NO ONE IS EVER GETTING FIRED - So, The Beatings Will Continue Until Federal "Morals" Improve

Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the center of the current ethics storm in Washington over improper scrutiny of American political action organizations is invoking her Fifth Amendment rights today after being called to testify before a House Oversight Committee hearing. Her refusal to testify has led to some members of Congress to call for her removal from IRS duties and firing from her employment within the federal government.

Regrettably, as most members of Congress all well aware (yet probably don’t want you to know), government officials really don’t get fired. 

Never gonna happen!

Take for example what happened in March of 2010, when the chairwoman of the House panel that oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) called for the agency's director of law enforcement to step down in the wake of a scandal over heavy-handed fisheries enforcement. As reported in the New York Times at the time, the House Oceans and Wildlife Subcommittee Chairwoman Madeleine Bordallo (D-Guam) said that NOAA Law Enforcement Director Dale Jones should be relieved of his duties given the questions as to whether or not he tried to destroy documents to avoid an even more scathing report from the Commerce Department's top investigator.

"As the top cop at NOAA and a longtime investigator himself, Dale Jones must be acutely aware that shredding documents during a federal investigation raises serious questions about his commitment to a full and fair look at all the facts," Bordallo said at a subcommittee hearing. "At a time when transparency and accountability in the way our government operates is of utmost importance, this type of behavior cannot be condoned, and Mr. Jones should step aside until the IG's investigation is completed."

The Commerce Department's inspector general had earlier released a report finding serious flaws in NOAA's fisheries enforcement and law enforcement operations, describing an unbalanced system that was heavy on criminal investigation resulting in a "dysfunctional relationship" between NOAA and the fishing industry.

Rep. Bordallo’s comments before the subcommittee had come in response to new allegations from the Commerce Department’s inspector general, Todd Zinser, that Jones had authorized the destruction of more than 100 files at law enforcement headquarters in Silver Spring, MD during the investigation.

"It was not authorized by me, and when I informed NOAA leadership of what we found, they did not say they authorized it either," Zinser said of the shredding. "I was surprised by it. What came to my mind is, I wonder what the office of law enforcement would do if a fishing company they were investigating had done the same thing?"

In response to the inspector general’s report, then NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco ordered an overhaul of her fisheries department’s enforcement system, outlining 10 program changes for NOAA’s general counsel and acting fisheries administrator, Eric Schwaab.

Lubchenco also asked the department to immediately freeze all hirings of criminal investigators, institute higher-level reviews for enforcement decisions, improve data, develop an outreach strategy with fishermen and revise procedures and penalties to make sure they are consistent and clear, free from any ethical violations or bias.

Lawmakers were more dramatic in their call to action. Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) said Lubchenco should consider firing everyone in the law enforcement department, allowing them then to reapply for their positions, while the Times noted how other lawmakers advised Lubchenco to take special care not to let the issue slip. An earlier investigation 10 years earlier found similar abuses by NOAA fisheries enforcement personnel.

Senate Oceans and Fisheries Subcommittee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) encouraged Lubchenco to dig deeper to investigate the response, or lack thereof, to the last report. “I think you'll find that the same issues why those recommendations were not implemented will be the same reasons why these won't be, as well," Cantwell said. "We don't want to do another report in a few years and find the same issues. These are cultural barriers in an organization that need to be broken down.”

Well-said Ms. Cantwell, Mr. Begich, and Ms. Bordallo, kudos to you all.

As I’m sure any fisherman or American taxpayer must think at this point in the story, Dale Jones must be living his personal life somewhere, working in the private sector - a castoff from public service banished from public service for shredding documents during an official investigation.

Now, before you answer that, it does get better as you’ll read in the Gloucester Times of Massachusetts.

You see, not only was it the enforcement level, but a separate probe commissioned by the Department of Commerce concluded that the two NOAA attorneys (Charles Juliand and James MacDonald) who had extracted an excessive settlement from a commercial scallop fishing business owner in 2005 did the same thing years earlier to a pair of fish processors using coercive methods “with an intention to intimidate.” As reported in the Gloucester Times, a detailed narrative of how NOAA’s Gloucester-based enforcement and litigation attorneys Charles Juliand and James MacDonald improperly manipulated the system of fisheries enforcement law.

Following detailed reports back to the Commerce Department, there were formal Cabinet-level apologies to 11 businesses put in duress by wrongful actions of NOAA litigators and agents. Together, Swartwood’s two sets of case studies generated more than $2.3 million returned by the government to settle the penalty score with the fishing industry.

Obviously, with all the sequestration debate and budgetary woes in Washington DC, the paper-shredding cop and the money-grubbing attorneys responsible for these despicable government actions are gone, right? Surely the directive of leading members of Congress like Bordallo and Begich was met with swift action, the firings of Jones, Juliland and MacDonald?

Actually, no. Former NOAA Enforcement director Dale Jones was reassigned as a fisheries program specialist in the Office of Science and Technology, allowing him to keep his pay grade above the $150,000 a year mark. Juliland was reassigned to be senior councilor for natural resources where was last working on matters related to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, while MacDonald was made attorney advisor to the deputy general counsel at NOAA.

As for Ms. Lubchenco, she left NOAA earlier this year and was last seen over the weekend getting an honorary doctorate at Rutgers University where she was credited with personally credited with ending overfishing in the United States of America. Mr. Schwaab announced today that he too was leaving NOAA to take a post at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. The Secretaries of Commerce who held posts during the ongoing investigations into wrongdoings at NOAA Fisheries, including Gary Locke and John Bryson are gone, while the current ‘acting’ Commerce Secretary, Rebecca Blank, will be leaving the job at the end of this month to take over as chancellor at University of Wisconsin at Madison.

So who’s in charge over at NOAA Fisheries or the United States Department of Commerce? Good question, with no simple answers. You see, back during the presidential campaign in the fall, President Obama pledged to appoint a new Secretary of Business to oversee newly-consolidated government agencies, including the Small Business Administration.

"We should have one Secretary of Business, instead of nine different departments that are dealing with things like giving loans to SBA or helping companies with exports,” the president told MSNBC during a campaign interview. “There should be a one-stop shop.”

In the week leading up to the election, White House spokesman Jay Carney indicated to reporters that the streamlining proposal would be one of Obama’s first orders of business. “The President will be engaging directly after the election in moving forward,” he said, adding that he was “very committed to that proposal.”

Six months later, there’s been no movement by the Obama administration on this new Department of Business. Meanwhile, the soon departure of the ‘acting’ Commerce Secretary Blank, following the previous departure of appointed Commerce Secretary Bryson last June, leaves a hole yet to be filled at the cabinet level. The President recently nominated Chicago billionaire Penny Pritzker for appointment to the head of the Commerce Department, though it’s expected to be a bumpy road ahead in the Senate considering the staunch opposition by labor unions unhappy about the Pritzker family’s running of Hyatt Hotels.

As for fishermen, the only ‘offshore’ action Pritzker seems aware of is the $53.6 million in income she received last year through an offshore trust in the Bahamas.

In the interim, there will be a new ‘acting’ Commerce Secretary in place just after the Memorial Day Weekend, Cameron Forbes Kerry. In addition to being the younger brother of Secretary of State John Kerry, he’s also the General Counsel of the Department of Commerce and principal legal advisor to the Secretary of Commerce where he oversees the work of over 325 lawyers in 14 offices who provide legal advice to all components of the Department.

Cameron Kerry, coincidentally, is also the Commerce Department’s chief ethics officer – and he hails from Massachusetts.

Final question, who is it that said, “We can't have the sort of hands-off, head-in-the-sand attitude that we've had over the last eight years and think somehow we're going to reverse some of these trends?” If you said then Sen. Barack Obama in 2008 when campaigning for president, you would be correct.

However, I would also accept as correct the answer, ‘whoever will be the 2016 republican challenger for president in 2016.”

Any way you look at it, we lose.

And the person who should've really been fired for all of this burdensome, vindictive and abusive government power?  Well, the American people renewed his 4-year contract in November of 2012...and that's a sad, sad fact.

BARNEY FRANK’S WARNING TO CONGRESS - “Be Skeptical of Environmentalists”

One day out of office following his retirement, former Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) has already begun making new political waves.

