Opposition to National Ocean Policy Welcomed

Check out this piece in Roll Call about the House trying to slow down implementation of the National Ocean Policy, a Big Government scheme that could limit recreational fishing.

Here’s an especially interesting excerpt:

Ocean Conservancy’s May 24 Roll Call op-ed referred to a “gross overreaction” among those who support a time-out and suggested that concerns about prohibitions on fishing activity are unfounded.

Concerns about the potential for the policy to lead to new and unnecessary marine access and use restrictions, however, are real and based in part on past experience.

In California, Ocean Conservancy played a big role in the implementation of the state’s Marine Life Protection Act, a marine zoning process that resulted in about 20 percent of our state waters becoming marine reserves or other forms of marine protected areas.

Most of the funding for this process was provided by large nongovernmental organizations and foundations, and many direct participants observed that this led to excessive NGO influence on policy interpretation, inadequate scientific peer review, the refusal to integrate MPA proposals with existing fishery management and the failure to screen science team members for conflicts of interest.

Given that Ocean Conservancy touts the supposed benefits of “highly protected marine reserves, where fishing is prohibited,” it is not surprising that it pushed for the maximum closures and largely disregarded the needs of fishermen and coastal communities.