Free Republic

Army Air National Guard Hangar A Bangor, Maine2:15 P.M. EDTTHE PRESIDENT:  Okay.  And I heard there was some controversy with respect to the current governor.  She never asked me a question.  By the way, you have everything right on tape.  She assured I came here, because when she said I shouldn’t come, I said, “Now I know I’m coming.”  (Laughter.)  I’m like Paul.MR. LEPAGE:  You should see the crowd outside, the crowd that’s gathered outside because you were coming.  It’s unbelievable.THE PRESIDENT:  I hear there’s a big crowd out there, huh?  That’s great.  That’s great.And you folks are going...

House lawmakers kicked off their effort to push back against national monuments designations, targeting the large swaths of ocean the Obama administration made off limits to fishing. “I don’t believe the Antiquities Act should have ever been applied to oceans,” Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young said during a Wednesday hearing on marine monument designations. “There was never intent of that.” Republicans on the House Committee on Natural Resources have long criticized former President Barack Obama’s use of the Antiquities Act to put millions of square miles off limits to commercial fishing with little to no input from locals. With President...

A volatile buildup of weapons and resentment along the northern Somali coast culminated in the hijack of an oil freighter this week, the first such seizure by Somali pirates since 2012, experts and locals told Reuters on Wednesday. Gunmen hijacked the Aris 13, a small oil tanker, on Monday and are demanding a ransom to release the ship and its eight Sri Lankan crew, the EU Naval Force that patrols the waters off Somalia said. Now shipping companies are scrambling to find out whether the attack is a one-off, or whether pirates could once again threaten one of the world's...

Commercial fishing boat owners and groups are reacting to the executive action taken by President Obama that created a marine national preserve in the North Atlantic on Sept. 15. They say that banning commercial fishing there is unnecessary, since the fishing industry has already been working with government agencies on conservation measures.

The State Department is hosting a two-day conference on the world's oceans, beginning today, and it's expected to produce a raft of announcements and initiatives, including new marine protected areas -- one off the coast of New England -- as well as a ban on single-use plastic bags. Ahead of the conference, press reports said President Obama on Thursday will establish the first national marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean to permanently protect nearly 5,000 square miles of underwater canyons and mountains off the coast of New England. The White House said the designation will lead to a ban on...

The North Fork Valley is now down to one operating coal mine after Friday’s announcement that the Bowie No. 2 Mine near Paonia is being idled. Kentucky-based Bowie Resource Partners said in a news release that the action is occurring “as a result of continued market deterioration.” “The mine will remain idle while the market for Bowie No. 2 coal is evaluated,” the company said. The mine employs 108 full-time employees and one contractor. Bowie said it expects that 68 positions will be eliminated ... Just a few years ago, Bowie No. 2 employed more than 300 miners ... Another...

Benjina, Indonesia ___ The Burmese slaves sat on the floor and stared through the rusty bars of their locked cage, hidden on a tiny tropical island thousands of miles from home. Just a few yards away, other workers loaded cargo ships with slave-caught seafood that clouds the supply networks of major supermarkets, restaurants and even pet stores in the United States. Here, in the Indonesian island village of Benjina and the surrounding waters, hundreds of trapped men represent one of the most desperate links criss-crossing between companies and countries in the seafood industry. This intricate web of connections separates the...

Captains issue S.O.S., claiming new rules meant to save the fish are killing their way of life. With the height of the New England fishing season getting under way this week, small family fishermen say controversial new rules are destroying their livelihood — forcing them to sell their boats and instead search for work as laborers on larger vessels. “It’s a death knell. It’s the beginning of the end for small fishermen,” said Rhode Island fisherman Joel Hovanesian, 54, who recently sold his boat. Plymouth fisherman Stephen Welch, 50, a father of two, said: “We’re in a crisis right now.”...

As a lifelong commercial fisherman from Rhode Island who is involved with the regulatory process, I have one simple question to ask: Just what are we trying to accomplish with fish quotas? Federally, the science that drives the stock assessments and sets the quotas is so bad that industry has taken it upon itself to provide a better snapshot of many stocks of concern. Predictably, the picture is not nearly as dire as our federal scientists would lead us to believe. Recently, a side-by-side comparison was done, using the new multi-gazillion-dollar research vessel paid for with your tax dollars and...

East Coast fishermen say the new Obama job-killing regulations are killing the industry. Poor distraught fishermen are attempting suicide. WMUR reported: Fishermen on New Hampshire’s Seacoast are warning that new fishing regulations could destroy their industry and have already caused them severe emotional stress. The U.S. Department of Commerce has sent a team to Seabrook to look at the effects of the new regulations. “If they don’t do something to modify the fishing regulations, we won’t have a fishing industry on the Seacoast, is what it boils down to,” said Hampton Town Manager Fred Welch. Many in the fishing industry...

Barrack Obama came to office with an agenda to fundamentally change America.  An element of his agenda is a plan, known as catch shares, to restructure the nation's fishing industry.  The author of his plan is Dr. Jane Lubchenco, the environmentalist rock star and former vice chairperson of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).  When it comes to the oceans, the protection of fish, and the punishment of the evil fishermen, Dr. Lubchenco is as extreme as Obama's former green jobs czar, Van Jones. Obama, with no managerial experience himself, didn't simply make Dr. Lubchenco one of his numerous czars --...

Greenpeace activist 'harpooned' while freeing tuna in the Mediterranean A GREENPEACE activist trying to free tuna from a commercial fishing net in the Mediterranean was harpooned through the leg by fishermen on a French boat, the environmental group said. "In a non-violent action, Greenpeace activists in zodiac boats attempted to lower the side of a purse seine net with sand bags to free the fish," said Isabelle Philippe of Greenpeace France. "At that moment, fishermen violently attacked the activists, harpooning one of them through the leg," she said. The injured man, a British national identified by the group as Frank...

USCG Says Back-Draft Doomed Vessel Associated Press June 10, 2005 ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A back-draft explosion during a fire doomed a 180-foot fishing vessel before it sank in 2002 in the Bering Sea, the Coast Guard has concluded. Three men died in the incident on the Galaxy fishing boat. Two days later, a fourth was swept off a Good Samaritan vessel as it searched for survivors in the icy waters. The Galaxy was carrying a crew of 25 and an observer from the National Marine Fisheries Service when a fire broke out in the engine room. The cause of the...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 - Nineteen northern snakehead fish, widely feared interlopers, were caught this summer in a 13-mile stretch of the Potomac River where it widens below the nation's capital on its way to the Chesapeake Bay. But the final and smallest catch was particularly disheartening. A three-inch fingerling fished out of Dogue Creek, 15 miles south of here, at the beginning of October indicates that the snakehead is reproducing in local waters that are beloved by bass fishermen. Two years ago the federal government outlawed the importing of the northern snakehead, a delicacy in Chinese and Thai cuisine that...

A lone Australian navy Seahawk helicopter swept towards the crew of the Russian fishing boat Lena on a gray February day this year. The rust-speckled trawler and its dozens of workers had been working in one of the loneliest places on Earth, the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, where extreme cold and rough seas discourage all but the heartiest and most determined of seamen. But the Lena certainly had incentive to be in these waters. By the time the Seahawk arrived, the Lena had in its hold an estimated $1.25 million worth of Patagonian toothfish, also known as Chilean sea bass....