US Federal Judge Declares Boating Illegal In All US Navigable Waters

[Ryan Ruck]

No, this is not a joke…

US Federal Judge Declares Boating Illegal In All US Navigable Waters

14 September 2006

In a rather bizarre ruling that has marine industry officials worried, Judge Robert G. James of the United States District Court, Western Division of Louisiana, has said that it is criminal trespass for the American boating public to boat, fish, or hunt on the Mississippi River and other navigable waters in the US.

In the case of Normal Parm v. Sheriff Mark Shumate, James ruled that federal law grants exclusive and private control over the waters of the river, outside the main shipping channel, to riparian landowners. The shallows of the navigable waters are no longer open to the public. That, in effect, makes boating illegal across most of the country.

"Even though this action seems like a horrible pre-April fools joke, it is very serious," said Phil Keeter, MRAA president, in a statement. "Because essentially all the waters and waterways of our country are considered navigable in the US law, this ruling declares recreational boating, water skiing, fishing, waterfowl hunting, and fishing tournaments to be illegal and the public subject to jail sentences for recreating with their families."

Last month, James rejected the findings of the Magistrate judge who found earlier that the American public had the right under federal law and Louisiana law to navigate, boat, fish, and hunt on the waters of the Mississippi river up to the normal high water line of the river. Judge James Kirk relied on the long established federal principles of navigation that recognized the public navigational rights "…entitles the public to the reasonable use of navigable waters for all legitimate purposes of travel or transportation, for boating, sailing for pleasure, as well as for carrying persons or property for hire, and in any kind of watercraft the use of which is consistent with others also enjoying the right possessed in common."

"MRAA is working with the Coast Guard, state boating law administrators, and NMMA to fight this onerous ruling," said Glen Mazzella, MRAA chairman, in the statement.

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In April, 2009, Senator Feingold introduced (and gathered 24 co-sponsors already) legislation, S. 787, to fundamentally change the definition of "water" under control of the federal government:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.787:

SEC. 4. DEFINITION OF WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES.

Section 502 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C. 1362) is amended--

(1) by striking paragraph (7);

(2) by redesignating paragraphs (8 through (25) as paragraphs (7) through (24), respectively; and

(3) by adding at the end the following:

`(25) WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES- The term `waters of the United States' means all waters subject to the ebb and flow of the tide, the territorial seas, and all interstate and intrastate waters and their tributaries, including lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams), mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, natural ponds, and all impoundments of the foregoing, to the fullest extent that these waters, or activities affecting these waters, are subject to the legislative power of Congress under the Constitution.'.

SEC. 5. CONFORMING AMENDMENTS.
The Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq.) is amended--

(1) by striking `navigable waters of the United States' each place it appears and inserting `waters of the United States';

(2) in section 304(l)(1) by striking `NAVIGABLE WATERS' in the heading and inserting `WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES'; and

(3) by striking `navigable waters' each place it appears and inserting `waters of the United States'.


Here is a short video: The Great Water Heist

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UN rejects water as basic human right


The Harper government can declare victory after a United Nations meeting rejected calls for water to be recognized as a basic human right.

March 25, 2008

OTTAWA — The Harper government can declare victory after a United Nations meeting rejected calls for water to be recognized as a basic human right.

Instead, a special resolution proposed by Germany and Spain at the UN human rights council was stripped of references that recognized access to water as a human right. The countries also chose to scrap the idea of creating an international watchdog to investigate the issue, choosing instead to appoint a new consultant that would make recommendations over the next three years.

Federal officials in Canada said last week that the government wanted to ensure the meeting’s outcome reflected the fact that access to water is not formally recognized as a human right in international law. But a social advocacy group said that the position was designed to protect the right to sell water under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

“Clearly (the Harper government is) happy with the status quo: They’re not going to be an agent for change, and they’re not going to support the right to water,” said Maude Barlow, chair of the Council of Canadians. “About every eight seconds, a child somewhere in the world is dying from dirty water, and it’s just shocking that our government has taken this position.”