On January 4th, 2013, Politico reported that the outgoing congressman had asked Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick to send him back to Washington as interim senator following the confirmation of Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) as secretary of state. “I’ve told the governor I would now like, frankly, to do that,” Frank said in an interview broadcast on CNBC, explaining that the new fiscal cliff deal “means that February, March and April are going to be among the most important months in American financial history.”

For our nation’s saltwater fishermen, the first quarter of 2013 could be one of the most important periods in fisheries management history as well, given the state of four different federal fisheries disasters declarations by the Commerce Department in 2012, a broken federal fisheries law (Magnuson Stevens Act) now up for reauthorization debate, and pending presidential appointments of critical angler interest, notably the Secretary of Commerce and a NOAA Administrator.

ENVIRO’S LACK “VALUES”

Fishermen have long blamed a radical new preservationist agenda for the problems experienced at the federal, regional and state level of government, a sentiment strongly echoed by Frank himself. In an interview with Saving Seafood, Rep. Frank criticized the policies of some environmental groups as overly rigid, and he urged lawmakers to listen to fishermen and ultimately called for elimination of the 10-year stock rebuilding requirement in the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Frank also described outgoing NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco as "unfit for the job," noting her unwillingness to consider changes to the arbitrary 10-year requirement.

"Her instincts are to be disagreeing with people," Frank said of Lubchenco, a 2009 presidential appointee who will be replaced in 2012.

Frank said the fishing industry has made notable strides in recent years, explaining that there now exists an "east coast fishing alliance" composed of fishermen and industry advocates from the Canadian border to the Florida Keys, an alliance he called critical in coming years as the Magnuson-Stevens Act comes up for reauthorization by 2016. One of the key items of interest for Magnuson reauthorization according to Frank is that lawmakers should change the 10-year requirement, which he called "rigid," arbitrary and not based on independent science. "If you can reach the goal in 13 years instead of 10, and have much less of a negative impact on the working people of the economy, why not do it," he asked.

Frank said he's not willing to compromise on other environmental issues like global warming and clean air, but said the "reproductive rate of fish is a [subject] much less fit for absolutism than many environmentalists think."

"No matter what your connections might be, don't assume that the environmentalists are the right voices and the fishermen are simply greedy," Frank said explaining that environmentalists can be needlessly inflexible on certain issues, and sometimes lack a "hierarchy of values."

CUTTING OFF THE LEGS OF SPORTSMEN

The environmental movement today – particular big money showroom environmental organizations like Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Pew Environment Group (PEW) and their beard group the Marine Fish Conservation Network – have certainly lost their way. Those fishermen (like members of the Recreational Fishing Alliance) who have stood up to question the management of our fisheries have put themselves under environmental non-government organization (ENGO) scrutiny and disdain as social media campaigns to malign the point of view held by any fishermen who question the bureaucratic process have turned hateful – that’s as Rep. Frank describes as lacking in values.

At the upper corporate level of the environmental business industry, ENGO’s like EDF, Pew and the Marine Fish Conservation Network hire out-of-work congressional staffers, public relations experts and former media executives, all while using scare tactics and propaganda at the grassroots level to recruit idealistic college students to carry out their anti-fishing message. Leaders at these organizations refuse to enter into serious debate or discussion at the public, grassroots level of the fisheries management process, and prefer to sit back in their wood-paneled boardrooms to devise ways of further disparaging the individuals who hope to improve the balance of commerce and conservation.

The environmental movement has most certainly lost its way, and their activist efforts today are more about preservation than they are about conservation. Consider for a moment the post-Sandy efforts in New York and New Jersey to rebuild valuable infrastructure following the devastating storm. The National Park Service, under heavy pressure by ENGO groups, has decided to not renew a 40-year lease by the owners of Nichol’s Marina in Great Kills Harbor, removing several hundred boat slips (and several hundred boaters/anglers) from the equation. Essentially, the ENGO lobbyists are looking to remove the human footprint from the earth by cutting off the legs of our nation’s sportsmen.

THE OTHER, OTHER WHITE MEAT

Congressman Barney Frank has been a passionate supporter of fishermen’s rights, speaking at two national rallies in Washington DC spearheaded by commercial and recreational advocates alike to bring attention to the plight of our coastal fishing businesses. Rigid language written into our nation’s federal fisheries law and passed by unanimous consent of the GOP-held Senate in 2006 has contributed to serious and catastrophic loss within the fishing industry.

Fisheries managers today are finding in next to impossible to navigate their way through the legal requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, forcing fishermen to actually stop fishing when rebuilding targets are met and statutory ‘overfishing’ or ‘overfished’ thresholds are removed. The grand hypocrisy is now being uncovered by Congress and fisheries experts alike – as fish populations grow, the opportunity for fishermen to fish diminishes.

During the past six years, recreational and commercial fishermen have continued to plead for Congressional attention, while the showroom environmentalists have fought back to diminish our role in government action. While fishermen try to point out the empty-headed logic of the fisheries management process today brought about by rigid and inflexible legislation coupled with the Commerce Department’s failure to address bureaucratic negligence with science and data collection, ENGO groups blast the fishermen for being out of touch with the resource, labeling protest and the protesters as “fringe” elements within our community.

The showroom environmentalists have spent all of their time telling Members of Congress that the fish are fine, that the fishermen are wrong; is it any wonder then that in the recent attempt to fulfill the $150 million federal fisheries disaster relief package that many House members simply viewed the package as pork? Hell, it’s been the ENGO’s who have done nothing but refer to fishermen as pigs, it only stands to reason that Congress would think of anything fishing related as nothing but pork!

THE FACTS ABOUT THE SANDY PACKAGE

When the U.S. Senate voted 61-33 in favor of a $60.4 billion disaster relief package on December 28, 2012, there were 12 republicans who joined with 49 democrats in supporting legislation entitled ‘‘An Act making appropriations for the Department of Defense and the other departments and agencies of the Government.’’ While conservative pundits and lackadaisical reporters called this the “Sandy package,” HR1 was actually a complete package to make cash appropriations available for various natural disasters which occurred in the United States during the 2012 calendar year – which just so happen to include important funding for Sandy relief.

In a bipartisan letter from 14 U.S. Senators to their respective appropriations leaders in the Senate on December 11, 2012, a request for $150 million in funds was formalized by legislators from Alaska, Mississippi, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. In response to four federal fisheries disasters official declared by the Secretary of Commerce, nine democrats and five republicans in the U.S. Senate signed off on this letter in asking that the appropriations committee authorize relief funding these disaster declarations made under Section 308( d) of the Interjurisdictional Fisheries Act and Section 315 of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

“These designations allow Congress to appropriate federal relief funds to alleviate the harm caused by natural disasters to fisheries and the fishing industry,” the letter noted, explaining how “disaster assistance funds can be used to repair or restore fishing equipment and infrastructure, compensate for losses, restore fisheries habitat, support workforce education, provide low-interest loans, and conduct monitoring and cooperative research focused on improving stock assessments.”

Regrettably, few reporters bothered to ask any serious questions with regard to the $150 million appropriation request; fewer still were inquisitive or concerned enough to ask about the basis for HR1 or the actual intent of the “Act making appropriations for the Department of Defense and the other departments and agencies of the Government.” Five GOP senators signed on to that letter, yet the mainstream media lackadaisically following the lead of angry conservative pundits simply ignored this fact.

Again, the original disaster relief bill put forth by the U.S. Senate in late December was an attempt to address multiple natural disasters in the United States; while there was no doubt some additional fat in the final figure, sloppy reporting by the national media helped make a federal case out of critical regional issues. Regrettably, the $150 million was removed from the final legislation, no doubt in part to the aggressive work of ENGO’s working over Congress to minimize the input of coastal fishermen.

After all, why the need for federal fisheries disaster monies when PEW, EDF and Marine Fish Conservation Network have spent the past 12 months telling key congressional staffers that there’s simply nothing wrong with our coastal fisheries?

FRANK ADVICE FOR 113TH CONGRESS

Offering advice to new members of Congress, outgoing Congressman Frank asked that they recognize fishing as “an important economic interest, a cultural interest, a social interest and...understand that the fishermen are very responsible, that nobody has more of an interest in regulating fishing than the fishermen," while adding, "be skeptical of our friends, the environmentalists."

