In case no one ever mentioned it to you, Washington, D.C. is
hot in July.
Really hot.
It’s the kind of heat that makes sweat bead up into
half-inch-wide pools on the back of your hands, and turns the knot in your
necktie into a wet, spongy mass by the time you’ve walked from the railroad
station into a waiting cab.
But it’s Washington, after all, the crowded, bustling,
confusing city that, more than anywhere else, truly sits at the center of the
world.
To me, as I’ve written before, it’s a sacred place, arcane
and almost mystical, where someone like myself—not one of the power brokers,
not an industry leader or the head of some powerful clique—can still sit down in a
room with some of the handful of folks who decide the destiny of nations, and
expect to be heard.
I’ve been coming down to Washington at least once each year
for a while now, to speak to Congressional staff about fisheries issues, mostly
about the importance of maintaining the conservation and management provisions
that have made the Magnuson-Stevens
Fishery and Conservation Act the most comprehensive and more effective law
of its kind in the world.
Yesterday, though, was a little different.
I wouldn’t just be meeting with staff. Instead, I would be one of four witnesses
appearing before the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Power and
Oceans, at an oversight hearing called to look into the successes achieved and
challenges posed by Magnuson-Stevens, held as an early step in the process of
reauthorizing that federal fisheries law.
I had never done that before.
I had been invited to speak by the minority party’s staff;
the other three witnesses were invited by the majority, which meant that I was
probably going to be the only one at the table who would speak in support of
the law. That was OK, although I had to
admit that I watch a lot of CNN, had seen my share of various committee
hearings, and knew that the guy with the disfavored position does, on occasion, get worked
over pretty hard.
So while I was pretty confident about what I knew, I’ll
admit to a kind of pre-battle jitters, and it didn’t help when the hearing
was delayed for a half-hour to accommodate a vote on the floor. That’s when you stop and start thinking about
what could go wrong.
But the nice thing about pre-battle jitters is that they
quickly disperse when the first shot is fired, and action takes over your
mind. Although the truth is that there were
no real shots and nothing much to be jittery about; the Congressmen in the room
were all respectful of everyone (although they sparred a bit among themselves),
a couple of those who disagreed with me asked pointed, but reasonable questions
(one revealing that he has read this blog), and everything ended on a handshake
and kind words in the hall with one of the legislators who had disagreed with at
least one of my positions.
To be honest, the whole thing had been fun.
It had also been a learning experience, because it was clear
where some of the folks who want to change Magnuson-Stevens are going
astray. One of the big misconceptions
was that proponents of federal fisheries management doubt the competence of
state fishery biologists and state fishery managers.
In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth.
Readers of this blog know that I’ll often
thank fishery managers here in New York for standing up and trying to do the
right thing; I know a number of our state biologists, and they are, without
exception a dedicated, hard-working bunch of professionals. I have told people on a number of occasions
that I’m proud of our folks in New York’s Marine Division, and I’ll say the
same thing here and now.
For the most part, it’s not the state fisheries managers
that are flawed, but the state fishery management process.
In the federal fisheries management process, there are
strict legal guidelines. Overfishing
must not be permitted. Stocks must be
rebuilt promptly, by a strictly defined deadline. The best available science must guide
management.
If a federal bureaucrat
decides to permit overfishing, or to unnecessarily extend a rebuilding period,
that bureaucrat is likely to get sued.
Anyone who has any doubts about that just needs to look at Commerce
Secretary Ross’ patently illegal extension of the private-boat red snapper
season in the Gulf of Mexico, and then at the
conservation community’s quick and appropriate response.
On the other hand, state bureaucrats are subject to no such
guidelines. After the
last peer-reviewed striped bass benchmark stock assessment was released,
which required fishing mortality to be reduced by 25%, there was actually a
nearly year-long debate as to whether to accept it as the best available
science.
At
the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Striped Bass Management Board’s
October 2014 meeting, some state managers actually voted against doing so. And the same states then made a concerted
effort to convince the Management Board to ignore the explicit language
of the striped bass management plan, which required fishing mortality to be
reduced to target levels within one year, instead arguing that a 3-year
phase-in was OK (another trigger in the management plan was tripped, which
required the Management Board to prepare a plan to rebuild the stock within 10
years, but that requirement was completely ignored by everyone).
Although such states ultimately lost both
votes, they clearly illustrate what can happen when state bureaucrats are allowed
to interfere with decisions that should be based purely on science.
Other state actions, of course, can be even less benign.
Without firm and legally-enforceable
guidelines, various industry organizations, or just well-connected individuals
who have an interest in the management of a species, can reach out to state
officials, and convince them to adopt a fishery management policy contrary to
scientific advice, solely for economic or political reasons.
The resource can only suffer when such events
occur, yet there is no legal bar to prevent the states from taking such
actions.
That point was repeatedly overlooked at yesterday’s
hearing. While state science can be very
good; state policy is a very different matter, and it can change with the
political winds. That makes such policy
a significant threat to healthy fish stocks.
Funding was also an issue that came up
yesterday.
Critics of federal management
often point to what they consider to be bad harvest data and inadequate
scientific information being used to manage the fish, and no one should argue with the fact that better
data would lead to better management actions.
Logically, the focus such critics should be seeking higher levels
of funding for the National Marine Fisheries Service and its regional science
centers, not amending the current rebuilding provisions to weaken the law. Thus, it wasn’t surprising that the questions
about higher levels of funding came not from the majority members, who support
H.R. 200, but from Ranking Member on the minority side.
What was surprising is that not every witness endorsed the
idea. One, a fishery manager from the State
of Florida who was supporting an
agenda remarkably similar to the one being pushed by the Coastal Conservation Association
and other members of the Center for Sportfishing Policy, expressed only
limited support on additional funding, making his support contingent on what issues such funding addressed. I found that
somewhat curious, as resolving any of the many pending issues would
provide at least some additional clarity to fisheries managers, and could not do any harm.
Some other issues were addressed at some point in the day—marine
monuments, climate change, the National Environmental Policy Act, among others—but
the recreational issues tended to dominate the conversation.
And then it was over.
Although the hearing lasted for close to two hours, it
seemed to last for less than half of that time.
As I stepped away from the witness table, I felt as if I accomplished my
job as an advocate for the proper conservation and management of fish
stocks. I walked away with respect for the members present, who discharged their responsibilities in a decorous and
professional way, even when they disagreed with a particular witness (which
was, at times, me).
In short, it was an honor to be there, presenting
my opinions and beliefs to the people who, in the end, will make the call on
whether our fisheries managers are allowed to look forward, into the future, or
be dragged back toward the bad old days before the Sustainable
Fisheries Act of 1996 was signed into law.
It was also a deeply appreciated privilege, and I thank the
members and staff who invited me there.
Too bad that Charles Witek had to invoke the 5th Amendment in this Congressional hearing to conceal who is coaching/funding him. It reveals a fundamental lack of integrity from a person who likes to think he is an expert on fisheries issues and that we should heed his "advice". These blogs are nothing more than paid-for propaganda pieces - certainly not from a "concerned recreational angler".
ReplyDeleteExcept it never happened.
ReplyDeleteI was asked where I received information regarding a pending bill. Like any journalist protecting a confidential source, I refused to answer based on the First Amendment--Freedom of the Press--not on the Fifth Amendment, which is a criminal issue (and if one seeks Fifth Amendment protection, one must do so clearly and unmistakably--although I wouldn't expect the editor of a local, second-rate fish rag to understand legal subleties.