The opposition Liberals supported the government’s position last week, arguing that the original UN resolution could open the door to bulk water exports to the U.S. because of NAFTA. Liberal water critic Francis Scarpaleggia said he planned to introduce a private member’s bill to restrict large transfers of water within Canada to ensure that bulk exports abroad would also be forbidden.

The UN’s high commissioner for human rights, Louise Arbour, said last week that the position doesn’t reflect Canada’s traditional role on the international stage.

“Canada is taking a position that is not the more classic perceived, Canada as the kind of the bridge builder, peacemaker, consensus maker,” Arbour told the CBC.

Meantime, Barlow denied that the resolution would require Canada to make bulk water exports to the U.S.

“The requirement in the United States would be for them to conserve first,” said Barlow. “There’s no requirement as a human right for us to provide water for swimming pools and golf courses and fountains in Las Vegas.”

A spokesperson for the Foreign Affairs Department said in an e-mail that there was "no consensus among states regarding the existence, scope or content of such a right."

[Malsua]

means all waters subject to the ebb and flow of the tide, the territorial seas, and all interstate and intrastate waters and their tributaries, including lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams), mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, natural ponds, and all impoundments of the foregoing, to the fullest extent that these waters, or activities affecting these waters, are subject to the legislative power of Congress under the Constitution.'.

They've already claimed the air, why not the water. Ultimately it will lead to these dumbasses getting tossed on their ears, but let them over reach. It'll help get regular folks riled up enough to get rid of these turds.

[American Patriot]

This is news to me....

I was on the lake yesterday and no one tried to arrest me.

[Beetle]

Great. I buy my first boat and then they make boating illegal.

I bought a Don't Tread On Me Flag and fly it on my boat. I think it is appropriate.

[Toad]

The stupidity coming out of Washington is getting so thick you can cut it with a knife. Were it to pass, they'll find it unenforceable for all practicality.

[American Patriot]

Well..

A few things here.

That judge issued his declaration in 2006. Apparently it was over turned by another judge.

Secondly, that billl really doesn't make it illegal to boat, just assumes control over all the water ways in the country.... for the Feds, revoking states rights it would seem...

So this is truly up in the air, but something we should watch.

[Beetle]

Thanks Rick,

but I am still going to figure out how to mount quad 50s on her.

Thanks again,
Ensign Parker

[American Patriot]

LOL

We spent the day sailing yesterday. God that was great.

I'll post a couple pictures if I get time later

[Beetle]

I'll look forward to the pics.

Maybe, I will post some pics too. The last picks I took on the lake were before spring. It is green now and very pretty around here. Tomorrow, the weather should break for the better. I should be fishin in the morning and if I remember, I will take some new pics.

[vector7]

Hands off our water!

New Mexico Governor and Presidential contender Bill Richardson's suggestion last month that "water rich states should share the wealth" continues to echo in the chambers of government.

Recently the eight Great Lakes Governors issued a joint statement calling on all Presidential hopefuls to outline their plans to preserve and protect the Great Lakes.

Specifically, the candidates were asked for their support of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact that would ban the diversion of Great Lakes water...
The governors also called on the candidates to support restoration efforts underway throughout the Great Lakes by endorsing and supporting the funding necessary to implement the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration's Restoration and Protection Strategy that was developed in 2005.

Meanwhile, back on capital hill, it's clear that Governor Richardson's comments have made Great Lakes lawmakers extremely suspicious of any call for a national water policy. Tempers flared when the House subcommittee on water resources and environment began discussing a seemingly innocuous proposal to study US water use and availability. As reported in the Detroit Free Press, Michigan Representatives Candice Miller and Vern Ehlers vigorously opposed the legislation.

Miller said: "Forgive me if I, as a representative of the Great Lakes State, become concerned when I hear people promoting a national water policy or strategy. But the only logical conclusion I can come to is that such a commission is subversive attempt to divert water from the Great Lakes to other parts of the United States.
"And I do not intend to let that happen."

Not to be outdone, Representative Ehlers made it clear what would happen if there was any attempt by other states to grab our water:"I would suspect we'd call up the militia and take up arms," Ehlers said. "We feel that serious about it."

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No more fishing?

Feds to 60 Million American Anglers: We don't need you

IRVINE, Calif. USA – October 5, 2009 – A recently published administration document outlines a structure that could result in closures of sport fishing in salt and freshwater areas across America. The White House created an Interagency Oceans Policy Task Force in June and gave them only 90 days to develop a comprehensive federal policy for all U.S. coastal, ocean and Great Lakes waters. Under the guise of ‘protecting’ these areas, the current second phase of the Task Force direction is to develop zoning which may permanently close vast areas of fishing waters nationwide. This is to be completed by December 9, 2009.

Dave Pfeiffer, President of Shimano American Corporation explained, “In spite of extensive submissions from the recreational fishing community to the Task Force in person and in writing, they failed to include any mention of the over one million jobs or the 6o million anglers which may be affected by the new policies coast to coast. Input from the environmental groups who want to put us off the water was adopted into the report verbatim – the key points we submitted as an industry were ignored.”

Recreational fishing generates a $125 billion annual economy in the United States and supports jobs in every state according to government figures. Through the Sport Fish Restoration program, anglers have provided more than $5 billion through excise taxes on fishing tackle to fishery conservation and education for decades.

In addition to the economic aspects, anglers lead the nation in volunteer conservation efforts on behalf of improving fish habitat, water quality and related environmental areas. “There was no mention of the fishery conservation efforts which anglers have led for over 50 years in every state – an environmental success story that has no equal in the world”, said Phil Morlock, Director, Environmental Affairs for Shimano. “The Task Force did not make any distinction between the dramatic differences between harmful commercial fishing harvest methods and recreational fishing, even though we spelled it out for them in detail,” added Morlock.

Claiming to be the result of a public consultation process the report states, “Having considered a broad range of public comments, this report reflects the requests and concerns of all interested parties.”

The original White House memo and not surprisingly the Task Force report contains multiple references to developing a national policy where Great Lakes and coastal regions are managed, “consistent with international law, including customary international law as reflected in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea” - a 300-page treaty the U.S. has never ratified.

“We question what implications there will be for state authority and jurisdiction in the Great Lakes and coastal regions if the U.S. adopts the U.N. Treaty,” said Pfeiffer.

The report makes it clear that future authority for implementing the policy for coastal and inland waters will fall under White House jurisdiction with a new National Ocean Council comprised of over 20 federal agencies at Cabinet Secretary or Deputy Secretary level. No reference to Congressional jurisdiction is indicated.

“This significant change in U.S. policy direction is the result of a 90-day fire drill process as ordered by the President that, not surprisingly, lacks balance, clarity and quality in the end product,” said Morlock. “People who simply want to take their kids fishing on public waters deserve better from their government,” he added.

Shimano is joining with other members of the recreational fishing industry to urge anglers to contact their members of Congress and the administration to request this process be required to adopt the economic, conservation and social contributions of recreational fishing as key elements of the policy. It is critical that we ensure Congressional oversight and state jurisdiction and management continues.

E-letters can be sent to the administration and members of Congress by visiting KeepAmericaFishing.org. The future of fishing is in your hands.

###
Editor’s Note: Phil Morlock is attending Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus functions this week in Washington, DC, but will make himself available for questions, interviews on this. Contact John Mazurkiewicz with Catalyst Marketing for arrangements.

[Malsua]

Good grief.

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UN may curtail 400-year-old 'freedom of the seas'

22 Comments
Recommend? (11)
Frank Pope, Ocean Correspondent

The 400-year-old freedom of the high seas would be lost under United Nations plans to limit environmental damage.

Military forces of several nations are in discussions with conservationists over pooling surveillance resources to enforce the changes.

The “freedom of the seas” has given mariners legal rights to roam the high
seas — a boundary that usually occurs 200 nautical miles from shore — at will. Specialists gathered at a London conference are saying that fishermen have been pushing the concept too far.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea came into force in 1983 and enshrined the 17th-century concept of the freedom of the seas.

But while being on the high seas puts ships outside the jurisdiction of any one country, the small print of the law dictates that nations ensure that no undue damage is caused.

