Bush Aims for Market Approach to Fishing (Washington Post)

[Up2Late]

(Another Lawless proposal from the * WH, i.e. Opposite world)

Bush Aims for Market Approach to Fishing

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 20, 2005; Page A21

Everyone agrees that the nation's fisheries management system needs an overhaul. The question is how. Yesterday the Bush administration took a stab at the problem, sending legislation to Capitol Hill that would create a free-market approach to regulating commercial fishing and revamp the way the government treats depleted fish stocks. Its plan would also collect more scientific and economic data on commercial and recreational fishing.

"Fixing our fisheries is one of the highest priorities for the president," said James L. Connaughton, who chairs the White House Council on Environmental Quality. "There's now a strong consensus to get serious once and for all about this."

The administration's bill would be the biggest change in fisheries management in a decade. It aims to double by 2010 the number of "dedicated access privileges" programs, which allocate shares of each fishery to individual fishermen, who can then can buy and sell their shares. In Alaska, for example, fishermen are granted a portion of the allowed halibut catch and can trade these quotas among themselves; in most U.S. fisheries, regulators govern the annual catch by limiting how many days fishermen operate and how much they collect each trip.

The system has been popular among many Alaska fishermen. Mark Lundsten, a Seattle-based fisheries consultant who caught halibut and black cod for 27 years in Alaska, said the region's market-based rules made halibut fishing "sensibly sustainable" because fishermen could meet their quota over a longer period of time rather than rushing to catch fish in foul weather.

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/19/AR2005091901752.html>
(more at link above)

[alarimer]

1. Individual quotas make sense

At least in some uses. But we need to be certain that no one entity or individual gets more than their fair share. For example, the rules would have to limit the total number of shares one person or company could hold. Fisheries biologists have been looking at this for years. I do not trust the Bush asministration to do it fairly and base it on sound science. No matter what system is used, it must be based on the best data which means that the government needs to stop cutting budgets for science programs and data gathering. A lot of time the tough decisions are not made because the council system lacks the political will to cut fishing quotas back far to where they could actually do some good.

[Toots]

9. They already do limit the amountof shares that can be owned by an individu

I think it is something like one half of one percent is the maximum amount of shares that can be owned by any one person. That is still a huge amount but at least somewhat reasonable. Two hundred people could conceivably end up owning America's resource. That is way more than say logging. There are very few logging companies that control the entire industry. It is one way of allowing a tiny percent to own it all.

[Up2Late]

10. Nothing good will come from this. I agree with what you wrote, but...

...as you said,

"...No matter what system is used, it must be based on the best data which means that the government needs to stop cutting budgets for science programs and data gathering.

PLEASE! Has * or this WH EVER done this in the past 5 years? NO. Will they do this THIS Time? NO.

[alarimer]

11. No they won't

So the system will be used to gut the current system and enrich Bush cronies like the guy in Alaska.

[blm]

2. And WHO controls half this nation's fishing INDUSTRY?

RevMoon.

[jody]

3. Interesting. Do you have a link? n/t

[blm]

4. Media won't touch it. They haven't done a report since 1991 when NBC

and Brokaw reported on Moon and at the time his share was one-third of the industry.

His holdings have grown since then.

Cell Whitman, who posts here at DU, has a link to the Brokaw report.

[jody]

5. Thanks.

:hi:

[leesa]

6. Yes, indeedy. "Everyone agrees the fishing industry needs overhauling"

Really? Since when?

[blm]

7. I loathe that tactic. They use it constantly.

Everyone agrees Howard Dean is an angry radical madman.

Everyone agrees John Kerry is aloof.

Everyone agrees John Edwards has no gravitas.

Ad nauseum..............

[Ben Ceremos]

8. "...one of the highest priorities of the President."

I have read this same lie so often, I wonder if anyone in this administration understands what the term "priority" means. Anyway, I know that the "president's highest priorities" include destroying your once great nation, enslaving your people, emptying your Treasury and becoming dictator for life over the 'Internment Camp of the United States of Banana Republica'. I wish I was wrong, but I am not.

[WhiteTara]

12. oh great. Here goes another bad situation

on the way to a nightmare.
IMPEACH BUSH AND SEND THEM ALL TO THE HAGUE

[Sub Atomic]

13. How many "highest priorities" does the monkey have?

15? 20?

No wonder it's such hard work for him.

:sarcasm:

[anotherdrew]

14. I want a dedicated share so I can rent it out! give me one please?

I'm a fisherman, I say so, so when do I get my dedicated "share" of the fish?