Major Ocean Policy Report Awaits Bush Reaction - As If . . . .

[hatrack]

"President Bush's oceans advisory panel is about to issue a report calling for a completely new approach to protecting marine life, but already the feeling among some experts is that the president won't have much of an appetite for heeding the advice.

What makes this report so special is that it's the biggest government review of oceans policy in 35 years. The last report saw oceans as farmland waiting to be harvested and fish stocks were pretty much managed like cattle. Since then, many species of fish as well as sea turtles, seabirds and marine mammals have become threatened or even endangered -- not only from overfishing but also fishing techniques that accidentally catch unwanted marine life.

The panel's preliminary report, set to be released this month, is expected to make an economic case for better protection, using references like "restoration of lost economic value." But at its heart is a shift in strategy from poorly regulated harvesting of the oceans to a stewardship approach that looks at entire ecosystems instead of simply tracking individual species of fish to see how their stocks are holding up.

EDIT

The commission will seek input from governors and the public before submitting the proposals to the president, but other national issues, and the 2004 presidential election, could easily bury the report. "You need political will to do it," commission member William Ruckelshaus told researchers at an oceans workshop last month, but given other issues out there "I don't think it's a high priority for this administration."

EDIT

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4327538/

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Does anyone think for a minute...

that anyone around the White house gives a rat's ass about the oceans? The administration that thinks the Law of the Sea Treaty already addressing some of this is stupid?

Every administration orders up reports like this, and buries them. I've got a copy of a 200 page energy commission report Clinton ordered, and it dropped like a stone without one recommendation even being considered.

Lots of these things are serious, but they're ordered in order to look like you're "doing something" in the hopes that by the time the report comes out a new problem will be on the front page.

Anybody remember the criminal justice reports under Reagan and Bush I that basically said we're doing just about everything wrong? One day in the news and "poof."