Related Links

• Legal loophole threatens new marine reserves

• North Sea cod 'doomed by climate change'

“The freedom of the high seas has always been accompanied by attendant responsibilities in the Law of the Sea Convention,” said Jeff Ardron, director of the high seas programme for the Marine Conservation Biology Institute.
“They were not unfettered freedoms — they have just been treated that way. The time has come when we are finally going to implement the Law of the Sea Convention as it was intended,” he told the Natural England conference, entitled Sea Change: securing a future for Europe’s seas.
The UN General Assembly voted last week to impose strict regulations on high seas bottom-trawling vessels. Next February a UN working group will meet to discuss establishing Marine Protected Areas on the high seas to create boundaries within which fishing activities are restricted.

Fishing vessels are not required to carry the same automatic identification system that tracks the identity of merchant ships. Closing this loophole will be crucial to keeping their activities in check, said Kristina Gjerde, the high seas policy adviser for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

“On motorways we have cameras that can take pictures of who’s going too fast, but there’s nothing like that on the high seas.

“Enough governments are fed up enough with illegal fishing activities that there is a movement towards a global register of fishing vessels. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation is looking to acquire one.”

National defence agencies are being brought to the table to help to enforce the rules and discussions have taken place between conservationists and the Pentagon over possible synergies in preventing overfishing, piracy and terrorism. A European Green Paper is under consideration that aims to link the maritime surveillance capabilities of member nations, including both military and fishing interests.

“It is a question of keeping track of what ships are up to,” said Mr Ardron. “If you can combine national security with other types of monitoring then it’s a win-win situation.”

A spokesman for the Royal Navy said that if approached it would look for ways to assist.

Threats to the high sea:
High seas represent 95 per cent of the global biosphere in volume and contain ecosystems, vast natural resources and unusual habitats.

Free-for-all On the high seas, countries not part of a management organisation can fish with impunity

Overfishing Organisations manage stocks but some, like the Atlantic bluefin tuna, still crash

Destructive fishing Trawling methods scrape seabeds clean
Warming waters Changing currents can leave sedentary life stranded on isolated seamounts

Acidification Ocean chemistry is changing owing to CO2
Flags of convenience Some nations register vessels with little regulation

[American Patriot]

Fuck the United Nations.

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Updated: March 9, 2010, 1:30 PM ET
Culled out

Obama administration will accept no more public input for federal fishery strategy

By Robert Montgomery
ESPNOutdoors.com

The Obama administration will accept no more public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing the nation's oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.

This announcement comes at the time when the situation supposedly still is "fluid" and the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force still hasn't issued its final report on zoning uses of these waters.

That's a disappointment, but not really a surprise for fishing industry insiders who have negotiated for months with officials at the Council on Environmental Quality and bureaucrats on the task force. These angling advocates have come to suspect that public input into the process was a charade from the beginning.


Click here for archive

"When the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) completed their successful campaign to convince the Ontario government to end one of the best scientifically managed big game hunts in North America (spring bear), the results of their agenda had severe economic impacts on small family businesses and the tourism economy of communities across northern and central Ontario," said Phil Morlock, director of environmental affairs for Shimano.

"Now we see NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the administration planning the future of recreational fishing access in America based on a similar agenda of these same groups and other Big Green anti-use organizations, through an Executive Order by the President.

The current U.S. direction with fishing is a direct parallel to what happened in Canada with hunting: The negative economic impacts on hard working American families and small businesses are being ignored.

"In spite of what we hear daily in the press about the President's concern for jobs and the economy and contrary to what he stated in the June order creating this process, we have seen no evidence from NOAA or the task force that recreational fishing and related jobs are receiving any priority."

PHOTO GALLERY

Save These Fisheries

Consequently, unless anglers speak up and convince their Congressional representatives to stop this bureaucratic freight train, it appears that the task force will issue a final report for "marine spatial planning" by late March, with President Barack Obama then issuing an Executive Order to implement its recommendations — whatever they may be.

Led by NOAA's Jane Lubchenco, the task force has shown no overt dislike of recreational angling, but its indifference to the economic, social and biological value of the sport has been deafening.

