Sen. Darrell Steinberg hands over MLPA+Fishery Management to Enviro Private Money

[NoyoJim]

This is relayed from Vern Goehring of the CA Fisheries Coalition:

The entire fishing community (recreational and commercial) has been waiting and anticipating for months to see if the CA Legislature was going to assert its rightful role and oversee the Administration and its wealthy private supporters as they adopt Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Or would the Legislature just accept the word of the Administration that the process was based on good science and lots of public input.

The fishing community had high hopes that two prominent legislators (Senators Florez and Ducheny) would help ensure transparency. Even hoping that a special oversight hearing could be held to examine the quality of the science, the economic impacts, and the availability of state funds to actually manage MPAs once they are adopted.

Ducheny and Florez tried their best but ran into a brick wall in Senate President proTempore Steinberg’s office. Language requiring (1) the same financial standards that controls public money be applied to the MLPA private money and (2) a delay in new MPAs until fishery management is fully integrated with previously adopted MPAs was solidly rejected from going into a "budget trailer bill."

Instead, Senator Steinberg flipped the language into a huge victory for anti-fishing folks. His language compliments the Governor on the use of private money and private agreements for creating MPAs and encourages him to do the same for adopting Fishery Management Plans (FMPs) under the Marine Life Management Act (MLMA). It invites RLFF, who has already given nearly $34 million to create MPAs, and others to pony up the millions needed to write and adopt an FMP regulating fishing in areas outside of MPAs.

Steinberg recognizes that implementing the MLPA and the MLMA are outrageously expensive ($35 million annually for MLPA), but instead of fixing the problem he says go get special interest money to restrict fishing.

In other words, special interest money could be in total control of fishing throughout the state. With no effective Legislative oversight!

Please make some phone calls now:

1st - Call Senators Florez (916-651-4016) and Ducheny (916-651-4040) and thank them for their efforts regarding MLPA oversight and ask them to continue.

2nd Call Senator Steinberg (916-651-4006 Capitol or 916-651-1529 District)

Ask: Why is he undermining Legislative oversight of the MLPA? Why he supports placing tens of millions of dollars in unfunded mandates on the DFG? How can he allow costly new programs to start up while cutting critical existing programs?

3rd Call your local Assemblymember and State Senator and ask their help in getting meaningful oversight and controls on this expensive unfunded MLPA program. You can find you local representatives at www.leginfo.ca.gov Click "Your Legislature" and insert your zip code.

Thank you,

CA Fisheries Coalition

[REEL STEEL]

We are sooo screwed !

[Pacific Hooker]

I've really given my son and daughter a distorted sense of reality with the bullshit line of "Do the right thing and everything is going to be O.K."..."Tell the truth" "Pay your taxes"..."Use your vote, you CAN make a differance"...you know the standard crap that adults tell there children. I should have told them that it doesn't matter what you do your going to get fucked and then your going to die, so go sit in your cubicle and make your corporate bosses richer so they can take more away from you while they sell you the American dream, or write to your Senator if he's not down in South America bangin his mistress. Maybe they already knew, and they weren't really listening to me, I can only hope..................................




ooops, sorry, didn't mean to be so cynical, everything will be just fine

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x29...tters_creation

[Sleeter]

I've really given my son and daughter a distorted sense of reality with the bullshit line of "Do the right thing and everything is going to be O.K."..."Tell the truth" "Pay your taxes"..."Use your vote, you CAN make a differance"...you know the standard crap that adults tell there children. I should have told them that it doesn't matter what you do your going to get fucked and then your going to die, so go sit in your cubicle and make your corporate bosses richer so they can take more away from you while they sell you the American dream, or write to your Senator if he's not down in South America bangin his mistress. Maybe they already knew, and they weren't really listening to me, I can only hope..................................


ooops, sorry, didn't mean to be so cynical, everything will be just fine

Worth the price of admission every time!

[edsofish]

I must say Jim, you still have hope. To me every one of those politicians are as corrupt as they can be. I am sure Packard and Moore, etc. have lined the pockets of every key person and then some. I am done with this crap.

We have Jane Lubchenco driving the NOAA bus and pushing for ITQ's. Attrition will, ultimately, put the total TAC in the hands of a very few. I can assure you those few will not be fishermen. With ITQ,s being developed for all fisheries through a FMP the public resource is a thing of the past.

The public has unknowingly sold themselves out by supporting all the politically based environmental organizations and playing into all this "green" propaganda.

We can thank Julie Packard who has spearheaded the movement to discredit, slander, demoralize, and vilify fishermen around the world. Her deep pockets are no match for any of us and our legislators are useless as well as ignorant. What we are seeing now has been very well orchestrated over a very long time. We, as fishermen, are massively outnumbered and outdollared by this new power structure.

I give up contacting my representatives and spending all the time explaining my concerns. How can one inform soooo much ignorance.

Every time I see articles like this I get this sick feeling in my gut and want to walk away and forget the last several years I just wasted. If our own Legislature isn't willing to take a realistic approach to securing long term funding for the MPA's and question the intent of the funders interest in California's resources, then we are all wasting our time. There is nowhere else to turn. Civil disobedience is looking like a reasonable alternative more and more.

[Mark Chow]

[QUOTE][Every time I see articles like this I get this sick feeling in my gut and want to walk away and forget the last several years I just wasted. If our own Legislature isn't willing to take a realistic approach to securing long term funding for the MPA's and question the intent of the funders interest in California's resources, then we are all wasting our time. There is nowhere else to turn. Civil disobedience is looking like a reasonable alternative more and more./QUOTE]

Ed,

I am not caring anymore already about certain things that well........anarchy is just beginning to take over in my perspective..and, that is what they want.....to then prove, that a military type prohibihinist protectionst system is required to keep the fishermen off of the water.....GOD DAMMIT, but, well, it is not over until it is over, and it is not over....well.

I remember back to when I was in college, and..well, Science ment something to me ....there was a certain sence of integrity that was important to the entire scientific community, and, of all things, I was being trained to follow in that way.....but, I am way too much of a renegade. Then again, I do not have the time to just line out what I want to say, and you and Ben are much more eloquent....you know, I really enjoy your writing. so, here, if this is ANY consolation to you.....

I good friend from college was talking to me the other day, and we were complaining about the entire MLPA process...and all the politics..but, I see where the entire nation is going to hell with politics.

Well, we BOTH were in the same program...Verteberate Zoology, and we both spent time at Bodega Marine Lab ....I was in Aquaculture....he was in Invert. So, where am I going with all this..well, at the time, early 80's....mid 80's.....the Monterey Bay Aquariam was just being developed......ahh, the state of the art Aquariam. So, in science, just like in fishing, well, one learned who to respect, and who not to, and it was all about earning one's way, and becoming a good scientist. So, at least, I understood the process...and see, Biological Science was very different than some of the others...I felt.....just a certain sophistication...once you had it..so to speak. Wnen you engaged with the better scientiest, well, there was just a way they carried themselves, and how they engaged and the questions that came up, and you can see how their mind worked in lecture...just AMAZING.

So, there was ..well, talk on the street....."talk" you say.....well, the talk was...yes, and even in science, there is Cattyness.....Julie Packard......that grad student from Santa Cruz.. in the Marnie Biology Department,.well, SHE COULD NOT get a JOB anywhere.......hey, that was the word on the street...you see, in science, you cannot "buy" your way into intellegence...(yea, I am being harsh), so, instead, well, good ol daddy BUILDS HER AN AQUARIAM that she can now run and manage....it was poignent, as the Bodega Marine Lab had a bit of pristigiousness about the facility, good science...and...well, then, there was this NEW FACILITY....in Monterey, Julie's facility, that dad built for her, because she was unemployable....well, that is what I was told, and my friend really remembers all the dirt as he was at BML when it was opening.

Dammit, if she was just any smarter and a good scientist, maybe we would not be in this mess, IF she just did not study Marine Biology....., well, the wonders of the Idle Affluent, as my former employeer in college used to say. So, I guess we see what a below par scientist can do, when she has enough money to buy whatever she wants,.,,,,,hey, but she still may be.,,,,well, not so well recieved scientist.


You know, and I NEVER seemed to get allong or really understand those scientists that were either into botany or inverts.......seems like Julie studied....Marine Algea...yea, I am a bit petty here, but, well, at least for me, it puts it in a better perspective, a DAMN second rate marine biologist that studied algae and could not get hired after here degree.....works dad to build the biggest and best aquariam in the world to take care of her vision ...and she is now taking it out on the rest of the world that never really thought much of her, and showing them all that SHE is really in charge.....DAMMIT.

Hey, that is the feeling I got...in a sense.....yea, and this is anecdotal, but, in a sick way, it makes me feel better about it.

[edsofish]

Your story is interesting but let's not forget who is paying the bills of many of these scientists today whether by salary or by grant. Wouldn't be so bad if she considered local seafood as a staple part of a healthy diet and spent money to enhance the local fisheries.

Instead, she has taken up arms against all consumptive users and uses weak science, or has her puppets make unsubstatiated claims about dire situations and consequences that are irrelevant to California fisheries, and then she claims some sort moral superiority, and spends millions to get her "way".

As I stated, I am more disgusted with the Legislature as a whole, who are whores to her money.

[Mark Chow]

Ed,

I saw in science, as my collegeues and I were..well, being nurtured as undergrads to transition to Grad School and beyond in science, that our professors and grad students which assisted in class, would bring to the table, important points which we all realized was important to be successful in science.

I first recongnized the poilitcs when it came to discussions in Genetic, and Watson and Crick working on the Double Helix theory....JUST AMAZING for its time, but, some of the back end stories unfolded, and it was important to become the FIRST, as that was the road to Grants and just a guaranteed future of Cash.

Later, I saw how professors and grad students had to channel their studies ..well, to something that was...Marketable...why, well, NSF grants were there, but, could you ALWAYS depend on getting an NSF Grant...so, again, marketability. So, as we move forward, well, in today's world....WHAT INDUSTRY has enough capital to put on a study to show the impact of water degredaton and water diversion in the delta, having a NEGATIVE impact on the resource. Who has the money to study whether or not LOW FLOWS of water in the upper Sac Watershed where the King Salmon beds are hatching fry can have successful hatches and low predation when water flow is reduced to 3000cfs....NO ONE. But, AG can have the resource to fund a study that may show that the negative impact of water diversion is not as high as some other studies, AND, that multiple issues compound why the King salmon decline.

Same with MLPA issues, WHO is funding studies that suggest that Larval Disperal with Sebastes inside the Gull of the Farallons shows certain patterns, Who is funding studies that suggest that current fish and game regulations and season closures are successful to provide stock recovery. The ones with the money are driviing the studies and where they want to go with the results, and that, as they say, is bad science..............one does not really design a study to prove a point, one designs a study to see what is happening, and then, provide discussion afterwards.

I don't know what the answer is, but, I have seen already on the fishing sites, where there is a lot more traffic fishing rockfish down off Sur, and above Ft Ross and even to Pt Areana.......There is almost no choice in a way, and people are just looking at their better options....and...Sur becomes a fishable one, and mnore and more will fish the remote regions that WERE in a sense, isolated simply due to geographics.

Well, happy 4th everyone, I wish for independance from all these issues that have been laid upon us.