ENVIROMENT - The Expansion of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument

Need I say, Republicans and their Big-Money owners will not like this.  They want to be able to rape our environment for profit.

"Can Obama’s Pacific Ocean sanctuary plan balance environmental and economic interests?" PBS NewsHour 6/17/2014

Excerpt

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  The President used the power of executive authority again today, this time to protect a wider expanse of the central Pacific Ocean.

Jeffrey Brown has the story and why scientists believe the area needs special safeguards.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:  If we drain our oceans of their resources, we won’t just be squandering one of humanity’s greatest treasures.  We will be cutting off one of the world’s major sources of food and economic growth.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  President Obama announced his plan to create the world’s largest marine preserve in a video message delivered today at a State Department conference on oceans conservation.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:  And like Presidents Clinton and Bush before me, I’m going to use my authority as president to protect some of our most precious marine landscapes, just like we do for mountains and rivers and forests.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Today’s directive would add to U.S. marine monuments in the Central Pacific designated by President George W. Bush during his administration.  President Obama’s proposal could expand protection areas around seven islands and atolls in the U.S. territorial waters from 50 miles to 200.

And while final boundaries have not yet been determined, the executive step would expand the sparsely inhabited Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument from almost 87,000 square miles to more than 780,000.  That would put drilling, fishing and other activities in the new preserves off-limits.

CALIFORNIA - Oyster Farm, Pacific Cost vs Department of the Interior

"Strange Bedfellows Join Fight to Keep California Oyster Farm in Operation" PBS Newshour 5/1/2013

Excerpt

JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour):  In Northern California, there's an unusual battle brewing over a renowned oyster farm that's located in a national seashore.  The fight is playing out among business, government and some environmentalists.  But it's one that's creating strange bedfellows concerned about the outcome.

Spencer Michels reports.

SPENCER MICHELS (Newshour):  The Drakes Bay Oyster Company at Point Reyes National Seashore north of San Francisco may be producing its last crop.

When its long-term lease expired last year, the Department of the Interior said the lease was terminated, and ordered the family-owned company to stop planting and harvesting oysters, as the farm has done since the 1930s.  And that has provoked a battle with an unlikely cast of characters.

The repercussions extend far beyond this spectacular Pacific Coast enclave, to the restaurants of the Bay Area and all the way to Washington, D.C., where politicians of both parties are joining in the fight.  Much of the area in the National Seashore has been designated wilderness, and the then secretary of the interior has said the oyster farm doesn't fit in a wilderness area, since it's a commercial operation.

So he ordered it closed in March.  The company sued to stop its eviction, and a federal court has allowed operations to continue while it considers the case.