Skepticism is a good bit of advice Mr. Frank, and the best place in the world to cut through the debate and rhetoric is in Congress through open discussion with stakeholders and interested parties. My hope is that you will in fact be given that temporary Senate seat, where perhaps then we can move forward with Senate deliberations on the problems affecting our coastal fishermen.

As Barney Frank said, nobody has more of an interest in regulating fishing than fishermen; and no one has more on the line with regard to the sustainability of our fish stocks than the coastal anglers themselves. ENGO lobbyists at EDF, PEW and the Marine Fish Conservation Network have done nothing more than attempt to suppress discussion and debate of stakeholders and constituents. If they truly embraced the democratic process and American exceptionalism, the ENGO’s would agree to debate and allow Congress to hold Committee hearings on the fisheries management issues in America today.

The big question is, are the showroom environmentalists and ENGO lobbyists willing to malign and vilify environmental champions like Barney Frank for daring to question these groups and their leadership “values” and for warning Congress to be “skeptical” of their actions and initiatives?

Or once again will they attempt to hide from debate by defaming and demoralizing other groups and individuals for daring to petition for a governmental redress of grievances?

The bottom line is that fish is not pork, fishermen are not pigs, and many of the ENGO’s simply have no core values. As for the angling organizations and conservation groups who have acquiesced to ENGO pressure and joined forces with many of these coalitions of deceit in opposition to sensible fisheries reform while supporting arbitrary, time-specific deadlines and rigid overfishing definitions, please take not that you have only been made complicit (perhaps unknowingly) in the continued slaughter of our industry through widely supported congressional neglect of coastal fishing interests.

SPORTSMEN'S ACT OF 2012 STALLS - "PROGESSIVE" PLAN MEETS REPUBLICAN ANTI-TAX BACKLASH

“Ten bucks. That’s what killed the progressive, popular, good-government Sportsmen’s Act of 2012 yesterday. Ten bucks, or the increase of the cost of a federal duck stamp from $15 to $25.”

And so it is, the lead sentence from Ben Lamb’s Outdoor Life piece on November 28th regarding the Sportsmen’s Act of 2012, and how it was killed in the Senate over a $10 fee increase.

In other words, the democrat-led Sportsmen’s Act of 2012, complete with a 66% tax increase on the price of a federal duck stamp (a tax increased supported and endorsed by the national group Ducks Unlimited), stalled because republicans agreed that a ‘yes’ vote to increase taxes would be in clear violation of section 302(f) the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Slice it and dice any way you want, but the Senate is prohibited by law from considering legislation that would cause a committee's allocation of either budget authority or outlays to be exceeded. Additionally, Senate Budget Committee ranking member Rep. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) pointed out that the Sportsmen's Act would require $14 million in new federal spending, and thus, Sessions says, would violate the spending levels set in the Budget Control Act (BCA). "The BCA limited spending in various accounts as part of an agreement to raise the debt ceiling, the debt limit," Sessions recently told The Hill.

Sen. Sessions acknowledged that a $14 million override is small compared to the sums Congress usually spends, but he said Congress needs to be more principled if it is going to reduce the budget deficit, which is why he stood out as one of the sole republicans earlier in the month to come out in opposition to this piece of legislation, most of which he supports in principle.

"We cannot breach those levels. It is a sick pattern and makes a mockery of law and responsible governing," Sessions told The Hill.

According to Lamb at Outdoor Life however, Sen. Sessions has a more sinister reasoning behind his opposition of the Sportsmen’s Act of 2012. “The sad fact is that most Republicans are still smarting over the re-election of the bill’s sponsor, Montana Sen. Jon Tester,” he wrote in his opinion, adding “That’s the real reason they killed the bill, behind the guise of procedural posturing.”

Here’s the real “posturing” being done as perpetrated against the recreational hunting and fishing community as a whole. The Sportsmen’s Act of 2012 failed because there simply too many cooks in the kitchen.

Ducks Unlimited wanted to raise the federal duck stamp fees; the American Sportfishing Association (ASA) and the National Rifle Association (NRA) supported language to keep the Environmental Protection Agency out of the lead regulation game with regard to fishing tackle and bullets; the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) was hoping to see more funding from the Pittman-Robertson Act dedicated to development and operation of public shooting ranges; the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP) supported the creation of a new National Fish Habitat Board to for “establishing national goals and priorities for aquatic habitat conservation;” even environmental groups like Nature Conservancy pushed for elements of this bill, like authorizing use of 1-1/2% of Land and Water Conservation Fund appropriations for purchasing access to public lands from private sellers.

All totaled, there were about eight different pieces of legislation bundled together under one broad-based bill, devised with the help of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation and their Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus. The problem of course with this many individual and diverse special interests included under one big umbrella is that it only takes one little tear in the fabric to get everyone else all wet.

After following the procession of the Sportsmen’s Act of 2012 through the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate during the course of several months, it’s been pretty interesting to see how so many individuals joined up with a caucus of one distinct voice. We at the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) certainly agree with and support certain pieces of legislation which have been bundled into the final package, however, we cannot sensibly endorse all legislative language under the umbrella, nor are we able to promote bills which are not supported by our stated mission “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.”

In other words, because elements of the Sportsmen’s Act of 2012 to allow for the importation of polar bear trophies from Canada or putting mandates on increasing duck stamp fees for U.S. waterfowl hunters are not issues supported by our mission, RFA is not able to sensibly endorse or support the entire umbrella.

I know it’s hard for folks like Ben Lamb to understand, but here’s the political reality simplified – no one buys a whole carton of eggs if one of them is cracked.

In the end, this appears to be about partisan politics destroying the Sportsmen’s Act of 2012, but not necessarily for the reason Lamb states. Even democrats like Sen. Frank Lautenberg and Sen. Bob Menendez who had opposed this legislation numerous times before had turned out with a favorable ‘yes’ vote on November 26th, a pretty good indication that something was amiss.

After reading through the Senate proceedings on November 26th, it’s quite clear that this was a vote about a tax increase and the apportionment of more money towards government programs. It was indeed a partisan standoff between democrats and republicans, with a very clear edict under the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

I’m sure the leaders of each of the organizations with their own dog in this hunt knew about the very tenuous thread by which their umbrella was woven. One slip, and the house of cards would come crashing down. Amendment 2875 was offered clearly as a request for Senators to ignore the Congressional Budget Act, if even just this one time. Some, perhaps Ben Lamb is one of them, would argue “hey, what’s $10?”

For the constituents, it’s not just $10 – it’s another $10! And as far as more taxes go, Congress has drawn a line in the sand – for now. As dysfunctional as we all believe it to be, so long as our elected representatives continue to add another fee here coupled with a new appropriation over there, the bickering will continue.

Individual saltwater anglers and business owners who had been asked to sign on to a pledge or petition to help pass the Sportsmen’s Act of 2012 in the Senate may want to consider the following items in terms of saltwater fishing and the sportfishing industry as included in this bundle of legislative items, and where the RFA position stands on these specific items of marine interest.

Section 121 of the Sportsmen’s Act of 2012 would provide an exemption for fishing tackle to allow the continued use of lead in sinkers, jigs, some types of fishing line, and other materials deployed by saltwater anglers. As a stand-alone piece of legislation (S.838) called the Hunting, Fishing, and Recreational Shooting Protection Act, this language would block ongoing attempts by some environmental groups to federally ban lead in recreational fishing equipment and ammunition by clarifying the Toxic Substances Control Act. RFA supports S.838.

Section 122 of the Sportsmen’s Act of 2012 includes the same language regarding Pacific billfish that has already been signed into law by President Obama on October 5th. The so-called Billfish Conservation Act of 2012, which is in fact law today, would ban foreign imports of Pacific-caught billfish into the continental United States, but still allows those fleets to land and sell billfish in Hawaii and other Pacific Insular Areas like Guam and Samoa.

Furthermore, the new Billfish Conservation Act will allow commercial fishermen from Hawaii and these Pacific Insular Areas to continue to sell blue marlin, black marlin and striped marlin inside the continental United States. RFA did not support amendments made to the Billfish Conservation Act legislation since 2011 which now provides a loophole to allow for the continued sale of Hawaiian-caught billfish in the continental United States.

Additionally, because the U.S. Senate already sent the Billfish Conservation Act (S.3422) to the President for his signature into law (which has already taken place), RFA believes inclusion in the final Sportsmen’s Act of 2012 is mostly irrelevant at this time.

