According to local news reports, the government is here to help us once again. Federal legislators have introduced a bill that would give 80 million a year for 5 years to commercial fishermen. House bill 4914, would pay fishermen to work with scientists on research trips, and use their boats for marine debris removal, and coastal cleanups.
Dear Congress,
They say that once people are elected to national office, they become part of the Washington bureaucracy, and can no longer identify with the people who elected them. I believe it! The entire country is being wrecked by your wild spending and the destruction of our wealth producing industries, and your solution is more million dollar band aids! Why is it that the most uneducated fisherman can see that you are spending and regulating us into oblivion, but you continue to whistle along your merry way as if Washington is a safe house for compulsive spenders?
What are we supposed to believe? That you are spending out of compassion for the poor fisherman who has been regulated out of business? That someone else is responsible for the loss of our livelihoods, and you are generously trying to help out? That we should just be grateful – especially in November – for any crumbs that fall our way? Or, are we supposed to be suckered into the latest Washington fairy tale, that we can spend our way out of debt?
Do you even understand that house bill 4914 is not about helping the commercial fishing industry, but just gives the bureaucracy more money to dispense for their own purposes? You are dealing with fishermen! Get it… fish-ermen. They catch fish…and lobster…and crabs…and shrimp. For years, you facilitate the destruction of their livelihoods with open ended legislation and an uncontrolled bureaucracy, and now you are going to ride to the rescue by turning them into marine garbagemen, and bureaucratic flunkies!
Of course there is nothing wrong with scientific research, and cleaning our seashores is a commendable mission, but in the nation’s fishermen, you have a giant pool of highly skilled wealth producers, and you want to give them orange vests and have them pick up beer bottles after spring breakers roll through. In case the fact has not yet made the rounds in Washington, government does not produce wealth – but fishermen do. Somebody has to make the money that you spend, and the nation’s fishermen are just waiting to be turned loose.
If you really want to do something for commercial fishermen, why don’t you just keep the 80 million bucks, and get that Magnuson-Stevens Act back in committee. How about an amendment that eliminates Individual Fishing Quotas? Maybe you’ve never even heard of IFQ’s, but they are job destroying, anti-capitalist, competition stifling, youth excluding, tools of socialism. How about looking into the ways in which fishery managers are manipulating the MSA to restrict fisheries, rather than insure that there is a consistent and sustainable supply of seafood available to the American public?
Right here in little old Key West, we have several hundred fishermen sitting on their cans, while prodigious amounts of Kingfish surround our island. The entire year’s net quota got filled in 3 days, and the piddling hook and line quota in less than a month – even with a daily trip limit. Fishery managers horde the stocks as if they are their own personal stash, and justify it with a fantasized threat of potential over-fishing. I am only familiar with fishing in the Florida Keys, but I have a gut feeling that this same scenario is being played out in hundreds of communities across the country. Maybe you ought to check it out – before – we’re shut down completely.
Federal fishery managers claim you mandated them with the MSA to place quotas in all fisheries by 2011. This is a highly dubious claim, but their interpretation is always final. So why not just ask them why they think we need quotas in stable fisheries that have only a fraction of the allowable fishing effort of the past? With limited entry, area closures, gear restrictions, size limits, seasonal stoppages, reporting requirements, license limitations, tracking devices, and trip limits, it would be impossible to over-fish anything today.
Fishery managers, and those who populate the fishing bureaucracy, are not bad people, but they have been given too much power, and we all know what power does. Our industry has always been supportive of responsible stock management, but the fishing bureaucracy has devolved into managing both our businesses and our lives. So how about asking them why they require me to tell them how much taxes I paid, how much food I ate, and what use they intend to make of my ethnicity? What exactly, does this information have to do with ensuring sustainable stocks of seafood for America?
Fishery managers would have you believe they need to know every detail of our lives, so they can make us more efficient harvesters of their resource. I’m sure I don’t need to point out the absurdity of free-spending bureaucrats teaching business people how to be more efficient. Suffice to say, that the most illiterate commercial fisherman, knows far more about holding down costs, than the most highly educated bureaucrat.
I do not know the representatives who introduced the bill, but I have chatted a couple of times with our Congresswoman, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who is a co-sponsor. She seems like a warm person, and I don’t doubt her sincere wish to help commercial fishermen. This bill, however, is not the way. Welfare jobs for skilled professional fishermen, solve nothing. With all the problems facing our country, no one expects you to drop everything, and spend the next 6 months familiarizing yourselves with commercial fishing issues. What you can do though, is stop this mad rush to destruction.
Place a 5 year moratorium on implementing anything from the Magnuson-Stevens Act. No matter what crisis promoting bureaucrats, and grant seeking environmentalists tell you, nothing bad will happen. Even without the MSA, fishery managers have unlimited power to protect every stock of fish in the ocean. There are so many fishery regulations in force, and so many laws on the books, that any legitimate problem that crops up could easily be dealt with. In actuality, the current version of the MSA, gives blank check authority for fishery managers to implement their entire wish list, but represents nothing more than ‘piling on’ for commercial fishing.
To put it as bluntly as possible, it’s time to – Give us a break! We can’t possibly run our businesses effectively while dealing with the tidal waves of regulation that are always bearing down on us! They are coming fast and furious from every direction. It’s not bad enough that we have to deal with federal, state, and local governments, but we also have to do battle with marine sanctuaries, environmental organizations, and the courts. Congress is the only place we can get some relief, so how about letting us know if maintaining a strong commercial fishing industry is important to the nation. If not, please tell us now! If it is important, then how about some real relief?
P.S. It won’t cost the taxpayers a penny.
Sincerely,
Pete
Help for Fishermen?
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010 Posted in Commentary, Fishery Issues, Industry
According to local news reports, the government is here to help us once again. Federal legislators have introduced a bill that would give 80 million a year for 5 years to commercial fishermen. House bill 4914, would pay fishermen to work with scientists on research trips, and use their boats for marine debris removal, and coastal cleanups.
Dear Congress,
They say that once people are elected to national office, they become part of the Washington bureaucracy, and can no longer identify with the people who elected them. I believe it! The entire country is being wrecked by your wild spending and the destruction of our wealth producing industries, and your solution is more million dollar band aids! Why is it that the most uneducated fisherman can see that you are spending and regulating us into oblivion, but you continue to whistle along your merry way as if Washington is a safe house for compulsive spenders?
What are we supposed to believe? That you are spending out of compassion for the poor fisherman who has been regulated out of business? That someone else is responsible for the loss of our livelihoods, and you are generously trying to help out? That we should just be grateful – especially in November – for any crumbs that fall our way? Or, are we supposed to be suckered into the latest Washington fairy tale, that we can spend our way out of debt?
Do you even understand that house bill 4914 is not about helping the commercial fishing industry, but just gives the bureaucracy more money to dispense for their own purposes? You are dealing with fishermen! Get it… fish-ermen. They catch fish…and lobster…and crabs…and shrimp. For years, you facilitate the destruction of their livelihoods with open ended legislation and an uncontrolled bureaucracy, and now you are going to ride to the rescue by turning them into marine garbagemen, and bureaucratic flunkies!
Of course there is nothing wrong with scientific research, and cleaning our seashores is a commendable mission, but in the nation’s fishermen, you have a giant pool of highly skilled wealth producers, and you want to give them orange vests and have them pick up beer bottles after spring breakers roll through. In case the fact has not yet made the rounds in Washington, government does not produce wealth – but fishermen do. Somebody has to make the money that you spend, and the nation’s fishermen are just waiting to be turned loose.
If you really want to do something for commercial fishermen, why don’t you just keep the 80 million bucks, and get that Magnuson-Stevens Act back in committee. How about an amendment that eliminates Individual Fishing Quotas? Maybe you’ve never even heard of IFQ’s, but they are job destroying, anti-capitalist, competition stifling, youth excluding, tools of socialism. How about looking into the ways in which fishery managers are manipulating the MSA to restrict fisheries, rather than insure that there is a consistent and sustainable supply of seafood available to the American public?
Right here in little old Key West, we have several hundred fishermen sitting on their cans, while prodigious amounts of Kingfish surround our island. The entire year’s net quota got filled in 3 days, and the piddling hook and line quota in less than a month – even with a daily trip limit. Fishery managers horde the stocks as if they are their own personal stash, and justify it with a fantasized threat of potential over-fishing. I am only familiar with fishing in the Florida Keys, but I have a gut feeling that this same scenario is being played out in hundreds of communities across the country. Maybe you ought to check it out – before – we’re shut down completely.
Federal fishery managers claim you mandated them with the MSA to place quotas in all fisheries by 2011. This is a highly dubious claim, but their interpretation is always final. So why not just ask them why they think we need quotas in stable fisheries that have only a fraction of the allowable fishing effort of the past? With limited entry, area closures, gear restrictions, size limits, seasonal stoppages, reporting requirements, license limitations, tracking devices, and trip limits, it would be impossible to over-fish anything today.
Fishery managers, and those who populate the fishing bureaucracy, are not bad people, but they have been given too much power, and we all know what power does. Our industry has always been supportive of responsible stock management, but the fishing bureaucracy has devolved into managing both our businesses and our lives. So how about asking them why they require me to tell them how much taxes I paid, how much food I ate, and what use they intend to make of my ethnicity? What exactly, does this information have to do with ensuring sustainable stocks of seafood for America?
Fishery managers would have you believe they need to know every detail of our lives, so they can make us more efficient harvesters of their resource. I’m sure I don’t need to point out the absurdity of free-spending bureaucrats teaching business people how to be more efficient. Suffice to say, that the most illiterate commercial fisherman, knows far more about holding down costs, than the most highly educated bureaucrat.
I do not know the representatives who introduced the bill, but I have chatted a couple of times with our Congresswoman, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who is a co-sponsor. She seems like a warm person, and I don’t doubt her sincere wish to help commercial fishermen. This bill, however, is not the way. Welfare jobs for skilled professional fishermen, solve nothing. With all the problems facing our country, no one expects you to drop everything, and spend the next 6 months familiarizing yourselves with commercial fishing issues. What you can do though, is stop this mad rush to destruction.
Place a 5 year moratorium on implementing anything from the Magnuson-Stevens Act. No matter what crisis promoting bureaucrats, and grant seeking environmentalists tell you, nothing bad will happen. Even without the MSA, fishery managers have unlimited power to protect every stock of fish in the ocean. There are so many fishery regulations in force, and so many laws on the books, that any legitimate problem that crops up could easily be dealt with. In actuality, the current version of the MSA, gives blank check authority for fishery managers to implement their entire wish list, but represents nothing more than ‘piling on’ for commercial fishing.
To put it as bluntly as possible, it’s time to – Give us a break! We can’t possibly run our businesses effectively while dealing with the tidal waves of regulation that are always bearing down on us! They are coming fast and furious from every direction. It’s not bad enough that we have to deal with federal, state, and local governments, but we also have to do battle with marine sanctuaries, environmental organizations, and the courts. Congress is the only place we can get some relief, so how about letting us know if maintaining a strong commercial fishing industry is important to the nation. If not, please tell us now! If it is important, then how about some real relief?
P.S. It won’t cost the taxpayers a penny.
Sincerely,
Pete