Ben Goldfarb of the Food and Environment Reporting Network writes about Why a New Fisheries Bill Is Being Dubbed the “Empty Oceans Act”:
What the farm bill is to terrestrial food production, the fish bill, a.k.a. the Magnuson-Stevens Act, is to the ocean—the law that governs America’s marine fisheries. First passed in 1976 to kick foreign fishing fleets out of American waters, the MSA has evolved into one of the nation’s most effective conservation laws. A reauthorization in 1996 required managers to place all overfished stocks on strict rebuilding timelines, and another in 2006 mandated hard limits on total catches. Those science-based provisions have recovered 44 once-depleted stocks, from the canary rockfish to the barndoor skate.
The bill could “undercut the important role science plays in management decisions.”
But not everyone thinks the fish bill is still fresh. Rep. Don Young, an Alaska Republican, has long arguedthat its rules against overfishing hurt coastal economies. On July 11, the House passed H.R. 200, the Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act, mostly along party lines. The reauthorization, claimed Young, who sponsored the bill, would strike “a proper balance between the biological needs of fish stocks and the economic needs of fishermen.”
Environmentalists see it differently. By weakening the very stipulations that have made Magnuson-Stevens so effective, cautioned Ted Morton, oceans director at the Pew Charitable Trusts, the bill could “undercut the important role science plays in management decisions” and increase overfishing. Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat, dubbed Young’s legislation the Empty Oceans Act. [...]
H.R. 200 would grant fishery managers what scientists have called “get out of jail free cards” to continue overfishing. Rather than rebuilding stocks as fast as possible, for instance, the new law would let regional management councils rehabilitate them as fast as practicable, a subtle but important tweak that could lead to looser regulation.
TOP COMMENTS • HIGH IMPACT STORIES
QUOTATION
“…’white supremacy’ is a much more useful term for understanding the complicity of people of color in upholding and maintaining racial hierarchies that do not involve force (i.e slavery, apartheid) than the term ‘internalized racism’—a term most often used to suggest that black people have absorbed negative feelings and attitudes about blackness. The term ‘white supremacy’ enables us to recognize not only that black people are socialized to embody the values and attitudes of white supremacy, but we can exercise ‘white supremacist control’ over other black people.”
~~bell hooks, Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black (1989)
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
On this date at Daily Kos 2004—Dole a hypocrite:
Josh Marshall applies the smackdown to Bob Dole, so I don't have to:
Today Bob Dole suggested that one or more of John Kerry's Purple Hearts may have been fraudulent in some way because they were for "superficial wounds."
Dole knows better.
In a 1988 campaign-trail autobiography, here's how Dole described the incident that earned him his first Purple Heart: "As we approached the enemy, there was a brief exchange of gunfire. I took a grenade in hand, pulled the pin, and tossed it in the direction of the farmhouse. It wasn't a very good pitch (remember, I was used to catching passes, not throwing them). In the darkness, the grenade must have struck a tree and bounced off. It exploded nearby, sending a sliver of metal into my leg--the sort of injury the Army patched up with Mercurochrome and a Purple Heart."
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: What’s it take for Trump to notice Africa? White people. Greg Dworkin watches Manafort, Cohen turn the tide. Armando shreds Trump defenses. Surprise! A prominent Trumpkin is an abortion hypocrite and Gimmetarian. Just as you knew they all were.
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