I just spoke with Congressman Gilchrest's environmental aide, at some length, actually. The House bill was not allowed to get out of the House Resource Committee. It's dead for this year. She said that writing individual letters to congressmen was exactly what we should be doing, that they paid much more attention to one letter than they do to all the mass mailings in the world. Although we were in disagreement about some issues, she is, after all, used to dealing in the world of compromise and deal making, not in the world of activism, she agreed in principle that bottom trawling of coral reefs and seamonts were destructive and counterproductive in the long run. She also said that only through citizen participation were we likely to get anywhere, because the fishing industry was very active, and without hearing from the other side (us) no one in Congress was likely to do anything. I asked her about the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition UN initiative, and she said that the White House was totally opposed to it and that it would have to wait for a new administration for the US to get involved. No surprise there She said that Senator Barbara Boxer had introduced legislation, so I looked that up. Here's the summary:
SUMMARY OF THE NATIONAL OCEANS PROTECTION ACT
by Senator Barbara Boxer
Purpose:
Senator Boxer’s National Oceans Protection Act of 2005 addresses some of the most serious challenges facing national oceans resources and provides a comprehensive approach to ocean and habitat protection. The legislation implements recommendations from two high level national commissions, the congressionally established U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, and the independent Pew Ocean Commission, both of which found the world’s oceans to be in severe distress.
What the Bill Does:
Improves Oceans Governance:
• Establishes an independent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
• Creates a Council on Ocean Stewardship that will annually review funding, policy recommendations, and programs for ocean protection
• Requires that all activities on the Outer Continental Shelf – such as wave energy projects, bioextraction by biotech companies, and wind energy projects – receive a federal permit in order to ensure that projects do not pose an adverse threat to the health of the oceans (current law only requires permits for oil and gas activities)
• Establishes a Trust Fund with federal money generated from these newly permitted activities, with funds to be used for ocean conservation, science and research, and assistance to displaced fishermen
• Increases biological and scientific monitoring of the oceans to ensure that accurate and updated information is available to implement policies protective of the oceans
Protects and Conserves Marine Wildlife and Habitat:
• Provides protection for ecologically-important coral areas by creating “Coral Management Areas”
• Authorizes $3 million per year for research on the effects of noise pollution (i.e. sonar) on marine mammals
• Prohibits almost all discharges of ballast water in U.S. waters and requires ships to install technology to capture invasive species in ballast water before discharge – and creates an early detection and rapid response system to provide assistance to states to protect against invasive species
• Authorizes $50 million per year in grants to local communities to restore fishery and coastal habitats
• Authorizes $500 million per year in grants to local communities to purchase lands that are vulnerable to development and are important to the protection and preservation of habitats
Strengthens Fisheries and Fish Habitat:
• Requires that, when determining the health of a fishery, the entire ecosystem be taken into account (not just the health of a particular fish species)
• Authorizes $115 million over five years for NOAA and the regional fishery councils to develop ecosystem-wide plans to protect and sustain fisheries
• Establishes standards for reducing bycatch and authorizes $55 million over five years to monitor compliance with those standards
• Creates Individual Fishing Quotas (IFQ) that are equitably allocated and that protect against bycatch, overfishing, and economic harm to local communities
Improves the Quality of Ocean Water:
• Requires the establishment of maximum amounts of nutrient runoff pollution that a body of water can hold and still be healthy, taking into account regional conditions and reasonable economic considerations
• Requires water utilities to establish water treatment standards to remove nutrient pollution
• Mandates best management practices for agriculture – requiring farmers, to the greatest extent practicable, to take steps to curtail runoff
• Expedites beach pollution testing and posting; requires public notification and testing of sewer overflows
• Authorizes $11.2 billion per year in funding for state and local governments to reduce stormwater pollution and to increase monitoring and testing
• Requires a survey and continuous monitoring of contaminated sediments that are threats to bodies of water, and establishes standards to protect sensitive aquatic species from contaminated sediments
So far I haven't found the Thomas "S" number. I'll keep working on that, but not today, I have other things I have to do.
Oh by the way, she (the aide) suggested that we write our congressmen with suggested legislation, and she also said that it was important for people in inland states to get involved too, because so few inland congressmen paid attention to these issues. By the way, you don't have to be of voting age to get involved, no one asks how old you are. It won't be that long before you will be voting, and no congressman or senator wants to alienate future voters.