ELECTIONS: THE SPORTSMAN'S DILEMMA

Normally, this blog concentrates on issues important to saltwater fishermen and to the nation’s marine resources, and in particular issues affecting the East and Gulf coasts, and doesn't examine much else.  But today, with the election looming, I'm going to broaden its scope just a bit, and take a look at the dilemma that affects not just saltwater anglers, but sportsmen of every stripe, whether they fish in fresh or salt water, or hunt upland game, big game, small game, or waterfowl.

How do we pick the right candidate?

That’s a particularly important question this time around, because the 2020 election is one of the big ones.  Based on current polling, we could potentially see the election of a new president, change of control in the Senate, and strengthening Democratic control of the House of Representatives. 

Still, as a recent article in Politico pointed out—and as we were shown, very clearly, in 2016—the polls could be wrong, and Donald Trump could win reelection.  The article notes that

“Republican registration has ticked up in key states at the same time Democratic field operations were in hibernation…

“There is uncertainty about the accuracy of polling in certain swing states, the efficacy of GOP voter suppression efforts and even the number of mail-in ballots that for one reason or another will be disqualified.

“’There are more known unknowns than we’ve ever had at any point,’ said Tom Bonier, CEO of the Democratic data firm TargetSmart.  ‘The instruments we have to gauge this race, the polling, our predictive models…those tools are built around quote-unquote normal elections.  And this is anything but a normal election.’”

Counting out a Trump win at this point would be a mistake.  It would also be a mistake to assume that Republicans will lose control of the Senate.  As an NPR article released today said,

“Control of the Senate remains a jump ball days out from Election Day.”

About the only thing that remains just about certain is that control of the House will not change.

Whoever wins, or maintains, control of the various offices, the election will have conseqences for every sportsman in the nation.

Given the differences in candidates’ positions on issues important to sportsmen, ranging from fossil fuels and firearms to fisheries conservation and clean air and water, we need to think long and hard about how our votes are cast, for few candidates, and neither party, offers us everything that we’d like.

The Democratic Party’s platform promises that

“We will support healthy coastal communities and marine ecosystems to sustain and enhance our economic well-being, including in the fishing, tourism and clean energy industries…

“America’s national parks and monuments, public lands, and marine protected areas are treasures that should be held in trust for future generations.  We will protect these precious places and preserve America’s unspoiled wilderness for hunting, fishing, hiking, and camping by codifying the roadless rule, and grow America’s outdoor recreation economy, which supports millions of jobs in rural areas…We will take actions to protect wildernesses and waters, and require full, rigorous, and transparent scientific and environmental review of any proposed mining projects near national treasures…”

That sounds good, and from a conservation perspective, it’s difficult disagree with such goals.

At the same time, we have to remember that any party’s platform is just a promise, and that there is no guarantee that the things that are promised will actually come to be.

That becomes a particularly interesting point this year, because the Republican Party elected not to fashion a new platform for the 2020 election.  Instead, the Republican National Committee adopted a resolution that states that because of COVID-19, it was unable to hold a convention with all members present, didn’t want a small number of delegates establishing such new platform, and so resolved, among other things,

“That the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda;

“That the 2020 Republican National Convention will adjourn without adopting a new platform until the 2024 Republican National Convention; …and

“That any motion to amend the 2016 Platform or to adopt a new Platform, including any motion to suspend the procedures that will allow doing so, will be ruled out of order.”

Based on that resolution, it seems that the Republicans’ 2020 position on issues should be viewed as the positions stated in the party’s 2016 Platform, as interpreted by the actions of the Trump Administration.

So how does that compare with the Democrats’ platform?

In 2016, the Republican platform said that

“We are the party of America’s growers, producers, farmers, ranchers, foresters, miners, commercial fishermen, and all those who bring from the earth the crops, minerals, energy, and the bounties of our seas that are the lifeblood of our economy.  Their labor and ingenuity, their determination in bad times and love of the land at all times, powers our economy, creates millions of jobs, and feeds billions of people around the world.  Only a few years ago, a bipartisan consensus in government valued the role of extractive industries and rewarded their enterprise by minimizing its interference…

“the Republican Party reaffirms the moral obligation to be good stewards of the God-given natural beauty and resources of our country.  We believe that people are the most valuable resources and that human health and safety are the proper measurements of a policy’s success.  We assert that private ownership has been the best guarantee of conscientious stewardship, while some of our worst instances of degradation have occurred under government control.  Poverty, not wealth, is the greatest threat to the environment, while steady economic growth brings the technological advances which make environmental progress possible…

“The environment is too important to be left to radical environmentalists…Over the last eight years, the Administration has triggered an avalanche of regulation that wreaks havoc across our economy and yields minimal environmental benefits…

“The federal government owns or controls over 640 million acres of land in the United States, most of which is in the West…It is absurd to think that all that acreage must remain under the absentee ownership or management of official Washington.  Congress shall immediately pass universal legislation providing for a timely and orderly mechanism requiring the federal government to convey certain federally controlled public lands to states…’

Thus, the 2016 Republican Platform clearly favors extractive industries, disfavors federal ownership of public lands, and clearly opposes most environmental regulation.  And the Trump Administration has been faithful to that platform, supporting such things as mountaintop removal coal mining and oil drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, removing obstacles to the huge, open pit “Pebble Mine” in the near pristine wilderness of Alaska’s Bristol Bay watershed and to a smaller, but equally toxic copper mine in the headwaters of Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Consistent with the 2016 Platform, Trump’s Commerce Department and its subsidiary National Marine Fisheries Service unjustifiably overturned the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Service’s 2017 decision that New Jersey was out of compliance with ASMFC’s summer flounder management plan and, in the same year, illegally reopened the red snapper fishery in the Gulf of Mexico; more recently, it put bluefin tuna at risk by allowing pelagic longlining in their only confirmed western hemisphere spawning ground, and led the opposition to science-based management of shortfin mako sharks at the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas.  

