Courtroom Setback for the Climatistas?

June 16, 2023 by Steven Hayward in Climate, Environment, Judiciary

 There are a number of lawsuits in various states of play around the country with plaintiffs, typically kids fronting for environmental groups, demanding that a judge issue an injunction to curtail fossil fuels (or find energy companies liable for climate change damages), but a parallel case hit the wall at the DC Circuit Court of Appeals today.

In Maine Lobstermen’s Association v. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the court reviewed a proposed scheme of the NMFS to step up regulation of the lobster fishing industry under the authority of the Endangered Species Act in the northeast because lobster fishing was thought to be a growing threat to right whales.

But the NMFS was not able to attribute many deaths of right whales directly to lobster or crab fishing (maybe they should have a look at offshore wind power installations, except those are sacred as we know), and instead rested their case for increased regulation on extreme projections of possible future harms. The likelihood is that large areas of lobster habitat would be simply closed off to the lobster fishing industry (and yet likely remain available for wind power, of course).

And it is just here that the DC Circuit Court said No, by a 3 – 0 vote. It found the regulation to be both “arbitrary and capricious,” and not entitled to Chevron deference:...............To Read More.....

Oregon ballot initiative would end animal agriculture, hunting, fishing

By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D. |July 20th, 2021|Civil Rights, Economy|6 Comments @ CFACT

America’s rural-urban divide is wide and getting wider. Moneyed coastal elites rarely ever miss an opportunity to show their disdain for the rubes in flyover country. Anyone doubting the depth of the discord need look no further than Oregon, where a ballot initiative would all but put an end to the state’s rural economy and way of life.

The Oregon Initiative Petition 13 (IP 13), known as the Abuse, Neglect, and Assault Exemption Modification and Improvement Act, would ban the harvesting of any animal by hunting, fishing, and trapping and would only allow a self-defense exception. IP 13 also criminalizes common animal husbandry practices, as well as slaughter for food and common breeding practices, such as artificial insemination.

Proponents of the initiative say it will make Oregon a “sanctuary state” for animals and hope other states will follow Oregon’s example. IP 13’s supporters have until June 22, 2022 to collect 112,000 valid signatures to get it on the ballot, so that it can be voted on in November 2022.

Jeopardizing Funding for Conservation

The people whom the initiative targets and the very ones who fund the majority of the state’s conservation efforts. If the ballot initiative becomes law, not only will hunting, fishing, and trapping end, but all wildlife in Oregon will suffer due to lack of conservation funding. Without revenues from license fees, Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson funds, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will no longer be able to carry out its mission.

Enacted in 1937, the law popularly known as the Pittman-Robinson Act provides federal funding to states for wildlife management. It does so through the collection of an 11% excise tax on sporting arms and ammunition. The 1950 Dingell-Johnson Act provides federal funding to states for management and restoration of fish having “material value in connection with sport or recreation in the marine and/or fresh waters of the United States.” State laws banning hunting and fishing would reduce revenues for wildlife conservation from these federal statutes to near zero.

“It is quite ironic that proponents of this ill-advised campaign claim they want to protect animals, but this initiative will ultimately hamstring the men and women who have dedicated their lives to preserving wildlife through sound science-based conservation efforts,” said Jacob Hupp, associate director of state services at the Sportsmen’s Alliance. “Unfortunately, there is no humor in this irony and the Sportsmen’s Alliance and our partners in Oregon are in the process of organizing to defeat this dangerous campaign that threatens the livelihood of millions of Oregonians.” The Sportsmen’s Alliance is a national organization that supports conservation programs.

Criminalization of Traditional Agricultural Practices

Adoption of the initiative would effectively criminalize everything from slaughtering livestock to basic animal husbandry, including branding and dehorning cattle, castrating bulls and docking horses, sheep, and pigs, says Mary Ann Cooper, vice president of public affairs for the Oregon Farm Bureau. The initiative also seeks to reclassify animal breeding and artificial insemination as sexual assault of an animal – a Class C felony, Capital Press reported (May 7).

Spearheading the petition to get the initiative on the ballot is David Michelson, a Portland animal-rights activist. A similar proposal, called the Protect Animals from Unnecessary Suffering and Exploitation (PAUSE) Act is being pursued in Colorado. Both initiatives would effectively ban animal agriculture in the two states.

With almost a full year to gather the requisite number of valid signatures to get IP 13 on the ballot, supporters have a reasonable chance of clearing that hurdle, especially if they concentrate their efforts in places like Portland and Eugene. This would set up a do-or-die clash at the ballot box in November 2022. If nothing else, the campaign will further deepen the divide between Portland and other predominantly urban coastal areas of the state and rural parts of Oregon east of the Cascades., where a movement is afoot to secede from Oregon and join neighboring Idaho.

