By Mac Slavo for Deadline Live:
In yet another example of government overstepping its bounds, the Obama administration is preparing to ban fishing in coastal areas around the country, as well as the Great Lakes and other inland water resources.
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.
“When the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) completed their successful campaign to convince the Ontario government to end one of the best scientifically managed big game hunts in North America (spring bear), the results of their agenda had severe economic impacts on small family businesses and the tourism economy of communities across northern and central Ontario,” said Phil Morlock, director of environmental affairs for Shimano.
“Now we see NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the administration planning the future of recreational fishing access in America based on a similar agenda of these same groups and other Big Green anti-use organizations, through an Executive Order by the President. The current U.S. direction with fishing is a direct parallel to what happened in Canada with hunting: The negative economic impacts on hard working American families and small businesses are being ignored.
“In spite of what we hear daily in the press about the President’s concern for jobs and the economy and contrary to what he stated in the June order creating this process, we have seen no evidence from NOAA or the task force that recreational fishing and related jobs are receiving any priority.”
Banning “recreational” fishing isn’t just an issue of economics, but is a threat to the personal liberty of each individual’s right to produce their own food. And banning fishing is just one of several policy changes the government is looking at.
In Federal Food Police Coming Soon To A Farm Near You, Tess Pennington points out the risks of letting the government oversee individual food production methods under HR Bill 875 and The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, which specifically target agricultural goods, including crops and livestock on personal, non-commercial farms:
What is to stop the government from defining a small home garden as a food facility? Because of the vagueness of this bill, it is not only the micro farmers that are affected by this. Anyone who has a garden, or shares their produce with neighbors or even owns a local restaurant that supports local farmers and buys their produce could be affected.
We could all be affected and pay the price dearly for not speaking up. . Many say that this bill is unconstitutional in that state rights will be stripped away. If passed, the state cannot go in and take care of the problem. It is a federal issue, thus will have federal repercussions.Slowly but surely, the federal government is moving towards eliminating the ability of individual Americans to produce their own food – a direct attack on our lives, liberty and pursuit of happiness…
[continues at Deadline Live]
