delegation requested an Inspector General investigation of the law enforcement situation.  The results were stunning and highly embarrassing for NOAA.  The IG has revealed incompetent management, corrupt disposition of funds generated by fines and property seizures from fishermen, and vindictive enforcement of regulations. 

The initial response from NOAA was to look forward, not backward.  They would rewrite procedures and policies, improve communications, and become better custodians of the people's oceans.  That is just bureaucratic double-speak for doing nothing substantive.  Nobody would be punished, not in Dr. Lubchenco's NOAA.  There would be no revisiting the improper fines and penalties identified by the IG; no fisherman would be made whole for inappropriate government aggressiveness.  Nope.  Let us put this nasty business behind us and get on with ruining the fishing industry.

Everything seemed normal until the IG's final report (previously linked) of 23 September 2010.  And then — surprise! — Gary Locke became personally involved and appointed a Special Master to look into the IG's findings and determine "whether to take action to modify or remit the penalties."  This was a direct contradiction of Dr. Lubchenco's approach and a major victory for the industry.

Read the complete opinion piece from American Thinker.

 

 

 

 

 

January 17, 2011 – The policy rift with the White House over executive decisions that Congressman Barney Frank has described as unjustified, contemptible, weak-willed and destructive to the fishing industry has been pulled into the national political realm.

In no way was it encouraging to the White House to have Frank question policies whose end result, he noted in remarks last Thursday dripping with disdain, were to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

"How come in a Democratic administration," he asked, "is income distribution so skewed? This is not what Democrats should be proud of."

Yet, he continued, this is what administration policies through the Department of Commerce and its National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have wrought.

If the policies aren't changed, he added, "I have informed the Obama administration that my working relationship with them will suffer."

"Now and through the election," he said, "I can't allow this to stand."

Frank raised the specter of the Obama campaign's progressing without the active participation or blessing — or perhaps even with the passive opposition — of one of the Democratic Party's strongest national brands.

Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times.

 

 

 

 

 

NEW BEDFORD — It may still be possible to obtain some federal financial aid for the local fishing industry, U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., told the mayor's fishery advisory council Thursday.

He said he still thinks Commerce Secretary Gary Locke's denial of Gov. Deval Patrick's request for increased catch allocations was "offensive and stupid and wrong."

But in a conversation with Locke Thursday, Frank surmised that Locke was unaware of the total dismissal of economic help in a letter to the governor by Eric Schwaab, head of the National Marine Fisheries Services.

"I asked him if he read Schwaab's letter," Frank told The Standard-Times. Locke said "No."

And Locke then offered to negotiate the issue, he said.

Patrick had requested $21 million in assistance with sector management, which has added a new layer of expensive bureaucracy that Locke and Schwaab did not discuss even as they pointed to increased revenues.

Read the complete story from The Standard Times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Take Part, an online media project of Participant Media, is urging readers to take action based upon former NOAA cheif scientist Steve Murawski's comments that overfishing will not occur in U.S. waters this year by downloading the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch application.

According to their website, Participant Media was born in January 2004 when Founder Jeff Skoll assembled a team of entertainment industry executives who shared his interest in creating quality entertainment about meaningful issues; together, the team built an environment to foster storytelling that engages the audience, generates awareness of topical and interesting issues and inspires individuals to take action.

The following year, Participant's debut slate of films, North Country, Syriana, Good Night, And Good Luck and the documentary Murderball, received a total of 11 Academy Award® nominations and one Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for George Clooney’s performance in Syriana. The company's many social action efforts for these films included a program for North Country that provided support for organizations and advocacy efforts, which resulted in the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act.

Participant was responsible for a worldwide phenomenon with its 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which went on to win two Academy Awards® for Best Documentary and Best Original Song and become one of the highest-grossing documentaries of all time. Participant's social action campaign directly resulted in more than 28 thousand downloads of our online guide on how to reduce oil dependence, nine countries incorporating An Inconvenient Truth into their curriculum for high school students and the offset of over 106 thousand tons of CO2, and indirectly resulted in four bills on climate change being introduced in Congress. Global warming was now part of the international conversation.

This particular Take Part item by Jon Bowermaster links to an action item that sites the widely-challenged assertion that the oceans will be empty of all but jellyfish by 2048, stating "If current commercial fishing practices continue unabated, scientists have estimated that there could be no fish left in our seas come 2048.  Yes, that's in your lifetime."

 

 

 

The contention of Steve Murawski, NOAA’s recently retired chief scientist, is that by the close of the current fishing year, which ends April 30, federal statistics will show that New England fishermen will have taken fewer than the allotted fish in all but one stock (winter flounder). The same, according to Murawski, is true in other regions, from the South Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico; credit is being given to the new laws as well as more awareness of overfishing among both fishermen and consumers.

Before uncorking the champagne—and before the Barney Frank brigade acquires any resignations—it’s worth noting that the stats Murawski cites represent a single year. That year comes on the heels of a century during which U.S. fishermen have badly overfished every region.

Led by Senator Barney Frank (D-MA), northeastern politicos including U.S. Senator John Kerry and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and dozens of state representatives jumped on Murawski’s comments as leverage against the Obama administration's tough catch-share laws. In particular, the rhetoric has denounced marine biologist Lubchenco, who has been tagged by her opponents as “an environmental activist scientist.”