Section 123 of the Sportsmen’s Act of 2012 authorizes a report to be completed within 18 months on the feasibility and benefits of keeping inactive oil platforms in place for fish habitat. RFA endorses this language, while also supporting the Rigs to Reefs Habitat Protection Act (S.1555) which regrettably is not bundled into this final bill; S.1555 which would authorize the use of certain offshore oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico for artificial reefs (perhaps pending results of the final report which would come from approval of section 123 of the Sportsmen’s Act of 2012).

One additional piece of legislation incorporated into the final Sportsmen’s Act of 2012 is S. 1201, otherwise referred to as the National Fish Habitat Conservation Act. The primary purpose of this language according to the bill’s sponsors is to “conserve fish and aquatic communities in the United States through partnerships that foster fish habitat conservation, to improve the quality of life for the people of the United States.” To meet these lofty goals, S.1201 would create a National Fish Habitat Board to further promote, oversee, and coordinate the implementation of the Act while “establishing national goals and priorities for aquatic habitat conservation.”

RFA believes the creation of additional councils, commissions, boards, and summits offer excellent opportunities for bureaucrats and appointed professionals to meet and discuss important ecosystem issues in the United States. However, in the real world where U.S. anglers are being denied opportunities to fish because of an inflexible federal fisheries law bound by inadequate science and a “fatally flawed” recreational data collection program, the creation of a National Fish Habitat Board will be of no relevance to saltwater anglers.

So, the U.S. Senate has stalled on a comprehensive package of legislation in the form of the Sportsmen’s Act of 2012. RFA offers the very best of luck to those supporters in getting this legislation passed. But for saltwater anglers hoping for improved access to vital saltwater fisheries, sensible reform of our nation’s federal fisheries law remains the most important action for congress to address in the coming months.

Protection of important fish habitat in the Gulf of Mexico is critical, and ensuring that environmental groups are impeded in their efforts to ban lead fishing tackle are key issues which should be taken up by Congress on behalf of saltwater anglers and business owners. However, RFA is not about to cry crocodile tears because of stalled legislation pushed by a group caucus, peer pressure mentality, especially given that there are many other pressing concerns which Congress should be addressing right now in terms of angler access and the future well-being of our recreational industry.

Sure, it’s just another $10 fee heaped on the nation’s sportsmen – and a $14 million override is relatively small when compared to the sums Congress usually spends.   

But the term “progressive, popular, good-government” is more than just a misnomer, it's an oxymoron wrapped in political doublespeak - another tax bundled up in a feel-good package which regrettably has very little impact on your access to coastal fisheries. 

Especially when considering the fact that Sandy's impact on the recreational fishing community alone on the East Coast could top $500 million...think about that when priortizing Congressional spending on critical saltwater angling interests in our frontyard!

SOMETHING’S FISHY ABOUT THE PEW/EDF ELECTION STRATEGY

 

Rep. Steve Southerland of Florida’s 2nd Congressional District is what we at the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) call a Fishing Champion.

Since his election to Congress in 2010, Rep. Southerland has stood up for all fishermen along the Gulf of Mexico, recreational and commercial alike, while passionately representing coastal interests in the House Natural Resources Committee.

In the face of a presidential executive order creating a National Ocean Policy, Rep. Southerland asked the tough questions, eliciting confusing and contradictory answers by the White House staff and NOAA administrator as to whether new laws and regulations would be required.

Rep. Southerland doesn’t pitch softballs to bureaucrats, but instead demands answers to tough questions as to how the appointed government employees plan on delivering on their pledges to the American people; a perfect example being congressionally mandated requirement that NOAA Fisheries overhaul their recreational angler data collection program by the 2009 deadline, an important scientific task which the government has still not met and for which Rep. Southerland has been particularly vocal.

In recent years - and in light of the government’s failure to meet their congressional mandates for improved science and data collection - extremist non-government organizations like Pew Environment Group (PEW) and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) have invested heavily in a cap and trade fisheries program which works by limiting the number of fishermen while trading away ownership of the fish stock itself to a few, well-heeled groups and individuals.

Falsely claiming to represent the best interests of all fishermen – even getting invited to testify before the House Natural Resources Committee in favor of their privatization scheme - the individuals who own shares of fish stocks are hoping to expand on the PEW/EDF fisheries ownership plot, breaking down the barrier between the commercial and recreational sectors in a winner-take-all battle over resource allocation.

TWO-PARTY ‘CATCH SHARE’ OPPOSITION

In a recent debate before the entire House of Representatives, Rep. Southerland (a Republican) joined ranks with liberal Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank (a Democrat) in passing legislation designed to halt funding on the spread of this all-out fish grab. Also known as ‘catch shares’ or individual fishing quotas (IFQs), this devious plan devised by PEW and EDF has had a debilitating impact on the New England fishing communities, forcing small-scale operators, individual owners and private anglers out of action while allowing big corporate operators, often from out of the region, to buy their way into ownership of what once was a public natural resource.

Rep. Southerland should be commended for standing up to this take-over attempt, but the environmental organizations like EDF and PEW - those who wish to limit fish harvest to a few well-connected and hand-selected advocates- have a lot riding on this investment scheme, and they’re not about to let a freshman Congressman like Steve Southerland stand in the way of their corrupted agenda.

According to IRS tax documents, EDF has invested more than $750,000 in the past 3 years alone in creating pseudo fishing organizations like the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders Alliance, Gulf Fishermen’s Association and South Atlantic Fishermen’s Association. As these EDF-funded organizations continue to lobby legislators and fisheries managers to further restrict coastal fishing opportunities in an effort to further divide the community and expand upon these limited entry business models, investors have been lining up at the trough.

Take Michael Miglini for example, a former tech investor from Austin, TX who was quoted in an Associated Press story on August 5, 2000 following one of the most volatile days in Wall Street history as having “lost more money in this week than I made in the previous two years." According to the AP story, Miglini had recently sold his construction company and invested heavily in technology stocks which completely collapsed in the market turn.

Twelve years later, Miglini is the owner of fisheries IFQs through several different business interests, including South Atlantic Fishing, Inc. and Great Sage, Inc. In 2011, he received another $48,000 from the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders Alliance to start a new organization called the Charter Fishermen’s Association (CFA), a group designed to look like a recreational fishing industry outfit made up solely of recreational charter boat captains. Upon closer look at the CFA board of directors however - Gary Jarvis, Mike Jennings, Michael Colby, Billy Archer, Chad Haggert and Steve Tomeny - one will also find three of the six members also hold commercial IFQ permits, while another is president of a commercial marine association.

BUYING UP THE BYLINES

The opinion sections of Florida newspapers have been heavy with anti-Southerland rhetoric by many of the EDF-endowed fishermen all claiming to represent the poor, huddled masses. A little bit of research will show however that the individuals do not in any way, shape or form represent the interests of the fishing public, especially not when their goal of privatizing natural resource has been directly funded by New York City and Philadelphia based environmental business organizations like EDF and PEW.

In addition to Jarvis, Jennings, Colby, Tomeny and Miglini, other representatives of the EDF-funded groups getting printed bylines in newspapers up and down the Gulf Coast of Florida of late, as well as in publications as far north as Massachusetts, including Jim Clements. A board member of the EDF-funded Gulf Fishermen’s Association, Clements recently told the Gloucester Times how he is financing one of his two boats for a captain who has no shares of fish and is therefore not able to fish. “He is doing fine by leasing the allocation for each species of fish that he catches,” Clements said, essentially describing how he functions as the broker through this method of coastal sharecropping.

In actuality, Clements doesn’t have to struggle any longer trying to fill a single bucket of fish himself just to secure a living in commercial fishing; not so long as he gets harvest shares which he can then lease back to real fishermen at a significant profit. Clements and others have created a rather unique investment opportunity, all thanks to the gracious support of the environmental business leaders and lobbyists at EDF!

Then there’s recent Tampa Tribune editorialist Dean Pruitt of Madeira Beach, another Gulf Fishermen’s Association board member and EDF funded captain who recently slammed Rep. Southerland for having “humiliated Florida recreational fishermen who have traveled to Washington to testify before his committee.” Pruitt bases his argument on a recent political action alert issued by environmental lobbyist Matt Tinning of the Pew-funded Marine Fish Conservation Network who describes CFA’s Michael Colby as having been “treated with remarkable contempt” at the congressional, adding how another charter captain named Terry Gibson also “endured a similarly offensive barrage.”

