"KING OBAMA" SIGNS OCEAN PROTECTION POLICY

[Sushi50]

"KING OBAMA" SIGNS OCEAN PROTECTION POLICY
Executive Order Circumvents Tired Old Democratic Process

(7/20/1010) Washington, DC - President Barack Obama used his presidential privilege on July 19 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. While environmental groups are hailing it a momentous day for America's oceans, the Recreational Fishing Alliance (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 king."

The San Jose Mercury News in Congressman Farr's home district said the new policy secures Farr's longtime vision for the creation of a National Ocean Council to coordinate the many layers of state and federal regulation on such matters as 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, a California democrat who the San Jose Mercury News cites has tried unsuccessfully to win a similar oceans conservation plan through legislation known as Oceans 21. "This is giant step forward," Farr said of the presidential order, calling the decree the "clean water and air acts for the ocean."

Oceans 21 failed to gain Congressional support because of its ability to 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. The RFA has been at the forefront of exposing Oceans 21 for the farce that it is, and they've been a leader in preventing its passage through legislative channels. On June 18, 2009, the RFA was the only national recreational fishing organization asked to testify before Congress in opposition of the bill.

"We claimed all along that this Ocean Policy Task Force was being orchestrated as Oceans 21 legislation from the very beginning, 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 threat of a pending presidential order that would restrict recreational fishing set off a media firestorm in March when a national opinion piece in ESPN warned that efforts of the Obama Administration's Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force and its involvement in implementing a policy of "marine spatial planning" could ultimately effect the management of and public access to the nation's natural public resources. In response, Donofrio said at the time that he was unnerved by glaring similarities of the presidential plan and Rep. Farr's H.R. 21, the Ocean Conservation, Education, and National Strategy for the 21st Century Act. "This appears to be an attempt by the Executive branch to circumvent the established legislative process and enact policy that failed as legislation 5 years in a row," Donofrio said at the time, adding RFA still 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 just sets up such an incredible bureaucratic infrastructure that Americans could find it very hard to find opportunities to fish in the future, particular in terms of coastal access," Donofrio said.

Reports say the new National Ocean Council is being co-chaired by John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the Council for Environmental Quality. The council also will include the secretaries of all Cabinet-level federal agencies and representatives of other federal environmental and economic agencies, which will oversee planning done by nine regional bodies. The RFA said more government appointments from the top down will ensure that local stakeholders can expect to get less input in the future.

"Mr. Obama has made it very clear that he and his administration know better than we do," said Donofrio. "It's sad to watch a guy like Congressman Farr step up and embrace the arbitrary process of executive privilege as opposed to the democratic process of review and debate in the House. Clearly it's a win for the California Democrat who wrote an ill-conceived law which had no support from the public, none from the stakeholders and no support from fellow legislators on the Committee, yet he still got his law passed by sovereign declaration," Donofrio said. "Doesn't that just speak volumes about our current political climate in Washington?"

To learn more about the presidential order, visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/oceans.

To read the RFA's response to the media firestorm surrounding the ESPN piece, Is Recreational Fishing Being Banned at http://www.joinrfa.org/News.asp.


About Recreational Fishing Alliance
The Recreational Fishing Alliance is a national, grassroots political action organization representing recreational fishermen and the recreational fishing industry on marine fisheries issues. The RFA 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. For more information, call 888-JOIN-RFA or visit www.joinrfa.org.

[Sushi50]

More on this at:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/administra...atives/oceans/

[Sushi50]

From the White House link:

The Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force
President Obama signed an Executive Order establishing a National Policy for the Stewardship of the Ocean, Coasts, and Great Lakes on July 19, 2010. That Executive Order adopts the Final Recommendations of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force and directs Federal agencies to take the
appropriate steps to implement them.

The Executive Order strengthens ocean governance and coordination, establishes guiding principles for ocean management, and adopts a flexible framework for effective coastal and marine spatial planning to address conservation, economic activity, user conflict, and sustainable use of the ocean, our coasts and the Great Lakes.