Trump himself reopened the New England Canyons and Seamounts National Monument to commercial fishing, and issued an executive order instructing the regional fishery management councils to identify and remove regulatory obstacles to increased fish landings, and also authorized an offshore aquaculture permitting system, even though Congress had never delegated such permitting authority to the Administrative Branch.

On land, the Trump Administration removed protections from the struggling sage grouse in order to ease the way for oil drilling in much of its remaining habitat, halved the size of Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments while opening up new mineral exploration and drilling opportunities in the region, and seeks to open public lands near the Grand Canyon to uranium mining.  

In California Trump, who supposedly supports states’ rights, signed an order that would divert water from rivers flowing into the San Francisco Bay delta to farms in the state’s Central Valley, even though such diversion threatens the remaining chinook salmon runs in such rivers, as well as the endangered delta smelt, and is opposed by California’s governor.

So when you contrast the Democrats’ 2020 platform with the Republican’s 2016 platform and the Trump Administration’s actions on conservation and environmental issues, it seems that sportsmen ought to be on the Democrats’ side.  

The contrast between the parties is so stark that author/angler Stephen Sautner wrote a piece for the Patagonia Journal titled “You Call Yourself an Angler?” questions how an angler could support the current administration.  In that piece, Mr. Sautner wrote, in part

“How can my fellow anglers support—even cheer—this administration and the wrecking ball it has taken to the rules that protect the same areas we fish?  If you need a reminder, this is the same administration rolling back more than 100 environmental laws.  They pulled out of the Paris climate accord.  They slashed the borders of Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument so they could open it for mining.  They kneecapped regulations that protect half the nation’s wetlands.  They want to unlock even more public lands for drilling and fracking.  They are working to gut the Endangered Species Act—the landmark law that saved the bald eagle and the peregrine falcon.  This administration has never met a gas or oil pipeline they did not want to suck from.  They gave you Scott Pruitt, perhaps the most blatantly unethical EPA Administrator in history…”

I have to admit that, as an angler who has fished on every coast of the United States, and also in many fresh waters, as a hunter who depends on the production of the prairie pothole “duck factory” for much of my waterfowl, and who has seen the sun rise over the Wyoming grasslands where pronghorns outnumber the people, I understand where Mr. Sautner is coming from.

But I also understand, even if I don’t agree with, the sportsmen who support the current administration.  That’s because it too often seems that the Democrats don’t understand, and don’t want to understand, sportsmen's concerns.  The Democratic Party has become increasingly urban, and often seems to have lost touch with citizens who live outside the ant farms of New York, Chicago, and the other big cities, and seem unwilling to make any concessions to the demands of our lifestyle. 

The Democratic Platform talks about ending “gun violence,” and in itself, that is good.  No one wants to see a friend, neighbor, or family member killed or seriously hurt, whether the damage is done by a felon with a firearm or knife, or by some drunk behind the wheel of a Mercedes.  Few rational shooters would, or should, oppose a background check program that helps to assure that firearms aren’t being sold to crazies or criminals.

But when a hunter or shooter reads that the party

“will incentivize states to enact licensing requirements for owning firearms,

it’s not unreasonable for such person to start wondering what their options would be if, for some unknown and arbitrary reason, the state licensing authority says “No.”

And there are always worries about accessing the fish and wildlife that we pursue.  Running a boat offshore requires quite a bit of fuel; running a freshwater bass boat is a little better, but then there’s the fuel for the truck that you need to haul that bass boat around.  Canoes don’t require any fuel at all, but when I head up to the Adirondacks, my canoe sits atop a Ford F-150 with four-wheel drive, big enough to carry my gear and capable enough to go off-road if I need to.

How do the Democrats’ views on “clean energy” and their focus on mass transit mesh with the need to just get out and into the outdoors?  Can their opposition to fossil fuel make our boats and vehicles obsolete?

And thus, the Sportsman’s Dilemma.

Do you vote for the party that will protect natural resources, but might restrict your ability to access them?  Or do you vote for the party that might guarantee gas and guns, but by supporting extractive industry, take away your reason for wanting them in the first place?

Everyone must make their own choice, but for me, it always comes down to the resource.  Not only our chosen sport, but our very quality of life, depend on clean air and water, on abundant fish and wildlife, and on extensive and available public lands and waters, where we, and the rest of nature, can wander.

Without healthy, abundant, and accessible populations of waterfowl, upland birds, and game, my rifles and shotguns will stay in the safe, for I’ll have no reason to use, or even own, them.

Without healthy oceans, that support an abundance of marine resources, there’s no reason for me to run a boat.

Without clean air and water, and wild places where beauty remains unsullied by drill rigs and unscarred by mines, I don’t have much need for my truck or canoe, because I can find plenty that’s polluted and ugly very close to home.

So, come next Tuesday, I’ll be voting for clean air and clean water.  I’ll be voting for science-based management of natural resources.  I’ll be voting for national monuments, and undrilled, unmined, and unfracked public lands.  I’ll be voting for beauty and life.

I’ve solved my own Sportsman’s Dilemma. 

You may find a different solution.

Although to be honest, I hope that you don’t.