Zurik: ‘Snapper barons’ raking in riches from public resource
Monday, February 6th 2017, 11:10 pm EST
Tuesday, February 7th 2017, 11:58 am EST
Written by: Lee Zurik, Chief Investigative ReporterCONNECT
Contributor: Tom Wright, Investigative ProducerCONNECT
GRAND ISLE, LA (WVUE) -
On the tip of Louisiana’s coast, Dean Blanchard built his seafood business from nothing.
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“It’s what made America great, is hard-working, good people,” Blanchard says.
But, he tells us, a few miles away from Grand Isle - on waters owned by taxpayers - a multi-million-dollar government handout functions like the opposite of the capitalism that helps put food on his table.
“When Russia and China just let certain people do certain things, what do we call them? We call them communists. I mean, I don’t see no difference.”
Blanchard is criticizing a federal program, unknown to most taxpayers, that allows a handful of businesses and fishermen to make millions off a government resource - creating what some fishermen call “Lords of the Sea.”
Dean Blanchard
Blanchard says they “took a natural resource that belongs to everybody in the United States and just gave it to a few, and told them you’re the only ones who can do it.”
Each Gulf state controls the waters out to nine miles. Beyond that are federal waters, where this program comes into play.
In 2007, the government handed over shares of the annual red snapper commercial harvest to a select group of fishermen. The government divvied up the snapper shares; the number of shares was determined by the number of fish caught in prior years.
“Sea lords, snapper barons, whatever you want to call it - it’s people that are becoming enriched by sitting back and doing nothing off a public resource,” says U.S. Representative Garret Graves (R-Louisiana).
Unlike oil or timber, the government doesn’t auction off the shares and gets nothing in return from these fishermen.
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