Author

• Bonner Cohen, Ph. D, is a senior policy analyst with CFACT, where he focuses on natural resources, energy, property rights, and geopolitical developments. Articles by Dr. Cohen have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Investor’s Busines Daily, The New York Post, The Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, The Hill, The Epoch Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Miami Herald, and dozens of other newspapers around the country. He has been interviewed on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, NBC News, NPR, BBC, BBC Worldwide Television, N24 (German-language news network), and scores of radio stations in the U.S. and Canada. He has testified before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, and the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee. Dr. Cohen has addressed conferences in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Bangladesh. He has a B.A. from the University of Georgia and a Ph. D. – summa cum laude – from the University of Munich.

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Big Green's well-financed death grip on fisheries policy must be broken

By Ron Arnold | December 12, 2013 @ Washington Examiner

President Obama's administration has added to its war on coal and its wind-farm eagle-chopping policy and is trying to yank seafood out of America's diet.

For more than a decade, the National Marine Fisheries Service has devoured fishing fleets while Big Green’s money octopus prods the feds by waving grant-eating enviros in its tentacles, causing them to hook the public’s attention with mindless frenzy against “overfishing.”

Submerge for a moment in the seething political storm that fishermen live in — examine the overwhelming network diagram above. You’re looking at 552 grants totaling $561,907,154 — over half a billion dollars from six Big Green foundations: Pew, Packard, Walton, Moore, Surdna and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, each a funding octopus with anti-fishing payday tentacles that twine and choke and, for the most part, destroy.

Zoom in on one tentacle: Four Pew foundations gave Earthjustice -- formerly the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund -- 20 grants totaling $25,156,500 in the past decade to sue and stop anything productive.

And SeaWeb ($2.6 million 2012 income) — one of the first greenies to declare war on fishermen — used to be Pew SeaWeb, founded in 1996, incubating to become its own public opinion-making octopus in 1999.

Biologist Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- who resigned in February -- was arguably the brainiest and most viciously crass NOAA administrator ever. Members of Congress called for her resignation for destroying fishing fleets in struggling coastal communities using Big Green's brutal “catch shares” rationing program, and for tolerating fisherman fines enforced by corrupt federal cops. Before NOAA, the Packard Foundation gave Lubchenco's Aldo Leopold Leadership Program $2.1 million to enable scientists to lead politicians and the public with scientific-technical control of public policy.

Nils Stolpe, veteran executive, consultant, and advocate for the commercial fishing community, sorted those numbers from Internal Revenue Service Form 990 reports and posted the result on his FishNet USA website. The Washington Examiner used Stolpe's findings to construct the diagram.

I asked Stolpe what seafood producers can do to defend themselves from that swirling galaxy of enemies. “Good marine fisheries management and government that plays by the rules,” he said, adding, “if we can get it.”

Stolpe hopes to get fair play. He spoke of the House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash., and panel members' concern over attacks on the seafood industry. Stolpe said, “They’ve had four hearings this year, getting ready to reauthorize the primary ocean fisheries management law.”

That law, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, has had provisions for a thriving, respected seafood industry since it was first passed in 1976 -- but Big Green pressure has blotted out everything that would help production.

University of Washington fisheries Professor Ray Hilborn focused on that problem in a September committee hearing, pointing out that the Magnuson-Stevens Act provides not only for rebuilding fish stocks, ensuring conservation and protecting essential habitat, but also, “the Act makes it clear that one objective is to provide for ‘the development of fisheries which are underutilized or not utilized … to assure that our citizens benefit from the employment, food supply and revenue which could be generated thereby.’”

Whoa! The federal government has been enforcing only half of the law? Hilborn thinks so. He told the panel, “The two specifically targeted actions are to rebuild over-exploited stocks and develop fisheries on underutilized species.”

OK, that’s clear enough. But what really happened? “While we have reduced overfishing,” said Hilborn, “one consequence has been far more underutilized fish stocks, and we seem to have lost sight of the actual goals of employment, food supply, recreational opportunity and revenue.”

Those key items, employment, food supply, and revenue are the very things Big Green has targeted for incremental destruction year after year. They’ve crushed, vilified, and destroyed seafood producers nationwide, fed by money earned in gigantic foundation investment portfolios of corporate common stocks, real estate and other assets.

Big Green is a dangerous, overwhelming power. That power lock must be broken.

RON ARNOLD, a Washington Examiner columnist, is executive vice president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise.

 

From Surf to Serfdom

By Kenneth Levin

Unemployment in my home state of Massachusetts is less than the national average. In August, it stood at 6.3% compared to 8.1% nationally.  The state benefits from very robust high-tech sectors. But, of course, low-tech industries also figure in its economy. Particularly hard hit among the latter in the current downturn has been the state’s large fishing industry. 

Its problems, and the plight of workers dependent on fishing for their livelihood, are illustrative both of the general difficulties of the economy across the country and of ways in which specific Obama administration policies have compounded the overall decline……. The bureaucrats responsible for formulating and enforcing the new policies have demonstrated little interest in the bi-partisan criticism directed at them in Congress. 

They have similarly given short shrift to the difficulties of Massachusetts and other northeastern fishermen and their families, as well as myriad others dependent on the fishing industry, who have been deprived of livelihoods and face the specter of their industry suffering long-term and possibly permanent decline.

  To Read More….