Additionally, Lubchenco and others in the administration have close ties to environmental groups who would like nothing better than to ban recreational angling. And evidence suggests that these organizations have been the engine behind the task force since before Obama issued a memo creating it last June.

As ESPN previously reported, WWF, Greenpeace, Defenders of Wildlife, Pew Environment Group and others produced a document entitled "Transition Green" shortly after Obama was elected in 2008. What has happened since suggests that the task force has been in lockstep with that position paper.

Then in late summer, just after he created the task force, these groups produced "Recommendations for the Adoption and Implementation of an Oceans, Coasts, and Great Lakes National Policy." This document makes repeated references to "overfishing," but doesn't once reference recreational angling, its importance, and its benefits, both to participants and the resource.

Additionally, some of these same organizations have revealed their anti-fishing bias by playing fast and loose with "facts," in attempts to ban tackle containing lead in the United States and Canada.

That same tunnel vision, in which recreational angling and commercial fishing are indiscriminately lumped together as harmful to the resource, has persisted with the task force, despite protests by the angling industry.


AP/Luis M. Alvarez

One sign at the rally of recreational and commercial fishermen summed up the feelings.

As more evidence of collusion, the green groups began clamoring for an Executive Order to implement the task force's recommendations even before the public comment period ended in February. Fishing advocates had no idea that this was coming.Perhaps not so coincidentally, the New York Times reported on Feb. 12 that "President Obama and his team are preparing an array of actions using his executive power to advance energy, environmental, fiscal and other domestic policy priorities."

Morlock fears that "what we're seeing coming at us is an attempted dismantling of the science-based fish and wildlife model that has served us so well. There's no basis in science for the agendas of these groups who are trying to push the public out of being able to fish and recreate.

"Conflicts (user) are overstated and problems are manufactured. It's all just an excuse to put us off the water."

In the wake of the task force's framework document, the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation (CSF) and its partners in the U.S. Recreational Fishing & Boating Coalition against voiced their concerns to the administration.

"Some of the potential policy implications of this interim framework have the potential to be a real threat to recreational anglers who not only contribute billions of dollars to the economy and millions of dollars in tax revenues to support fisheries conservation, but who are also the backbone of the American fish and wildlife conservation ethic," said CSF President Jeff Crane.

Morlock, a member of the CSF board, added, "There are over one million jobs in America supported coast to coast by recreational fishing. The task force has not included any accountability requirements in their reports for evaluating or mitigating how the new policies they are drafting will impact the fishing industry or related economies.

"Given that the scope of this process appears to include a new set of policies for all coastal and inland waters of the United States, the omission of economic considerations is inexcusable."

This is not the only access issue threatening the public's right to fish, but it definitely is the most serious, according to Chris Horton, national conservation director for BASS.

"With what's being created, the same principles could apply inland as apply to the oceans," he said. "Under the guise of 'marine spatial planning' entire watersheds could be shut down, even 2,000 miles up a river drainage from the ocean.

"Every angler needs to be aware because if it's not happening in your backyard today or tomorrow, it will be eventually.

"We have one of the largest voting blocks in the country and we need to use it. We must not sit idly by."

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Now, Obama's great ocean grab

Washington Examiner ^ | 8/20/2010 | Michelle Malkin
Posted on Friday, August 20, 2010 4:11:24 PM by markomalley

It's not enough that the White House is moving to lock up hundreds of millions of acres of land in the name of environmental protection. The Obama administration's neon green radicals are also training their sights on the deep blue seas. The president's grabby-handed bureaucrats have been empowered through executive order to seize unprecedented control from states and localities over "conservation, economic activity, user conflict and sustainable use of the ocean, our coasts and the Great Lakes."

Democrats have tried and failed to pass "comprehensive" federal oceans management legislation five years in a row. The so-called "Oceans 21" bill, sponsored by Rep. Sam Farr, D-Calif., went nowhere fast. Among the top reasons: bipartisan concerns about the economic impact of closing off widespread access to recreational fishing.

The bill also would have handed environmentalists another punitive litigation weapon under the guise of "ecosystem management." Instead of accepting defeat, the green lobby simply circumvented the legislative process altogether.