Commerce Secretary Locke sent a letter last week to Governor Patrick vowing that the federal government would not back down on catch shares, despite a study by marine scientists at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth that the strict laws were “delivering a body blow” to the local fishing industry.

In a 30-minute radio interview, Frank said he felt “betrayed” by the decision and vowed to take the fight to the White House. He and others have been agitating for Lubchenco’s resignation since last summer.

Read the read complete story from Take Part.

 

 

 

 

 

Last week's decision by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to refuse a request by the governor of Massachusetts to raise catch limits for groundfish in the Northeast has angered New England fishermen and politicians. None more so, perhaps, than leading Congressional Democrat Barney Frank of Massachusetts. In an editorial published this week in the Standard-Times of New Bedford, Frank called the move an "assault" on the fishing industry.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, agrees. "I'm very disappointed in the Secretary's decision," Collins says. She also says she was surprised it.

"I felt that the entire New England delegation made a very strong case for him to invoke his emergency authority to raise the catch limits, and I'm very concerned that his failure to do so may be catastrophic for what remains of our fishing community and fishing industry in New England," Collins says.

Locke said back in October that he was open to ordering increases in the catch, but needed evidence to support it. Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick responded in November, sending a letter and scientific report to Locke that said unnecessarily low catch limits were creating an "economic disaster" for local fishermen.

Read the story and listen to the audio from MPBN.

 

 

 

 

 

NEW BEDFORD — Calling the U.S. Commerce Department's attitude toward the fishing industry “unacceptable,” an angry U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., is threatening to withhold cooperation with the Obama White House “on a number of important issues.”

In a scathing op-ed commentary, Frank said, “Last week, the Obama administration violated assurances that it was prepared to work constructively with the fishing industry in New England.

“The administration had begun to follow through on some of what it promised last fall, but the wholly negative tone both of its decisions last week and of the language it used to justify them undermine my confidence that we can count on these commitments going forward.”

A public meeting of Mayor Scott Lang's fishing advisory council is set for 4 p.m. Thursday to discuss the refusal of Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to invoke his emergency powers to raise catch limits and supply financial help for the regional fishing industry as it struggles with a new catch share system.

Read the complete story from the South Coast Today.

 

 

 

 

 

The federal government's key agency overseeing fishing in New England is aligned against fishermen and federal officials have callously and carelessly ignored an industry in crisis, Representative Barney Frank wrote today in a blistering opinion article against the Obama administration's Commerce Department.

The article, published on the New Bedford Standard-Times' website, follows Commerce Secretary Gary Locke's decision last week to reject an emergency request to raise catch limits of certain fish. Governor Deval Patrick and members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation had made the request to aid the decimated fishing industry and followed up the request with a report from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, that provided ways to raise the limits without endangering fishing stocks.

Locke said the report did not provide enough new scientific evidence that showed such a change in policy was warranted.

"The Obama administration violated assurances that it was prepared to work constructively with the fishing industry in New England,'' Frank wrote. "… It is now clear that the secretary is unwilling to exercise independent judgment and that an anti-fishing attitude prevails in the National Marine Fisheries Service.

"This is unacceptable."

Frank had a warning for the administration. "I have worked with the Obama administration on a number of important issues since the president came to office … But the president must understand that if the administration persists in such a serious assault on the livelihood of the working men and women of the fishing industry, it will make it difficult for me and others to maintain this degree of cooperation."

Read the complete story from The Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

Congressman Barney Frank Monday described U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke as a weakling without the "courage" to stand up to his own subordinates.

In a radio interview, Frank said he felt "betrayed" by the decision conveyed in the letter Locke sent Friday — to him and Gov. Deval Patrick — that rejected a scientific and economic finding that the federal government's catch share regulatory regimen, in combination with ultra conservative catch limits, had delivered a body blow to the groundfishing industry based in Gloucester and New Bedford.

Frank, whose district includes New Bedford, described Locke as having been "recaptured" by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration administrator Jane Lubchenco and Eric Schwaab, her choice to head NOAA's Fisheries Service.

Lubchenco, an environmental activist scientist, was instrumental in creating the Obama administration's catch shares policy, and co-writing a policy paper for the Environmental Defense Fund before the 2008 presidential election, urging catch shares as a means of ending overfishing.

That moment has arrived, Steve Murawski, NOAA's recently retired chief scientist, asserted in a lengthy interview with the Associated Press last week. He asserted that the nation this year will mark the "milestone."

Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times.

 

 

 

 

 

Senators John F. Kerry, Scott Brown, and Representatives Barney Frank and John Tierney became aware through various channes that Special Master Charles Swartwood may not have been provided the resources to complete his work in a timely and through manner. Accordingly, they have made it clear that they wish to put their resources at his disposal to give him the tools neccesary to complete his task.

In a letter to Special Master Charles Swartwood, they write “to request that he provide a detailed list of the current resources and personnel available for his investigation as well as any additional resources or personnel that he thinks may be needed to complete the review within the reasonable 4 month time frame from the day of his appointment. “

They write “it is crucial that your efforts as Special Master result in the closure with fair compensation of many of the cases cited by the Inspector General as well as additional cases we submitted for review.”

Read the letter.