Bush may seek protection for island chains

[Dover]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush will seek formal comment from his Cabinet agencies next week on a plan that could make three of the world's most remote and pristine island chains off-limits to commercial fishing and mineral exploration.

The action, which could be completed before Bush leaves office, would rank as one of the largest marine conservation efforts in history.

Bush's proposal would conserve parts of the Northern Mariana islands, the Line Islands in the central Pacific and American Samoa, environmentalists said Friday. Making them off-limits to fishing and energy development is the most stringent of the possible measures outlined.

The proposal is expected to be made public as soon as Monday, when the White House plans to send a memo to Cabinet members, including the Defense, Interior and Commerce secretaries, and the Council on Environmental Quality. They will evaluate various levels of protection for the three areas and the impacts of establishing marine reserves. The review is expected to take one to two months, the participants said.

"We have every expectation that the president will move forward on protecting these places sometime in the fall," said Diane Regas, ocean program director at Environmental Defense Fund. "Today, we put the champagne on ice, and we will pop it open." ...>

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/08/23/marine.protection.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

[pepperbear]

1. One wonders what's in it for him or some crony of his. n/t

[DCKit]

3. The Northern Mariana islands is where the legal sweat shops...

are run with local and imported slave labor. The usual suspects include Tom Delay, Jack Abramoff, Don Young, Bob Schaffer....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Marianas_Islands#Exemptions_from_some_federal_regulations

"Exemptions from some federal regulations

See also: Jack Abramoff CNMI scandal

Although the CNMI is part of the United States, several Republican Party members of Congress have fought hard to keep labor regulation out of the CNMI. However, the lack of labor regulation is not without controversy.

Some extreme labor practices, not common elsewhere in the United States, have occurred. Some of these labor practices include forcing workers to have abortions, as exposed in the March 18, 1998, episode of ABC News' 20/20, and enslaving women and forcing them into prostitution, as in the U.S. Department of Justice conviction of several CNMI traffickers in 1999 attests. In 2005 and 2006, the issue of these regulatory exemptions in the CNMI was brought up during the American political scandals of Congressman Tom DeLay and lobbyist Jack Abramoff."

http://www.alternet.org/story/13140/

"At the end of World War II, the U.S. acquired the islands, which are located off the coast of booming Asia. To encourage development and self-sufficiency Congress exempted the islands from the very kinds of U.S. business regulations and oversight DeLay despised. Even today the island's minimum wage is only $3.05. Other work and safety regulations either do not apply at all or are rarely enforced.

In short, the Marianas embodied many of the key ideals DeLay and other House Republicans were pushing in their 1994 Contract With America.

For Asian sweatshop operators, the Marianas became the Promised Land incarnate. Since the islands were officially U.S. territory, garment factories there were able to tag their products with the coveted "Made in the USA" label. No rules, no regulators, no inspectors, no health and safety laws. What more could a sweatshop operator ask for?

snip

Another of Abramoff's Mariana lobbyists was Patrick Pizzella who, believe it or not, is now serving in the Bush Administration as assistant secretary of Labor. It was Pizzella's job to organize Abramoff's political junkets to the islands."

http://www.dscc.org/shame?hall_of_shame_KEY=17

If this plan would prevent subsistence fishing
in the surrounding waters, I can't imagine a more effective way to keep the population in line - they already control wages and employment.

[hatrack]

2. So that they can then die from ocean acidification . . .

OTOH, he looks green in retrospect, and the costs for rangers, boats, fuel & uniforms won't amount to much, so it's really win-win for him.

:eyes: