And you thought the Obama Administration would just take away your guns. No, not content with that, they want your fishing rod too.
Obama administration will accept no more public input for federal fishery strategy
From ESPN Outdoors
By Robert MontgomeryThe Obama administration will accept no more public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing the nation's oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.
This announcement comes at the time when the situation supposedly still is "fluid" and the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force still hasn't issued its final report on zoning uses of these waters.That's a disappointment, but not really a surprise for fishing industry insiders who have negotiated for months with officials at the Council on Environmental Quality and bureaucrats on the task force. These angling advocates have come to suspect that public input into the process was a charade from the beginning.
Read the rest of this entry >>
Thank goodness for Tom Swatzel of Murrells Inlet, who engineered the vote last week to exempt South Carolina's coastal waters from the devastating red snapper fishing ban. He lobbied the General Assembly and city and county governments and chambers of commerce in coastal counties to pass resolutions pressuring S.C.'s delegation to oppose the ban.
ReplyDeleteFrom the Post and Courier:
"Clearly the public outcry from the South Carolina General Assembly, coastal town and counties, fishermen, and businesses had a significant effect on the outcome of the council vote. The unanimity of the S.C. Fishery Council members was vital to the outcome," said council member Tom Swatzel, a Murrells Inlet deep-sea charter fisherman.
http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2010/mar/05/ban-may-be-heading-south
But it's not over yet. This temporary reprieve for South Carolina faces another final vote in June.