FROM STATE PEN TO PENNED STATEMENTS

What neither Pruitt nor the Australian attorney turned Democratic strategist turned environmental lobbyist Tinning divulge is Colby’s financial relationship to EDF through CFA, or Gibson’s direct employment by PEW (what Gibson himself has called one of “the most incredible experiences” of his life.)

Pruitt also fails to acknowledge that he spent four years in federal prison after admitting to using "deceit, craft, trickery, and dishonesty" to undermine federal enforcement of grouper regulations in the early 1990s. CFA member Steve Tomeny was also fined $12,000 after pleading guilty in the 90’s to making false statements to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to trying to meet a qualifying annual threshold of 5000 pounds of commercial caught red snapper. In the same case, Theodore Tomeny was sentenced to six months' home confinement, three years' probation and fined $20,000.

Another political operative and headline generator is Tallahassee attorney Tommy Warren, a man Tinning describes as a “lifelong Gulf private angler.” Truth be told, part of Mr. Warren’s life was actually spent behind bars following a 1973 bust aboard a shrimp boat traveling between Cuba and Havana in an attempt to buy 10 tons of marijuana to smuggled back into the U.S. Youthful indiscretion perhaps, but Warren was finally granted an official pardon by President Bill Clinton in the mid 1990’s, and has since been a top fundraiser for both the national and state Democratic parties according to Federal Election Commission data.

As for whether Mr. Warren has entered the political firefight to undermine Rep. Southerland for purely partisan reasons, or perhaps professionally through his Tallahassee law firm (Settlement Services, Inc) is not entirely known. But with millions of dollars of environmental funding in play on political action campaigns through EDF and PEW, not to mention legal settlement opportunities in securing potential ownership rights of coastal fisheries, you can bet that where there’s smoke there’s fire.

Environmental non-government organizations are spending copious amounts of cash to steal the November elections away from coastal fishermen. Instead of doing the heavy lifting and grassroots effort themselves, they’ve contributed millions of dollars in the Gulf of Mexico over the past several years in an attempt to convert natural public resource into private equity, with a core group of pseudo fishermen and political operatives doing the extensive lobbying on behalf of their corporate benefactors.

The Gulf of Mexico has now become ground zero in EDF’s campaign to “help advance catch shares throughout the country.” On behalf of 7-1/2 million individual saltwater anglers at risk of being denied the opportunity to fish recreationally in the Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic and all across our nation’s public waters, the RFA gives thanks to Rep. Steve Southerland, a true Fishing Champion and staunch advocate for individual rights.

EDF, PEW and the political action committee from California known as Oceans Champions have brought their cultural battle to Bay County, FL in hopes of stopping an effective legislator early in his congressional career. The radical environmental warriors who believe they know what’s best for our oceans like yes men, legislators who are unlikely to ask the hard questions and more than willing to take a few handouts in exchange for the peace and quiet that often comes with blanket compromise.

For legislators like Steve Southerland - those who are unwilling to give away their constituency’s essential liberty for a little personal safety – the only path is the straight and narrow. Good thing for Florida’s second congressional district and for the U.S.’s 7-1/2 million saltwater anglers, Congressman Steven Southerland is a true Fishing Champion!

Join RFA today, and together let’s fight for your right to fish!

(Journalists interested in seeing the IRS 990 forms used to compile the financial information included above may contact Jim Hutchinson at the Recreational Fishing Alliance.) 

HOW PRIVATE INVESTORS ARE LOOKING TO CORNER THE FISHERIES MARKETS

“On the most volatile day ever on Wall Street, plunging technology shares sent the stock market into a stomach-churning rout…”

This was the lead sentence in an April 5, 2000 story in the Associated Press about a massive selloff of stocks just 12 years ago at a time when both Nasdaq and Dow had each recorded their widest point swings in history on record volume. The primary culprit of this mass movement of stock was the technology sector, what many financial analysts had called “insanely overvalued” while explaining the big drop in price “long overdue.”

One tech stock investor who got pounded especially hard was Michael Miglini of Austin, TX. "I lost more money in this week than I made in the previous two years," Miglini said at the time, telling the Associate Press that he had recently sold his construction company and invested heavily in the stock market on technology stocks.

"It was the absolute worst timing possible," Miglini said, adding "It's a painful lesson."

After losing his shirt in the stock market, Miglini started up a new business out of Corpus Christi, TX in May of 2001 called Great Sage, Inc., running a fulltime business in the Gulf of Mexico operating fishing and dive boats and hiring staffers and interns to help with grant writing and social media campaigns.

Just 10 years after learning a “painful lesson” as a technology investor in the stock market, Miglini has now gotten himself in on the ground floor of a new investment opportunity revolved around personal ownership of once public resources. Miglini now runs several business enterprises listed under NOAA Fisheries has having an ‘IFQ User ID’ which is what is required for a business owner to apply for individual fishing quota (IFQ) and transferable shares of fish stock.

In addition to possessing an IFQ User ID for himself, Miglini is the owner of at least two other enterprises out of Corpus Christi, TX listed in NOAA shareholders listing forms, including South Atlantic Fishing, Inc. and Great Sage, Inc. Miglini’s Great Sage itself is also connected to other Gulf of Mexico limited liability corporations (LLC) including Going Pelagic, Out to Sea, and South Atlantic Grouper, Inc.

While technology stocks are old news at this point, ripe for the picking are stocks of fish which are now being eyed by business savvy investors looking to corner the market on a once publicly held resource. Miglini now owns commercial IFQs for deepwater grouper, red grouper, gag grouper, shallow water grouper, tilefish and red snapper, ensuring that he can get paid for harvest even if he doesn’t actually perform the work. Once an IFQ allocation is established, a commercial owner like Miglini can catch that share of fish to sell direct to market, or he can sell the shares outright when the timing is right, while leasing out that harvest to real fishermen until such a time is right to cash in and sell out.

Same thing that Miglini did in the late 1990’s when he sold his Texas construction company and invested all the profits in technology stocks, stocks which eventually collapsed. This time however, Miglini has received some start-up cash from groups willing to help him invest, like Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). In the past 3 years, EDF and their political action arm have invested more than $750,000 on Miglini and his associates, helping him to form several non-profit organizations in the Gulf of Mexico designed to give cover to efforts to wrestle fish stocks away from the public domain, including the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders Alliance, Gulf Fishermen’s Association and South Atlantic Fishermen’s Association. As these organizations have continued to lobby legislators and fisheries managers to further restrict coastal fishing opportunities to further divide the community and expand on limited entry schemes to protect individual shareholders’ bottom line, Miglini has been active in creating yet another investment diversion.

In 2011, Miglini took $48,000 from the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders Alliance account to start a new organization called the Charter Fishermen’s Association, a group designed to look like a recreational fishing industry outfit made up solely of charter boat captains. However, upon closer look of its board of directors (Gary Jarvis, Mike Jennings, Michael Colby, Billy Archer, Chad Haggert and Steve Tomeny), one will find three of the six members hold commercial IFQ permits, another is president of a commercial marine association on the Gulf.

The fact that the original funding to create this faux charter association came from a group of commercial IFQ shareholders should send enough cautionary flags to scare off skeptical anglers.

With the commercial sector already being force-fed a cap and trade fisheries policy whereby entry into the fishery is limited and ownership of the resource is awarded to a select group of established fishermen, the recreational sector has survived via open access for everyone under the harvest management mechanism of season, size and bag limits. With continuing pressure by the EDF-funded members of Miglini’s new Charter Fishermen’s Association, many charter boat captains are being led to believe that by separating the recreational sector into two parts, the private angler and the business owner, a new set of rules and regulations can be adopted to improve access.

What Miglini and friends are not explaining is how this system will operate in the same exact way as it does with commercial fishermen; a mechanism will have to be put in place to cap the number of overall fishermen, offering access to individual fish stocks through public auction or government allocation whereby shares can be openly bought, sold and traded on the open market. The sector separation and catch share scheme which would effectively trade off ownership of our coastal public resources to a few well-connected investors would effectively shut the public out of the fishery; without shares, or ‘tags’ or personalized allocation of specific quota, the average, everyday angler will not be allowed to access a given fish stock like red snapper or gag grouper.