In late July, President Obama established a behemoth 27-member "National Ocean Council" with the stroke of a pen. Farr gloated: "We already have a Clean Air Act and a Clean Water Act. With today's executive order, President Obama in effect creates a Clean Ocean Act."

And not a single hearing needed to be held.

Not a single amendment considered. Not a single vote cast.
Who gives a flying fish about transparency and the deliberative process? The oceans are dying!

The panel will have the power to implement "coastal and marine spatial plans" and to ensure that all executive agencies, departments and offices abide by their determinations. The panel has also been granted authority to establish regional advisory committees that overlap with existing regional and local authorities governing marine and coastal planning.

No wonder the anti-growth, anti-development, anti-jobs zealots are cheering. The National Ocean Council is co-chaired by wackadoodle science czar John Holdren (notorious for his cheerful musings about eugenics, mass sterilization and forced abortions to protect Mother Earth and for hyping weather catastrophes and demographic disasters in the 1970s with his population control freak pals Paul and Anne Ehrlich) and White House Council on Environmental Quality head Nancy Sutley (best known as the immediate boss of disgraced green jobs czar/self-avowed communist Van Jones).

Also on the new ocean panel:

-- Socialista and energy/climate change czar Carol Browner, last seen bullying auto company execs to "put nothing in writing, ever" and threatening to push massive cap-and-trade tax hikes during the upcoming congressional lame duck session.

-- Dr. Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a former high-ranking official at the left-wing Environmental Defense Fund, which has long championed drastic reductions of commercial fishing fleets and recreational fishing activity in favor of centralized control.

-- Attorney General Eric Holder, who will no doubt use his stonewalling expertise to shield the ocean council's inner workings from public scrutiny.

-- Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who apparently doesn't have enough to do destroying jobs through his offshore drilling moratorium, blocking onshore development and wreaking havoc on the energy industry.

Given Salazar's fraudulent book-cooking in support of the administration's offshore drilling moratorium (Remember: Obama's own appointed scientists blasted the Interior Secretary for unilaterally contradicting and misrepresenting their conclusions.), his comments on the new ocean grab are more threat than promise:

"With two billion acres we help oversee on the Outer Continental Shelf, Interior is a proud partner in this initiative, and we look forward to helping coordinate the science, policies and management of how we use, conserve and protect these public treasures."

"Helping coordinate the science," as interpreted by Obama's Chicago-on-the-Potomac heavies, means doctoring, massaging and ramming through whatever eco-data is necessary "to reduce conflicts among uses, reduce environmental impacts, facilitate compatible uses, and preserve critical ecosystem services to meet economic, environmental, security and social objectives."

Translation: drastically limiting human activity from coastal areas to seabeds to achieve the "social objective" of appeasing the enviros and their deep-pocketed philanthropic funders.

Even New York Sen. Charles Schumer slammed the administration's junk science-based fishing limits at a meeting this week between NOAA's Lubchenco and Long Island recreational fishermen. Draconian regulations, he said, according to the New York Post, "put the industry on death's door."

Now, the same forces behind such job destroyers will have free reign over a national ocean policy established by administrative fiat. Viva la Summer of Wreckovery.

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Obama Executive Order To Control Coasts and Waterways

August 3, 2010
in Agenda 21,Featured Image



While we were fixated on twelve other stupid and/or unconstitutional things the Obama administration was doing last week, President Obama signed a controversial executive order which is being regarded as another huge loss of private property rights.

The short version is, the executive order gives the federal government control of coastal properties along the oceans and all other waterways–rivers, lakes–and any adjoining property which might drain into and affect the quality of those waterways. The order contains fees for applications for use, rules, and fines.

(See the executive order and supporting documents here)
Here is more detail from Henry Lamb writing for World Net Daily. There has been very little coverage in the mainstream media of this unprecedented power grab.

President Obama’s Executive Order 13547, issued July 19, further extends federal power, embraces global governance, diminishes the rights and privileges of individuals and brings the United States into compliance with Agenda 21, Chapter 17.6, which says:

Each coastal State should consider establishing, or where necessary strengthening, appropriate coordinating mechanisms (such as a high-level policy planning body) for integrated management and sustainable development of coastal and marine areas. …
The National Ocean Council created by the executive order creates this mechanism – and much more.

The genius of the American system of governance created by the U.S. Constitution is the delicate balance of power between the federal government, state and local governments, and the people. The founders recognized the people as the source of power; the people came first. It was the people who organized states. The states created a federal government and through the Constitution limited the power of the new government to those specific powers set forth in Article I, Section 8. All unspecified powers were explicitly retained by the states or the people.

In the first 200 years, the United States of America produced greater wealth and prosperity than the rest of the world had produced in 2000 years. Why? Because individuals were free to pursue their own individual happiness.

Throughout its entire history, however, there have been those who believe that government is, or should be, the source of power; that the people are, or should be, subjects of the state. Since the 1970s, these people have used “environmental protection” as an excuse to expand the power of government. They argued that free people, in their pursuit of personal happiness, were polluting the environment. Therefore, government had to restrain free people in order to save the earth.

Their arguments prevailed in Congress, in the schools and throughout society. The result has been ever-expanding government power that continually diminishes individual freedom, which results in less investment in the pursuit of individual happiness and a gradual slowdown in the growth of prosperity for everyone.

Once, Americans could do whatever they could conceive, restrained only by the possible consequences of infringing their neighbors’ right to do the same. Now, Americans must get permission from multiple layers of government to do anything that produces income, pay multiple taxes on whatever income is generated, and comply with expensive regulations that govern every activity that might be pursued. Consequently, the individual entrepreneurial spirit is steadily being replaced by the ever-expanding reach of government’s ambition to manage society.

President Obama’s most recent executive order is another example of government’s ever-expanding reach. First, Obama created an Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force in June of 2009. This group worked a year to produce a report that recommends how government can better protect the environment relating to the oceans and the Great Lakes. The executive order essentially adopts the recommendations in the report as national policy and creates a new bureaucracy called the National Ocean Council to implement all the recommendations in the report.

The two most egregious recommendations are: controlling activities on land that affects the ocean and ratification of the Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Before America became a nanny state subject to the tyrannical decrees of the federal government, people were subject to laws that forced polluters to make whole anyone who was harmed. People who used their own property in the pursuit of their own individual happiness who inadvertently, through negligence or deliberately polluted water that harmed a neighbor could be brought to court and forced to pay damages.

Now, the federal government ignores private-property rights by requiring government approval of any proposed use of private property, payment of fees for the privilege and payment of penalties for any infraction of a myriad of rules that govern the activities government may allow.

The trampling of private-property rights is not as bad, however, as the subjugation that would result from the ratification of the Convention on the Law of the Sea. This treaty was rejected by Ronald Reagan in 1982.

Despite the so-called improvements to the treaty boasted by the Clinton administration, the U.S. Senate rejected it in 2000. President Bush tried to have it ratified, but the Senate rejected it again in 2004. Now Obama is trying again to force this horrible treaty down America’s throat.

This treaty would give the U.N. power to regulate activity within our territorial seas (Article 2, (3)); it would give the U.N. the power to levy taxes in the form of application fees ($250,000) and royalties; it provides no benefits that the United States does not already enjoy. Yet, the Obama administration has set up this new National Ocean Council to convince the Senate to ratify the treaty.

This treaty is another expansion of global governance, which is defined by the U.N. to be that “framework of rules, institutions and practices that limits the behavior of individuals, organizations and companies” (U.N. Development Report, 1999, p. 34).

Obama’s expansion of government is taking the nation in the wrong direction. The federal government should be reduced in size, scope and function. The federal government should be pushed back inside the bottle of those limited powers defined in Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution.

States and individuals should reclaim the power given to them by the Constitution and guaranteed by the 10th Amendment. No elected official – including President Obama – is immune to the power of the ballot box. Those in power who support Obama’s brand of foolishness should be forced to find a new career path this November.

