From: Shore News Today

Written by Ann Richardson
Monday, 30 August 2010

More than two dozen strong, they blasted their air horns as they entered the harbor in Martha’s Vineyard last Thursday. The flotilla, a mix of recreational and commercial fishermen from coastal communities across the Northeast, was in Massachusetts to protest restrictions on fishing imposed by President Barack Obama through executive order that they say creates needless layers of bureaucracy while threatening their livelihood.

Leading the parade was Jim Hutchinson, managing director of the New Jersey Recreational Fishing Alliance, in a 45-foot trawler with the NJRFA flag atop the wheel house. Another, the Gadsden flag, delivered the message: “Don’t tread on me.”

“It was awesome,” Hutchinson said. “It was a wonderful day. New Jersey was well represented.”

The RFA is a national, grassroots political action organization representing recreational fishermen and the recreational fishing industry on marine fisheries issues. Their mission is to safeguard the rights of saltwater anglers, protect marine, boat and tackle industry jobs, and ensure the long term sustainability of our nation’s saltwater fisheries.

Determined to put the plight of both recreational and commercial fishermen front and center for the vacationing president, the anglers didn’t catch a single fish nor did their protest catch Obama’s attention, but their message reverberated across the nation.

“Fishing families are working families,” the banner on the side of the boat read. As the vessels chugged through the harbor, Obama was taking a break from his $50,000 weekly rental to play yet another round of golf. A White House spokesman said “no comment” when asked about the protest. Hanging out with the liberal elite in the haughty “Vineyard,” maybe Obama’s forgotten what a working family is.

Hutchinson comes from a long line of fishermen; his grandfather, the late Jim Becotte, was an Ocean City icon who captained many a fishing boat; Hutchinson’s father is a commercial fishermen. Like most fishermen whose families have been fishing for generations, Hutchinson is a passionate angler; he says what he means and means what he says.

The RFA, he said, will go the depths of the ocean to protect the rights of recreational fishermen.

“Obama signed an executive order threatening to kick us out of the ocean,” he said. “It’s really telling when you have a President on vacation in Martha’s Vineyard and the rest of the nation is in an economic crisis. He’s playing golf, meanwhile millions of people are out of work and he wants to put fishermen out of work too.”

So what happens when fishing shuts down? There’s lots of unemployment – and not just fishermen. Tourism dependent economies need fishermen to support accommodations, restaurants and other attractions. Fishermen like to eat and they buy a lot more than bait and tackle when they come to the shore.

Hutchinson said Obama won’t listen when he’s in Washington, so they figured maybe when he was on vacation, bonding with the sea, so to speak, and dining on fresh Bay State seafood, he might be more open to their message.

“It’s a shame he ignored us, because we would have loved to take him fishing,” said Hutchinson. “It took millions of gallons of oil to get him to the Gulf, and what has he done to help fishermen? It was a catastrophe, and he had no response. It’s not surprising that he’s ignoring us.”

“King Obama,” Hutchinson said, doesn’t get it; Election Day “can’t come fast enough.”

“I don’t know what it’s going to take to get him to listen to his royal subjects,” he said. “It’s all about jobs. The recreational and commercial fishing industry represents 500,000 American jobs. American fishermen produce an American product for Americans.”

The King, he said, signed the Ocean Protection Policy Executive Order thwarting “the tired old democratic process” last month and has no intention of worrying about silly old fishermen.

“He used his Presidential privilege to circumvent the legislative process, signing a new ocean protection law that’s vastly similar to legislation which has languished in Congress for nearly a decade,” said Hutchinson.

The legislation, he said, seizes unprecedented control from the states and localities. It closes off widespread access to recreational fishing and in a sense privatizes the ocean, offering opportunities for select individuals, through a limit on “catch shares.”

“Instead of having a limit, with open access for everyone, they want to throw the catch shares out to the highest bidder,” he said. “They want to offer up shares of fish to the open market, those they deem worthy. You have to pay for the right to fish; this will put fishermen out of business.”

Hutchinson said it’s akin to what’s happening with windmills and other green energy. “Catch shares” could be allocated to fishermen who do the green equivalent of installing solar panels on a boat.

“It’s social engineering,” he said. “If you do this green initiative, we will allow you to have ‘x’ number of catch shares. Once the shares are up there will be no fishing. The well connected who jump through green hoops and those who pay will be able to fish, others will not. They’ll limit the number of fish, and the price will go up. That’s how supply and demand works. Everyone will pay more and fewer people will be allowed to fish.

“This is price fixing, and I’d like to ask the president, ‘how dare you?’ This is worse than the liberal elite out of control on fishing, this is socialism. It’s part of the green movement, it’s not about the environment, it’s about money. The Washington elite turn their nose up at the fishing community. You have to purchase the right to fish? People are starting to pay attention.”

While environmental groups hailed this as a “momentous day for America’s oceans,” the RFA said these are sad times for our democratic process.

“Rep. Sam Farr of California has been pushing this ideological hogwash through the House for nearly 10 years, but every time his doomsday bill gets debated in committee it is tossed out for being utter nonsense and a bureaucratic nightmare,” said RFA executive director Jim Donofrio. “Our President appears to be infatuated with nonsense and bureaucracy, and once again proves that his authority to rule is more powerful than the legislative process alone, signing his name to decrees as if he were a king.”

The new “crisis-driven” policy secures Farr’s longtime vision for the creation of a National Ocean Council to coordinate myriad layers of state and federal regulation on offshore drilling, shipping and fishing.

“At a time when science knows the oceans are dying and several politicians have known it, there’s never been a crisis to drive policy, until now,” said Farr, who unsuccessfully tried to jam “Oceans 21,” a similar oceans conservation plan, down our throats.

“This legislation was promoted by the green lobby, liberal Democrats in California,” said Hutchinson, adding that the ocean is not dying and their data is faulty. “It was a bad bill, and East Coast Democrats, representing fishing communities, said they would never pass it. They knew it was wrong and they wouldn’t even let it out of committee. So Obama avoids the legislative process.”

Oceans 21 failed because it would restrict access to public resources while creating a new bureaucratic hierarchy with unprecedented power to regulate fisheries and implement ocean zoning without oversight or public input, Hutchinson said.

The RFA exposed Oceans 21 for what it was, bad legislation, preventing its passage through legislative channels.

“We testified before Congress last June,” said Hutchinson.

Donofrio said it was glaringly obvious what was happening.

“We claimed all along that this Ocean Policy Task Force was being orchestrated as Oceans 21 legislation, with the expectation of the environmental groups that it get passed by royal decree,” said Donofrio. “For Mr. Farr to resort to such hyperbole by claiming our oceans are dying in order to get folks to swallow his ideological pill is disingenuous at best.”

The RFA believes enacting laws through executive order and proclamation sets a dangerous precedence.

“Not only does this new National Ocean Council threaten to override our current federal fisheries management process, it threatens the integrity of our regional fishing councils and creates an overarching bureaucracy which could summarily dismiss all input from stakeholders,” Donofrio said. “Our current fisheries management process might need some adjustment, but this Presidential decree sets up such an incredible bureaucratic infrastructure that Americans could find it very hard to find opportunities to fish in the future, particularly in terms of coastal access.”

The RFA said the council will be loaded with government appointments from the top down, ensuring less input from people who understand fishing.

“Mr. Obama has made it very clear that he and his administration know better than we do,” said Donofrio.

The fishing industry, Hutchinson said, is in dire straits.

“This administration is failing to recognize how bad things are,” he said. “After spending massive amounts of our tax dollars, Obama says ‘The economy is bad, so you don’t go on vacation in Las Vegas and you don’t buy a boat.’ What? I got my back up on that! You can tell he’s never run a business. He doesn’t support tourism or fishing.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is also contemplating the resurrection of the failed “luxury tax” on boats, he said.

“We can’t sell boats now, so we tax them?” Hutchinson asked. “The luxury boat industry is collapsing and Ms. Pelosi thinks imposing a luxury tax is the answer? This is nonsense. She would shut down the boat industry, putting thousands of people out of work in Mays Landing, New Gretna and Egg Harbor where boats are made, not to mention everywhere up and down the coast that relies on the industry. They have no clue.”

It’s not a Republican or Democrat issue, he said, it’s about fishing and tourism. It’s everything and then some to all of New Jersey.

“I’m an independent, I’m a fisherman,” he said. “It’s non-partisan. There are some Democrats that are doing the right thing for fishing. This is more nonsense from the liberal elite. They are academic preservationists. They have no idea what fishing is about. They want to deny access to a healthy natural resource that is rebuilding.”

“I fish, I vote,” Hutchinson added. “You’ll be seeing lots more of that.”

Ann Richardson can be e-mailed at annrichardson@catamaranmedia.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or you can comment on this story by calling 624-8900, ext. 223.