Obama Administration officials released the Final Recommendations of the Ocean Policy Task Force on July 19, 2010, which would establish a National Policy for the Stewardship of the Ocean, Coasts, and Great Lakes (National Policy) and create a National Ocean Council (NOC) to strengthen ocean governance and coordination. The Final Recommendations prioritize actions for the NOC to pursue, and call for a flexible framework for coastal and marine spatial planning to address conservation, economic activity, user conflict, and sustainable use of the ocean, our coasts and the Great Lakes.

The NOC would coordinate across the Federal Government to implement the National Policy. The Final Recommendations also call for the establishment of a Governance Coordinating Committee to formally engage with state, tribal, and local authorities. The Final Recommendations are expected to be adopted into an Executive Order by President Obama.

“President Obama recognized that our uses of the ocean are expanding at a rate that challenges our ability to manage significant and often competing demands,” said Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “With a growing number of recreational, scientific, energy, and security activities, we need a national policy that sets the United States on a new path for the conservation and sustainable use of these critical natural resources.”

On June 12, 2009, President Obama sent a memorandum to the heads of executive departments and Federal agencies establishing an Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force and charged it with developing recommendations to enhance national stewardship of the ocean, coasts, and Great Lakes and promote the long term conservation and use of these resources. The Task Force was led by CEQ and included 24 senior-level policy officials from across the Federal Government.

At the President’s direction, the Task Force released an Interim Report in September 2009 and an Interim Framework for Effective Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning in December 2009. Each of these reports was made available online for public comment. The Task Force received and reviewed close to 5,000 written comments from Congress, stakeholders, and the public before finalizing its recommendations. The Task Force’s Final Recommendations combine and update the proposals contained in the two earlier reports.

Read the Executive Order -- Stewardship of the Ocean, Our Coasts, and the Great Lakes

Read the Final Recommendations

Visit the National Ocean Council website

Read the FAQs

[Sushi50]

Here's who is in charge of this new National Ocean Council, only one has any fisheries experience (Lubchenko), and she's a PEW person who leans towards Catch Shares and PETA (no fishing). So Jane's going to lead the NOC on fisheries policy and we're screwed unless Congress can somehow prevent her and Obama from following through on this new scheme of managing our fisheries:

Meet the National Ocean Council
Posted by NOC Team on July 19, 2010 at 03:23 PM EDT
Find out who represents your new National Ocean Council.

Co-Chairs
White House Council on Environmental Quality
Nancy Sutley, Chair

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Dr. John P. Holdren, Director

NOC Members
Department of Agriculture
Tom Vilsack
Secretary

Department of Commerce
Gary Locke
Secretary

Dr. Jane Lubchenco
Undersecretary for Oceans and Atmosphere
NOAA Administrator

Department of Defense
Robert M. Gates
Secretary

Environmental Protection Agency
Lisa P. Jackson
Administrator

Department of Energy
Dr. Steven Chu
Secretary

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (invitation pending)
Jon Wellinghoff
Chairman

Department of Health and Human Services
Kathleen Sebelius
Secretary

Department of Homeland Security
Janet Napolitano
Secretary

Department of the Interior
Ken Salazar
Secretary

Joint Chiefs of Staff
Adm. Mike Mullen
Chairman

Department of Justice
Eric Holder
Attorney General

Department of Labor
Hilda L. Solis
Secretary

National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Charles F. Bolden, Jr.
Administrator

National Science Foundation
Dr. Cora Marrett
Acting Director

Department of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary

Department of Transportation
Ray LaHood
Secretary

Office of the Vice President
TBD

Director of National Intelligence
TBD

White House Office of Management and Budget
Peter Orszag
Director

Assistant to the President for National Security
General James Jones (Ret.)

Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism
John Brennan

Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy
Melody Barnes

Assistant to the President for Economic Policy
Lawrence Summers

Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change Policy
Carol Browner
Director

[BTH284]

The bottom of the 2nd paragraph tells the American people all we need to know about ole Barrack Hussein Obama.

"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 king."

Check your recent approval rating bud, then check yourself at the door come next election. " No soup for you!" NEXT!

[scrumcenter]

Let the ballot box speak

http://www.electionprojection.com/20...ns/house10.php

[30' PURSUIT]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwhKu...layer_embedded