Judge opens door to forced fed testimony on lawsuit

[hilton]

Here's an article showing how the EDF-scripted process in our fisheries management is starting to come to light. How nice it would be to get NMFS thugs such as Dr. Roy Crabtree deposed under oath to see how really slimy the whole thing has become. Roy needs to be held accountable for his actions, which is clearly anti-recreational fishing which has resulted in substantial damage to our coastal fishing communities.

I'm also looking forward to the upcoming Sector Separation workshop meeting in Tampa in November. That meeting should be equally revealing regarding the players in the Catch Share/Sector Separation scam - government employees, NGO's, and commercial/charter fishermen who are acting as their pawns.

Sector Separation/Catch Shares have little to do with fish conservation, but in reality is just a profit-motivated scheme to enrich investors while simultaneously denying access to the resource to the average Joe fisherman. The people pushing for Sector Separation/Catch Shares are those who stand to profit from the windfall of government gifting them a portion of OUR natural public resource.

This is in direct violation of the Public Trust Doctrine which states;
As trustee, the state (federal government) has no power to delegate its trust duties and no freedom to transfer trust ownership or management of assets to private concerns.

The environmental.orgs, most notably EDF and PEW have had undue influence on our government regarding fisheries issues in the last few years, and they need to get the hell out of the process.

Tom


September 9, 2010
Judge opens door to forced fed testimony on lawsuit

By Richard Gaines Staff Writer Staff Writer Thu Sep 09, 2010, 11:09 PM EDT


A federal judge Thursday put a lawsuit challenging the Obama administration's New England groundfishery regulatory scheme on a tight schedule, and left the door open to an extraordinary request for discovery that could put top officials under oath to determine if the new system rooted in fishermen's catch shares was honorably chosen.

U.S. District Judge Rya Zobel set Sept. 23 for the filing of motions on the request for depositions, a big add to the suit by New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang and supported by Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk on behalf of the region's two main groundfishing ports.

Zobel also set Feb. 9, 2011, as the hearing date on the suit itself.
The expanded legal action was initiated after months of political efforts and debate within the established regulatory system proved fruitless to the industry, and just days after a small armada assembled off Martha's Vineyard, forming a marine informational picket line courting the attention of President Obama and the national media.

The overall lawsuit alleges that the federal government's Amendment 16, which imposes hard catch limits and diminished allocations on the already strapped fleet, will bankrupt the industry, leaving the fishery to outside investors. Under the catch share system, fishermen working in assigned "sectors" are granted "shares" of a "total allowable catch" for each fish stock, with those shares open for fishermen or investors to buy, sell or trade.

Lang said the unusual request for discovery in an administrative law case was essential to allow the plaintiffs to learn whether influence on the government by green groups with an anti-fishing agenda and a zealous faith in catch shares improperly helped shape the regulatory regimen.
"We don't believe they (the government officials) were honest," Lang said in an interview with the industry news Web site SavingSeafood.com. He has long-contended that Environmental Defense Fund played a pivotal role in the shaping of the re-engineered system.

NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco was vice chairwoman of EDF when she was nominated by President Obama to take control of the oceans and fisheries. EDF also has a paid senior staffer, Sally McGee, on the New England Fishery Management Council, while the council's chairman, John Papalardo, now heads an organization of Cape Cod fishermen and lobbyists closely allied with EDF and other green groups.

Lang said the best news of the day was the judge's willingness to consider the request for discovery that would allow deposing officials.
"The only win was that the judiciary has begun to look under the hood," said Lang. "They don't follow the law, and the judge is going to find that out."

Kirk said she was encouraged by the judge's effort to take a quick read on the impact of the regulatory system, which has brought consolidation and left many boats tied to the docks due to the small allocations.
"We emphasized the urgency of moving quickly," said Kirk. "Every day that goes by fishing families are being hurt.

(Judge Zobel) was tenacious," Kirk said. "She dogged the lawyers time and again."
Richard Gaines can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3464, or rgaines@gloucestertimes.com.

[CoastalOutfitters]

NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco was vice chairwoman of EDF when she was nominated by President Obama to take control of the oceans and fisheries. EDF also has a paid senior staffer, Sally McGee, on the New England Fishery Management Council, while the council's chairman, John Papalardo, now heads an organization of Cape Cod fishermen and lobbyists closely allied with EDF and other green groups.


impartial, un biased .............Nyet!

[Swells]

I'm glad to see some judicial review of the matter, at least for the Yankee ground fishing industry - I wonder if there will be any far-reaching implications? Thanks for the interesting read, Tom.

[Aces Full]

Thanks for the post Tom. I'll be keeping an eye on this one. I'd like to see someone download and share all the e-mails of all these wackos (in and out of the fed gov) like they did on those fruity global warming nuts. I'd bet some jaws would hit the floor pretty darn hard!!!

