A.S.A.P.
The statehouse will be working for only a few more weeks, and there is an opportunity for the legislature to send US Congress a message from the entire state about what it is that we need for our fishery problems to be corrected in this environment of no accountability for federal scientific agencies and special interest politicization of public resources management. This opportunity is a bill introduced by Representative Kevin Ryan (Georgetown).
It should be painfully apparent to you by now that NMFS has no desire to actually be truthful and transparent in how they do things because there is a strong ideological and financial undercurrent below the surface of everything they do. They have no regard to financial hardships on sportfishing businesses and all the other related economy that’s harmed by their mismanagement and agenda of ramming things down our throats. We have asked for money to stay on research rather than throwing in the towel and taking catch shares, i.e. making public resources available to the highest bidders only. We have asked for the federal agencies to listen to the public and the stakeholders. None of this has made a significant difference outside of slowly drawing more attention to what our problems actually are and WHY they matter so much to us. Folks have tried countless lawsuits. Hundreds of thousands have been spent for nought. You cannot beat the federal government at this game without fixing the law.
So
Please thank your SC House Members and Senators for trying to help us, and urge those who do not know about this bill yet to support it and adopt it A.S.A.P.
You can find contact info for your SC House Rep here:
http://www.scstatehouse.gov/html-pages/housemembers.html
The bill that needs your support (and also thanks to those already supporting it) is here:
http://www.scstatehouse.gov/sess119_2011-2012/bills/4206.htm
Sponsors: Reps. Ryan, Brantley, Hardwick, Hearn, Barfield, Anderson, McCoy, Patrick, Gilliard, Erickson, Hodges, Stavrinakis,