[vector7]

Two if by Sea

September 20th, 2010 10:29 pm ET

In a recent move, President Obama bypassed Congressional approval when on July 19, 2010 he signed Executive Order 13547 – Stewardship of the Ocean, Our Coasts, and the Great Lakes

On June 12, 2009 he established the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force and charged them with “developing recommendations to enhance our ability to maintain healthy, resilient, and sustainable ocean, coasts, and Great Lakes resources for the benefit of present and future generations.”

This task force was comprised of 24 senior-level officials from executive departments, agencies, and offices across the Federal government and was led by the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).

The task force finalized its report to the President on July 19, 2010. This executive order adopted the recommendations of the task force and directs executive agencies to form the National Ocean Council, which will be comprised of the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) (Nancy Sutley) and the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (Dr. John P. Holdren), as co-chairs of this Council.

The Council also includes the Secretaries of State, Defense, the Interior, Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Commerce, Labor, Transportation, Energy, and Homeland Security, the Attorney General, the Administrator of the EPA, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere (Administrator of NOAA), the Administrator of NASA, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the National Science Foundation, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Security Advisor and the Assistants to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, Domestic Policy, Energy and Climate Change, and Economic Policy; and basically anyone else the Co-Chairs of the Council may choose to designate.

In an article by Henry Lamb posted on World News Daily on July 31, 2010 entitled Obama’s Latest Assault on Liberty he states “President Obama's Executive Order 13547, issued July 19, further extends federal power, embraces global governance, diminishes the rights and privileges of individuals and brings the United States into compliance with Agenda 21, Chapter 17.6, which says:

Each coastal State should consider establishing, or where necessary strengthening, appropriate coordinating mechanisms (such as a high-level policy planning body) for integrated management and sustainable development of coastal and marine areas. …”

This executive order also intends to pursue the United States’ accession to the Law of the Sea Convention, or Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) Dr. Lamb goes on to say “This treaty would give the U.N. power to regulate activity within our territorial seas (Article 2, (3)); it would give the U.N. the power to levy taxes in the form of application fees ($250,000) and royalties; it provides no benefits that the United States does not already enjoy. Yet, the Obama administration has set up this new National Ocean Council to convince the Senate to ratify the treaty.”

In 1978 Ronald Reagan declared, “No national interest of the United States can justify handing sovereign control of two-thirds of the Earth’s surface over to the Third World.” In 1982 Ronald Reagan refused to sign the Law of the Sea Treaty or send it to the Senate.

In 2004 President George W. Bush signed the treaty, which essentially would give the International Seabed Authority all of the rights over the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic oceans and all of the oil and mineral resources they contain.

The International Seabed Authority, created by The Law of the Sea Convention, consists of 155 nations, wherein the United States would have only one vote and no veto. But of course, the United States would pay the principal share of the operating costs, as we do today with the United Nations, paying close to 17% of the operating costs. Fortunately the Senate did not pursue it’s ratification at that time.

The Preamble to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea states:

“Bearing in mind that the achievement of these goals will contribute to the realization of a just and equitable international economic order which takes into account the interests and needs of mankind as a whole and, in particular, the special interests and needs of developing countries, whether coastal or land-locked.

Desiring by this Convention to develop the principles embodied in resolution 2749 (XXV) of 17 December 1970 in which the General Assembly of the United Nations solemnly declared inter alia that the area of the seabed and ocean floor and the subsoil thereof, beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, as well as its resources, are the common heritage of mankind, the exploration and exploitation of which shall be carried out for the benefit of mankind as a whole, irrespective of the geographical location of States,…”

The signing of this executive order will impact each and every one of us.

It will restrict where, when and who will be able to fish off of our coasts and within the Great Lakes, whether for pleasure or commercially. It will most assuredly create an atmosphere where everything we do will be policed by the National Ocean Council and the United Nations and levies assessed for the right to fish, explore, drill and eventually navigate throughout our coastlines and throughout the world.

This will lead to increases in our costs for food, energy, travel, recreation and more, in their pursuit of redistributing our wealth to Third World nations through the conduit of the United Nations. As a coastal state, Florida and its residents will be seriously impacted by the execution of this order.

Welcome to the New World Order!