Just like he was in the late 90’s with his technology stocks, Michael Miglini on the ground floor of the sharecropping gold rush in the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic, gobbling up as many individual shares of commercial quota as he can conceivably get through the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders Alliance and South Atlantic Fishermen’s Association. Simultaneously, Miglini and his fellow investors at the Charter Fishermen’s Association are hoping to divide the recreational sector into smaller pieces, divesting of private anglers to more readily invest on the commercial component of the recreational community.

Once the community is divided and recreational IFQs are finally allotted and made transferable between the sectors, Miglini is hoping to recoup that money he originally lost as a tech trader during that dismal week back in April of 2000. Then, when Miglini has cashed in his shares and the entire Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic reef fish complex is under a privatized cap and trade fisheries policy, those who had refused to fight in opposition to this corporate takeover of public resource will no doubt say the same thing as Miglini did 12 years ago.

"It's a painful lesson."

WHAT ORGANIZATION SHOULD I JOIN? CHOOSING BETWEEN MISSIONS & METHODS

On July 16, 2012, Dr. Stephen R. Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, died from complications stemming from a bicycle accident. Seven Habits sold more than 20 million copies in roughly 40 different languages, but Covey’s work was far more than just literary, as his personal clients included three-quarters of Fortune 500 companies and scores of schools and government entities. Covey trained three dozen heads of state, including the presidents of Colombia and South Korea and their cabinets, and both Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich were among his ardent fans.

As the Economist put it in 1986, "Coveyism is total quality management for the character, re-engineering for the soul — a tempting product in an age when the organizational versions of these disciplines have often pushed employee morale to rock bottom."

In the second of his seven habits, Covey spelled out how a mission statement – personal or corporate – functions as your constitution, the solid expression of personal or corporate vision and values. The mission becomes the very basis by which you measure everything else in your life in terms of making the daily decisions “in the midst of the circumstances and emotions that affect our lives.”

For a private company which functions to make money, the mission is clearly to earn profit. A publicly held corporation on the New York Stock Exchange for example is actually bound by law to pursue maximum profit on behalf of their shareholders (which is essentially why the Recreational Fishing Alliance takes an antagonistic view of Omega Protein Corporation, a publicly held company whose sole mission is to vacuum as much menhaden from the ecosystem as humanly possible in order to turn a profit for its corporate shareholders). In a true capitalist sense, a typical corporate mission statement is written to guide a company towards the ultimate goal of earning income and maximizing profit.

For a non-profit organization on the other hand, Covey’s mission statement is even more important. For an organization which is recognized as non-profit in the eyes of the government, profit is not the goal; instead, it is up the mission statement to provide a clear statement of the purpose of an organization so as to guide the actions of the organization, spell out its overall goal, provide a path, and lead overall decision-making.

When a non-profit organization's purpose is to serve some part of the community as a whole, it is essential that the mission statement clearly defines the services to be performed and the compassion driving the people who provide those services. Developing the mission statement therefore becomes a critical first step in defining what a non-profit organization plans to do; it also defines how that organization is different from any other in the same field.

In other words, the non-profit mission statement is an iron-bound constitution from which no one involved in the organization may ever deviate. No egos, no personal or individual goals, but instead a strict constitution for which all strategies are formulated and carried out on behalf of the entire organization and its membership.

HOW DOES A MISSION STATEMENT IMPACT YOU?

Before signing up to support a non-profit organization as individual member or sustaining supporter, it’s important to first consider the mission statement. Does the mission truly represent your own personal goals? Is the reason why you are looking to join or support an organization substantiated by that organization’s own constitution? Does the organizational mission statement protect you and your rights?

In the world of recreational fisheries today, there has been plenty of talk about an angler’s personal right to fish, yet there’s only ever been one organization charted specifically with that mission in mind and that’s the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA). Founded in 1996 as a non-profit political action organization and modeled after the National Rifle Association (NRA), RFA’s personal 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.”

When you break down the key words in the RFA’s mission, you’ll see “safeguard,” “rights,” “saltwater anglers”, “protect” and “saltwater fisheries, in addition to “marine, boat and tackle industry jobs.”

These are constitutional staples, missing from the mission statements of other organizations in the same field which claim to do the same thing. However, you need to consider for a moment the following “mission statements” offered up by other groups in the sportfishing field.

(Keep in mind that this is in no way meant to criticize those groups listed below, but instead to point out a very clear contrast between RFA and any other organization in America whose members have sometimes been led to believe that their right to fish is being protected through active membership.)

Take for example the Coastal Conservation Association or CCA whose stated mission is “to advise and educate the public on conservation of marine resources. The objective of CCA is to conserve, promote, and enhance the present and future availability of those coastal resources for the benefit and enjoyment of the general public.”

While CCA has often been referenced as an angler’s organization, the actual non-profit mission does not show any indication of being such. While saltwater anglers in Florida have flocked to CCA over the years because of their efforts to destroy the commercial fishing industry, there is nothing in the CCA mission to indicate that the “rights” of “saltwater anglers” will be either “safeguarded” or “protected” should the organization ever be successful in their stated mission to “advise and educate the public on conservation of marine resources.”

Another organization often described as the voice of anglers is the International Game Fish Association or IGFA. According to their longstanding mission statement, “the International Game Fish Association is a not-for-profit organization committed to the conservation of game fish and the promotion of responsible, ethical angling practices through science, education, rule making and record keeping.”

Again, while IGFA may have been founded on the premise of “record keeping,” the “conservation of game fish,” and promoting “responsible, ethical angling practices,” there is nothing in the IGFA mission that shows it is concerned with America’s right to fish.

Similarly, the Billfish Foundation (TBF) is another non-profit organization with a very clear mission which is “dedicated to the conservation and enhancement of billfish populations worldwide through research, education and advocacy.” TBF has taken a truly admirable path to protect the world’s billfish stocks, dedicated to protecting marlin, sailfish and swordfish specifically, and their work is to be respected. But arguably, if you’re concerned about the closure of red snapper, how is TBF structured to help you?

Of course, if as an angler you’re most interested in snook or tarpon, you might prefer to be a member of the Snook Foundation or Save the Tarpon. In the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, anglers rallied behind the summer flounder in recent years by supporting the Save the Summer Flounder Fishery Fund, while a handful of striper aficionados pressing for gamefish protection of linesides have focused efforts in that fight through Stripers Forever.

All these individual species are terrific and the missions of the organizations themselves are truly admirable; in meshing with that common theme of sustainability, RFA specifically dedicated itself through development of its mission in 1996 to “ensure the long-term sustainability of our Nation’s saltwater fisheries”- in meeting our own mission to safeguard the rights of saltwater anglers and protect recreational industry jobs, RFA must tread carefully in making our decisions best on the overall “long-term sustainability of our Nation’s saltwater fisheries.”

By adhering to a more angler-specific perspective, RFA does not put itself in a situation of compromise…in order to get gamefish protection for striped bass for example, we would not have to compromise on someone else’s efforts to protect billfish stocks. Or if legislators had a choice of legislation to protect snook or tarpon, which effort would succeed and which would fail? This is one of the perfect examples of why combination hunting and fishing organizations or broad caucuses of ‘like-minded’ sportsmen are rarely effective. Imagine an opportunity to allow sport hunters the opportunity to take game on Sunday hinging upon whether or not an added tax will be inflicted on saltwater anglers or a freshwater hatchery is allowed to continue.

Politics, regrettably, is wrought with compromise. While a coalition of ‘like-minded’ groups or individuals has a pleasant, unifying sound to it, there will always be someone in the union who is forced to compromise, typically the one whose own personal mission is the most challenging to attain.

POLITICAL POWER OVER IMPOTENCE

Many folks assume that all non-profit organizations are essentially alike in their ability to operate legally under U.S. tax law. However, there are key differences between a federally recognized 501(c)(3) ‘non-profit’ and a 501(c)(4) ‘non-profit’ organization, specifically as it relates to an organization’s ability to work the political system on behalf of its mission.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) defines both the 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) as being non-profit organizations exempt from paying federal income tax, however, a 501(c)(3) organization is legally defined more as a public charity while a 501(c)(4) organization is more politically active. Specifically, a 501(c)(3) is limited by law in the amount of time/money they can put into lobbying for particular cause, whereas the 501(c)(4) can do an unlimited amount of lobbying.