[chicapesca]

Yes, thanks Tom, very interesting.

[Possession Limit Lures]

Judge Zobel must fish, or be married to a fisherman. Thank God someone is finally interested in questioning the pack of foxes that live in and control the hen house. Great article Tom.-Mike

[hilton]

Here is a great cartoon that speaks volumes about catch shares and sector separation. The council and NMFS still refuse to present data on how much allocation each group of recreational fishermen may receive when they are separated into their own group.

One has to ask “why do they not want you to know?”

This data should be made available to all at the October Council meeting so that informed decisions can be made at the November catch shares workshop. If not, then there needs to be a general revolt by all recreational fishermen.

The NMFS needs to conform to Congressional mandates such as improving the data collection process by January 01, 2009. Here it is almost 2011 and Lubchenco/Roy Crabtree and Co. are refusing to abide by the law of the land as that mandate remains unfulfilled to this day.

Yet they push catch shares and sector separation - neither of which are mandated by Congress.

They have only been mandated by EDF.

Who is REALLY managing our fisheries?

Tom Hilton

[hilton]

The NMFS is demanding accountability from the recreational sector and therefore trying to justify the force-feeding of Sector Separation/Catch Shares to bring about that supposed accountability.

What I see is a recurring theme here; The NMFS does not want hard data, they just want fuzzy, unverifiable data so that they can continue to push their anti-recreational fishing agenda unabated.

Examples;

For decades now, they have relied upon a random phone survey to determine how many saltwater anglers are fishing for what types of fish. Utterly useless and ridiculous exercise when there are many other more efficient methods for doing so, such as a snapper stamp.

The NMFS has refused for years to include fishery assessment data regarding fish numbers around artificial reefs, oil platforms or 50 fathom mud flats. This intentionally skews the data to indicate a problem when there is none. Ask any fisherman - where do you go to catch snapper? Artificial reefs, oil platform or hard spots on the mud flats. Ask those same fishermen if there is any problem with the snapper populations and you will get a resounding NO! Snapper are more plentiful now than ever before.

Alabama's artificial reefing program has developed an area that comprises about 1% of the snapper habitat area and has proven to account for about 40% of all recreationally-caught snapper (and unspecified % of commercially-caught snapper) IN THE ENTIRE GULF OF MEXICO! This data comes from the NMFS' own numbers. The NMFS fisheries managers however, refuse to acknowledge and promote expansion of this tremendously successful concept due to pressure from environmental.orgs who oppose artificial reefs. Can you say ineptitude? Or is it corruption?

Lubchenco was vice chairwoman of the EDF board before then President-elect Obama nominated her to take control of NOAA. As an officer for EDF, she served on an EDF research project that produced a policy paper before the inauguration that urged the incoming administration to make catch shares the nation's new system for fisheries management.
Although she did not mention catch shares at her confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee, Lubchenco's first two years in office were primarily focused on promoting and implementing catch share programs. At all times, EDF has lent its voice to the campaign.

In her first budget request earlier this year, Lubchenco proposed using money appropriated for cooperative research and other science projects to build a $53 million catch share implementation budget. (Taking away money from mandated data collection to put into non-mandated Catch Share implementation).

The budget asserted that the value and benefits of catch shares have been scientifically validated.

The only citation, however, was a policy paper by EDF.

In reference to the above-mentioned lawsuit, Ouellette and New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang suggested that accusations of "improper influence on the government" by the Environmental Defense Fund and possibly other non-government organizations could be fused to the litigation.

Lang said he intended to challenge NOAA's effort to protect from release more than 3,000 pages of files in a Freedom of Information Act action the mayor initiated last December.

Lang sought all files and records of contacts by EDF and other unofficial sources to Lubchenco and underlings in the federal fisheries system during the development of a cutback in scallop allocations. At the time, Lang said it was time to "open up the hood" to expose the extra legal influences on policy making at the New England Fisheries Management Council, a federal regional agency.

What? NOAA not wanting to release information regarding how decisions are made regarding fisheries matters?

What's new? NOAA/NMFS has been making fisheries decisions based on political and ideological grounds rather than science and real data for decades now.

Ecotrust Vice President Astrid Scholz blogged that catch shares are "one of the largest government handouts (ever) of a public resource to private interests." "There is a notable lack of analysis (by NOAA) of the effects of catch shares on communities," Scholz wrote. There WILL be a significant legal challenge to this attempt at usurping the Public Trust Doctrine, if Lubchenco and cronies get their way with Catch Share implementation.

It's time for this out-of-control agency to be yanked back into line and forced to do the work for the American People - not environmental idealists and corporate investors.

Tom Hilton