Members of the Marine Fisheries Conservation Network discussed the need for big changes in national fisheries management at the group’s fifth annual meeting in Washington, D.C. in early June, then took to Capitol Hill to urge lawmakers to support a major oceans bill.
The 97 people representing 61 member groups and 17 states who attended the meeting (including the Island Institute?) were urged to action by Rep. Sam Carr, a Democrat from Monterey, California who was one of the speakers. Farr, who co-chairs the House Oceans Caucus, told the group they must supply Congress with the will to pass serious oceans legislation, because “Washington is a town that responds to being hit over the head with a club” before anything gets done.
“We’re stacked in the wrong direction. First we have to have the attitude of wanting something done, and there’s not a bleep out of the White House that created the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy,” said Farr. “There’s a really negative attitude on the Hill and it’s because no one’s feeling the heat.”
He asked MFCN members to pressure lawmakers to sign on as co-sponsors to an oceans bill being written by the Oceans Caucus, saying passage of such a bill would validate all the work that had been on oceans during the past decade, including studies and reports by two oceans commissions — the privately-funded Pew Oceans Commission, and the government-sponsored Commission on Ocean Policy.
Since many of the MFCN’s members are advocates and activists, most were already planning visits to their Congressional delegations to push for measures to protect fish stocks, but Farr said he had been informed that one MFCN member was told he couldn’t see his representative because he had no time available.
“In an election year?” said Farr, incredulously. “Go home and communicate how your congressional office treated you. This is a people’s democracy. You lend the job to those you elect.”
No matter what the political climate in Washington, pressure from constituents always matters, Farr added. “You hear every member of Congress, when they feel pressured, say they can or can’t support something ‘because of my district.’ So, you tell them you have a concern about the oceans. Take the passions you have in your profession and transfer it to Congress. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”
Farr told the group that caucus members had “90 percent” of the major oceans bill written. “We’re calling it the Big Oceans Bill, or BOB, for now while we’re writing it,” said Farr. “It doesn’t have a real name yet, but it won’t be BOB.”
To make the bill bipartisan and therefore more attractive to the entire House membership, the bill has four co-sponsors pushing for it — two Democrats and two Republicans.
Besides Farr, the other Democratic sponsor is Maine Rep. Tom Allen.
Farr used the example of the creation of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary as a case study for success that resulted from grass-roots zeal, not government planning.
“It’s the world’s largest marine sanctuary and it came about because the federal government expressed an interest in pursuing offshore oil drilling,” said Farr. “Few people in California at the time realized there was a huge oil deposit off Santa Cruz.”
When 27 oil companies applied for the right to drill off Santa Cruz, citizens fanned out and filled petitions with signatures and presented them to the federal government, hoping to prevent drilling. “We won with [Jimmy] Carter as president. But then James Watt came in [as Interior Secretary] with Reagan and said ‘all bets are off.'”
“We figured there must be a lot of Californians in the Reagan administration, so we found out who his appointees were and who their relatives were. We pressured them. We took out ads in the New York Times,” said Farr. “By the time George H. W. Bush was running for office, we realized there was a tool in the government toolbox – marine sanctuaries – so we said, ‘We want one.’ There was a lot of passion for it.”
Since Bush the elder was running a campaign ad saying he wanted to be the environmental president, the Californians — helped by Californian and former Carter chief of staff, Leon Panetta, who recently chaired the Pew Oceans Commission — convinced Bush this would make him look good.
“It was just grass-roots policy, not top down,” said Farr.
The oceans bill proposed by the Oceans Caucus is expected to include provisions that:
* employ an ecosystem-based management approach
* improve national governance and mandates healthy marine ecosystems
* create strong regional governance
* promote an ocean stewardship ethic based on a long-term vision of protecting and maintaining healthy marine ecosystems, and,
* invest in the future by strengthening marine science research and education.