A significant tradeoff here is that the 501(c)(4) is therefore ineligible to receive federal monies like grants.

Under federal law, a 501(c)(3) cannot in any way support or oppose anyone running for public office. A 501(c)(4) on the other hand can engage in political campaign activity, so long as this is consistent with the organization’s mission and is not the organization’s primary activity. Because of these political and campaigning activities, any donation made to a 501(c)(4) which is not a public entity like a local fire department is not deductible.

While corporations, environmental non-government organizations and philanthropic trusts groups can freely give to a 501(c)(3) and enjoy the benefits of an IRS tax deduction, those donating money directly to a 501(c)(4) must believe wholeheartedly in the group’s mission statement, given that no IRS ‘charitable’ donation will be recognized.

In terms of achieving political gains in support of an organization’s mission, the 501(c)(4) has power to lobby, whereas the 501(c)(3) has been all but rendered politically impotent under federal tax law. Recognizing this fact in the mid 90’s, the institutional founders of the RFA chose to register their organization with the government as a 501(c)(4) in order to meet its stated mission 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.”

Where other groups like IGFA, TBF and CCA were already established as 501(c)(3) organizations with their exclusive mission, RFA was founded specifically to be the political watchdog for individual anglers and recreational business owners, as well as the resource itself. Like ‘em or hate ‘em, RFA modeled itself on the National Rifle Association (NRA) to specifically function as a lobbying force for anglers.

Over the years, RFA has taken heat from some of the other 501(c)(3) organizations because of our unwillingness to go along for the good of any broad-based coalition. Regrettably, what many of these groups simply can’t understand is that as a 501(c)(4) with a very specific, three-pronged mission (fish, fishermen and fishing industry), simply going along to get along would be flagrant violation of our mission and of grave disservice to our members. Coalition members are typically asked to compromise mission for the good of the group, something which RFA is incapable and unwilling to do.

Having proven extremely effective in its first few years, RFA’s ongoing effort to protect our membership’s right to fish has earned many friends, a few enemies, and a couple of copycats (imitation of course being the highest form of flattery.) In March of 2004 for example, a new organization sprang up in Saint Petersburg, FL called the Fishing Rights Alliance (FRA) which is registered in the state of Florida as a “domestic non-profit corporation.” Flattering to say the least, there has been plenty of confusion ever since with regard to the ‘alphabet soup’ effect. In fact, many times people will call the RFA office to complain about their FRA membership status, where still others have been led to believe that both organizations are the same.

After years of sportfishing industry backlash for failing to fight as actively as the RFA, the American Sportfishing Association (ASA) in 2008 helped form a brand new 501(c)(4) organization by bringing in various 501(c)(3) groups including CCA, TBF and IGFA. In the very first press release announcing the formation of the new Center for Coastal Conservation (CCC), it was explained how this non-partisan national organization would be dedicated to enacting sensible marine conservation laws through education and political action. While many industry professionals believed they were getting a new industry-supported political advocate operating exclusively on behalf of America’s right to fish, the organization’s mission statement would tell a completely different story - “Our mission is to promote good stewardship of America’s marine resources.”

TURNING POLITICS INTO A BRAND

The ineffectiveness of the CCC to promote policy or legislation in support of America’s right to fish should’ve been forecast by all who had read the organizational mission statement when it was created back in 2008. “Good stewardship of America’s marine resources,” is a completely imperceptible concept, it cannot be measured nor can it be quantified. As far as mission statements go, it is an aimless and anemic statement which does nothing to show support for the recreational fishing community, but instead leaves political process and strategy open to personal interpretation by the institutional sustainers who sit on its board of directors.

In other words, it’s simply another senseless coalition of compromise.

The rather directionless efforts of their own 501(c)(4) led to the ASA’s rebranding efforts in 2009 when a U.S. federal trademark registration was officially approved by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for Keep America Fishing™. According to USPTO, “the Keep America Fishing trademark is filed in the category of Advertising, Business & Retail Services, Education and Entertainment Services. The description provided to the USPTO for Keep America Fishing is Public advocacy to promote angler access, fish conservation and fishery management, provided in person and via an on-line website.”

As anglers and business owners began logging in and signing up for Keep America Fishing™ (or KAF as they’re now known) news alerts, bulletins and political action letters, what many failed to understand was that there was no real backend to the effort, no resource or staff. KAF it would appear is just a simple ‘trademark’ issued by the USPTO, where Keep America Fishing™ itself has been described inside the Beltway as little more than a “rebranding effort” by the industry trade association, ASA.

One thing’s for sure, having apparently had 750,000 individuals go through the site and provide personal contact information (email address), the national sportfishing industry now has one amazing marketing database from which to solicit new customers and a super platform for advertisers themselves!

Consider for a moment Wal-Mart, which RFA has heavily criticized in recent years for providing corporate funding to environmental organizations to promote catch shares and marine reserves; in response to a national angler boycott of Wal-Mart nationwide, the retail chain used the Keep America Fishing™ by partnering with ASA to provide a retail incentive on Plano tackle boxes. By emailing their database of contacts with the offer, ASA ultimately gave Wal-Mart cover within the angling community, and in turn KAF was the recipient of additional funding through the sale of every Plano tackle box sold inside Wal-Mart during the course of the campaign.

RFA was never founded to be nice; it wasn’t incorporated to get along, to along, or to sit quietly in the back of the room while others compromised away individual rights on behalf of ego and personal agenda. RFA is the only political organization in America today which was chartered specifically to defend the rights of our nation’s saltwater anglers and business owners, while protecting the future of our saltwater fisheries.

As “grotesque and incomprehensible” as the political process may seem, it is a fact of American life which requires careful and considerate navigation. These are often treacherous waters, and one fatal act of indecision or indiscretion can surely put an entire crew at imminent risk. Before you set a course, you need to know where you’re going and how you’re going to get there.

It all starts with the mission statement.

 

“…deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way…”

FASTER THAN A SPEEDING TELETYPE

James Bruggers is not just a journalist, he's a warrior in the movement to protect our planet from the scourge of man.

He’s one of a number of virtual superheroes from the left, armed with their magic blogs and Tweeting I-Phones with which to help beat back the demons and demigods who attempting to destroy our planet.

He’s more powerful because he’s got ‘local motive.’

“I cover a beat – the environment – that has taken huge hits at newspapers across the United States,” Bruggers said about himself in formal letter to the University of Louisville which hosted a symposium in early October. “As far as I know, I am the last one of my kind working at a newspaper in Kentucky.”

Bruggers said that “everything is different now” in the print industry where he’s been writing for the Kentucky-based Courier-Journal, there in the heart of black coal country, since studying journalism, forestry and environmental studies at the University of Montana over 10 years ago. “Newspapers are no longer just newspapers,” Bruggers wrote in his letter, explaining how his newspaper is “increasingly focusing our news delivery online, through smart phones and through social networking, including Facebook and Twitter.”

And able to leap tall buildings in a single bound too!

Bruggers’ is a fairly standard response from many reporters today, particularly those in the freelance game. Many newsroom journalists are losing their jobs to attrition, cutbacks and corporate merger, while some of the ancillary op-ed writers, sports personalities and ‘bloggers’ have been kept around to keep a local slant on things – inexpensively at that - while newsrooms are being thoroughly decimated. In response, many longtime columnists have seen a burgeoning opportunity – in years past, their articles were significantly scrutinized, regularly cut, sliced, diced and edited down by experienced copy editors, managing editors and even fully engaged publishers who understood the difference between opinion pieces and balanced reports.

Today’s ‘beat’ freelancers have little editorial scrutiny in what they provide, as most copy ‘chiefs’ are too focused on keeping Section One copy flowing through rapidly shrinking paper real estate to worry about the Section Three sport reporters and Section Five environmental ‘beat’ reporters. Since this new breed of reporter has been given carte blanche ability to post their stories directly to personal blogs and Twitter accounts without submitting through the proper chain of command, “fair and balanced” has been effectively replaced in the 21st Century by “quick and cheap.” It’s ‘fast food nation’ for the rip and read set, as print professionals, once born, bred and trained in newsroom nerve centers have been removed from their post, while pure subject matter experts – the anointed ones – have been given the front door key to the newspaper by being allowed uber access to blog site, Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Clark Kent sadly was laid off from the downtown office. But don’t despair, James Brugger is still blogging to the world from his home office in Kentucky (“he’s everywhere, he’s everywhere!”)

