Not Even the Ocean is Free from Trump
Breaking down the recent EO upending marine conservation
Disclaimer: This post was written by Dr. Andrew Rosenberg in his personal capacity and not on behalf of any organization or entity. The views expressed herein are Dr. Rosenberg’s and his alone.
The President orders this. The President orders that. We are in a government by decree and to hell with democratic process. And last night the orders were about the ocean and fisheries. Topics I have focused on my entire career. When reading them it was clear that whoever wrote them hasn’t a clue about marine conservation and management. Not worth the Sharpie they were signed with except if the goal is to cause confusion and damage the marine environment.
Deregulation
The language of the orders carries forward a consistent theme of the Trump Administration - that regulation is always bad because it burdens industry. According to the administration, if regulation is removed then productivity will increase. And perhaps someone in this administration can give an example of an unnecessary regulation that is burdensome and when removed productivity increases. But they will forget to tell you at what cost to the public. I am sure that isn’t intentional, they just forgot… But the pretense is that we have never experienced unregulated industry.
Of course we have, indeed, experienced an unregulated industry. For decades. And the result of not having restrictions on certain activities through public policy – regulation – was enormous negative impacts on public health, natural resources, public safety, environmental conditions and quality of life for many people. Those impacts are not conjecture, they were observed and measured by scientists and by communities lived experience over long periods of time. The impacts of unregulated industrial activities on the public are well documented. The deregulatory pretense is just that – contrary to lived experience and the facts.
The Fisheries Microcosm
Marine resource science and management is a pretty small field. Very small in the US economy. That doesn’t mean it is unimportant for coastal communities or for many people across the country who enjoy the ocean and all it provides. And it provides a lot of “ecosystem services” that benefit human society.. That includes benefits such as climate regulation, nutrient cycling, and many others. But the services many people are most familiar with are the provision of food from harvesting, recreation from enjoyment of the ocean including fishing, and cultural benefits for many in our society, including me, that feel a deep connection to the ocean.
Perhaps it is obvious, but marine fisheries depend upon harvesting from a public resource. The coastal waters of the US and every other country aren’t privately owned but held in the public trust, that is, for the benefit of the public as a whole. And the government, state and federal, manage for the public.
Fishing is very ancient, so we have a lot of experience with how it works, impacts the ocean and what the effects are. Eons of experience. And the last few hundred years are very well documented. Most of that time, fisheries were unregulated or very lightly regulated. For those interested in the history of fishing in the Atlantic I recommend a book from my friend and colleague Prof. Jeff Bolster called The Mortal Sea.
Unregulated fishing led to severe resource declines – the abundance of commercially valuable species and those that were associated with them and subject to fishing pressure dropped severely. The loss of those resources led to the rise of fisheries science, the field I got my start in, because the public, the industry and various governments wanted to know what happened. The study of fisheries has its own history, and the scientific work developed over about 100 years. But the short story is, as stated cogently by my late friend and colleague Prof. Ram Myers, “we ate them.”
The EO in Context
In the 1970s unregulated fishing had depleted many of the commercial and recreationally important stocks of fish and their habitats all around the US coast. Congress declared a 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone and kicked out foreign fishing fleets. In many places that resulted in the rapid growth of the American fleet such that foreign overfishing was replaced by American overfishing. Much the same to the fish I am sorry to say.
The next 30 years were a long struggle to end overfishing and allow the resources to rebuild. That task was given to a unique system for management of federal public resources, regional fishery management councils made up of representatives of the fishing industry, recreational and commercial and officials from the states in each region. On each council sat one federal official as a voting member. I was that member for the federal government during half of the 1990s in New England and in the Mid-Atlantic regions. The councils developed and recommended management plans to the federal government and the government implemented those plans. Management was required by law to use the best science available.
Those were tough negotiations. In some areas, including New England, by 1990 the principle fish stocks had collapsed from overfishing. But for the fishermen it is hard to back off. People go out of business. Others survive but are restricted. “Burden” by regulation. Sorry, but the point was to restrict the impact of fishing so that stocks could recover. And. Stocks. Did. Recover. Only when fishing pressure was reduced, restricted, regulated, managed for the public.
It is a simple fact that in harvesting a renewable resource if the stock of fish is larger you can catch more by fishing less. Feel free to do the calculations.
The thing about regulation for benefit to the public is that inevitably some of the public don’t want to be regulated or regulated in the way that is in place. As far as I can tell that is true about any and all regulation. I know it is true for me. I sometimes really don’t like the rules for my business, my house, my boats, etc. I think, “there must be a better way.” Of course that isn’t just true of regulation, but also the private sector services that I must purchase from banks, insurance companies, internet providers, health care providers, the list goes on. It is hard do understand how they can be so difficult and stupid to deal with!
But the thing is, if it is Comcast or Bank of America they really don’t care what I think other than in a performative sense (“your business is very important to us, please provide feedback”). If it is the government, it is my government or used to be. And I do have the opportunity to participate in the regulatory process. Not that the result will be exactly as I want it, but I can participate. That’s the law for all environmental management. And in fisheries, the regulated industries directly participate through the management council system as well as the public process. As a former federal official in the field, I was the focus of industry ire. They, definitely, were able and willing to express their opinions.
Corruption by Executive Order
Well, if stocks recovered (mostly) and the industry is directly involved in making the rules, what problem is the EO trying to address? Funny you should ask.
It seems to be “over-regulation.” The pretense noted above. Over-burdening. Unleashing the power of industry. And according to the EO, that will result in more American seafood – the best in the world they say though by what measure is it best is unclear. American dominance of the world seafood market. And vanquishing of the foreign companies (note: no foreign vessels are allowed to fish in US waters and haven’t been for decades).
The thing is, that fishing harder won’t produce more fish, it will just deplete the resource faster. It won’t increase employment. It won’t overturn the fact that other nations eat more seafood than those of us in the US, not because our industry can’t produce enough, but because the market isn’t there. Sure, 90% of our seafood is imported. And a lot of our seafood production is exported. Lobsters to China. Scallops to Europe. Lots of species we don’t eat, others do. I guess there could be a follow up EO ordering Americans to eat more fish. Except immigrants. Not the immigrants.
Maybe the EO is trying to have greater participation by the fishing industry in the regulatory process. Great! More council meetings!
In truth, and the reason I label it corruption, is that the order has little to do with improving public policy. It seems clear that it is because someone, a few people, a small group disgruntled by having restrictions in place got through to someone in the Administration. And they flattered the President and told him he was so powerful he could order the very fish of the seas to produce more! But only for Americans (not immigrants in America of course). And out came the Sharpie. And there goes decades of work to restore American fisheries.
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