“Science is only part of what I do. Environmental journalism often involves a variety of disciplines – for example, politics, religion, economics and science,” Bruggers explained to the Kentucky academia in his recent blog titled, appropriately enough, Covering Science and the Environment Between the Tweets.

“Journalism professors I know are producing a whole new generation of specialized science and environmental journalists who are taking an entrepreneurial approach to their careers,” Bruggers wrote in his Jerry McGuireish treatise to the symposium, adding “And membership numbers in the Society of Environmental Journalists, which I helped lead for 13 years, remain strong.”

The Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) met this week in Miami, where Bruggers and other anointed bloggers and Tweeters kept active by reporting in 140-charcter blips from the SEJ panel events. One blogger Imelda Albano, President of Phil Network of Environmental Journalists, Inc. said of the event via the SEJ Twitter feed, “an excellent venue for env't journalists from West and South to learn from each other in making our society a sustainable one.”

Meanwhile Emilia Askari of the Detroit Free Press Tweets “want $ fr knight fndtn to fund your news venutre? talk to knight biz consultant ben wirz @ entrepreneurs pitchfest sat 9 a.m.” That’s Tweet speak for “hey folks, if you need some venture capital to fund your news reporting you can meet with representatives who helped fund this event, the James L. Knight Foundation, and they’ll explain how to get you some money to report to the masses.”

Earlier, Askari posted how “the Internet gives back power given that was taken away by the mass media, just by its massiveness.”

Or perhaps it’s a need for balance that has held the movement back.

Nicole Lampe, Senior Program Director for a non-profit communications group called U.S. Resource Media shared one of the more popular Tweets of the day from University of Washington scientist and Pew Fellowship award winner Dr. P. Dee Boersma who said “I don't want balanced reporting when it comes to science.”

Welcome to the environmental movement, where journalists meet to discuss ways of funding their cause, leading the charge to ensuring a more sustainable world through reliance on political, religious, economic and scientific reporting, free from the confines of traditional media scrutiny.

It should be noted that the Miami conference of environmental journalists was hosted by the University of Miami with financial assistance from groups including John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Other SEJ financial supporters include the Everglades Foundation, Curtis and Edith Munson Foundation, Turner Family Foundation, Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment and Environmental Defense Fund.

Not every Tweeting member of the SEJ was strictly a journalist mind you. One blogger named Clint Wilder of the research and advisory firm Clean Edge, Inc. noted the striking similarities between Occupy Wall Street and environmental movements, Tweeting they “share fighting ‘the imposition of large risks by the very few on the very many.’" At its website, Wilder’s Clean Edge, Inc. describes itself as a company which “companies, investors, and governments understand and profit from clean technologies.”

Freelance journalist Cristina Santiestevan of Virginia is one of the first Tweeters to announce the opening comments of NOAA Fisheries Chief Dr. Lubchenco in a panel discussion on October 21, noting "Catch shares work. They end overfishing.” Posting under the online handle of Redbugmedia, Santiestevan describes how she is “Listening to Jane Lubchenco describe her job, ‘I fight for fishermen, and for fish.’”

Caroline Behringer, Media Specialist at World Wildlife Fund adds “Lubchenco uses Slurpies to explain catch shares to science reporters,” to which Jaime Jennings, Publicity Manager at Island Press responded “awesome!”

Behringer adds “Now contraceptives enter the Slurpy analogy to explain catch shares.”

"Who knew that birth control and 7-11 would come up in a fisheries panel," noted Juliet Eilperin, moderator of the SEJ panel called Opening Plenary — Fish Fight, which featured Dr. Lubchenco, her brother-in-law Dr. Steve Gaines, Pew Fellowship recipient Dr. Daniel Pauly, along with commercial fishing representative Nils Stolpe and the Recreational Fishing Alliance’s (RFA) Jim Donofrio representing the voice of the angling community.

“Here we go…” Wilder posts after Donofrio steps up and calls NOAA a 'job killer' explaining how the recreational fishing industry is 'getting regulated out of existence.'

“We're tripping over red snapper in Florida, but it's very restricted. Why? Lack of good science,” Tweeted Forbes clean tech blogger and freelance writer/editor Amy Westervelt of Donofrio’s comments.

“We have plenty of fish, so says one panelists,” a blogger called the Apocadocs Tweets sarcastically of Donofrio’s comments, asking wryly, “really?”

Freelancer Allie Wilkinson posts a quote from Lubchenco that seems to back Donofrio’s scientific analysis, noting “We simply do not have the resources to do stock assessments for every single fishery, every single year.”

Behringer then posts the theoretical question for Twitter followers to view, “Are marine protected areas good for commercial fisheries,” promptly answering herself in the affirmative in a Tweet directed at the fishermen in the front of the room, “Hey, panelists, the answer's ‘yes!’"

Lampe Tweets Gaines as saying “we've protected less than 1% of ocean, 10 to 15% of land,” noting how “MPA’s harbor fish as they breed and grow, helping nearby fisheries.”

The fishing representatives on the panel try to point out how notable scientific gaps in reporting through NOAA have left fishermen suffering not from science but by lack of science; they then explain to SEJ attendees that fish don’t exist upon every square inch of the ocean, and the 5% to 15% of oceans that some environmental groups would like to make off-limits to fishermen through creation of no access, no take marine reserves are actually the prime areas of oceans where fish congregate around productive structure and habitat.

Look, up in the sky….

“Fisheries lobbyist demonstrating he's completing unreasonable, opposes any restrictions on commercial fishing,” Tweets Brad Johnson, ThinkProgress Green Editor at the Center for American Progress.

“Big science crush on Daniel Pauly,” Westervelt Tweets.

“Me too,” gushes Jamie Jennings of Island Press.

Westervelt reports that Dr. Pauly is “Keeping it real with NOAA and fishermen on fish fight panel.”

Word to your mother.

Pew Environment Group’s Dave Bard says “fixing overfishing benefits everyone.” His former coworker from Pew now employed as Dr. Lubchenco handler and media spokesperson through NOAA Fisheries said of the Fish Fight panel, “a whole lot of agreeing going on. When it comes to catch shares, MPAs, science, etc, design matters most.”

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Cassandra Profita of Oregon Public Broadcasting posed the Tweeted question, “Catch shares: Best economic, ecological fish mgmt or xposing fish to 'corporate greed', 'speculation' like subprime mortgages?”

Blogger Michael Casey of Dubai, a sports and environmental reporter who writes mainly about water shortages and the sport of cricket in the Middle East quoted Donofrio as saying of catch shares "is huge political issue, not as simple as drinking from one Slurpy cup."

DC-based Matt Farrauto, a self-professed “political hack who’s gone full panda,” said “All this fish talk makes me want a slurpee.”

“Don't assume, just because I'm yawning, that I'm disinterested,” Farrauto said later.

Pittsburgh’s Jeanne Clark describes herself as “Doing my best to piss off the right wing for over 60 years,” but was unable to attend this year’s event in Miami but Tweeted a “Big shout out to my peeps at #SEJMiami. Raise lotsa $$$!”

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a trial balloon!

“Which I were there,” Clark adds, Tweeting “Too cold & not enough drinking here.”

David E. Guggenheim, himself a marine scientist and Senior Fellow at the Ocean Foundation Tweeted from the conference a quote from Daniel Pauly that “Many fisheries in the world are afloat only because of subsidies."

Guggenheim went on to quote Pauly as saying how “fishers” (that’s politically correct 21st Century green speak for fisherman or fishermen) are fishing for jelly fish, and monk fish.

The Courier-Journal’s Bruggers Tweets back, “Jellyfish? Really? Ick.”

Hmm, kryptonite and crystal jellies do seem a lot alike.

Following the fisheries panel, Farrauto Tweets “Heading to the Balmoral Room where he will fight the Balrog,” a fictional middle-earth demonic being created by JRR Tolkien in his science fiction epic, Lord of the Rings.

Even superheroes have to break for lunch.

Hey James, watch out for those peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!

“Ick!”