Obama to Choose New Secretary of Commerce

Obama to Choose New Secretary of Commerce

President's record on fisheries worse than Bush

by Dan Bacher

President Barack Obama announced on Wednesday, March 9 that he is nominating Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to be the next ambassador to China, replacing the current ambassador Jon Huntsman.

"More than 100 years ago, Gary's grandfather left China on a steamship bound for America, where he worked as a domestic servant in Washington State. A century later, his grandson will return to China as America's top diplomat," said President Obama.

By nominating Locke, the President is relieving him of his duty as Secretary of Commerce and opening the way for a successor "who could enact stronger policies to protect U.S. fisheries," according to Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch.

"Secretary Locke had a poor record on two of the major current national fisheries issues: a controversial management program known as catch shares that favors larger, more industrialized fishing operations over smaller-scale traditional fishermen; and open ocean aquaculture, the production of fish in giant floating net pens and cages in open waters," Hauter said.

"These open ocean factory fish farms have been bad for the environment and consumers, causing documented problems like pollution from excess feed and waste, fish escapes and habitat damage. Unfortunately, Secretary Locke supported both factory fish farms and catch shares," emphasized Hauter.

Hauter pointed out the growing movement by corporate interests to privatize the oceans for big profits. In California, the catch shares program and promotion of unsustainable corporate aquaculture are paralleled by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's corrupt, privately-funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative.

"There is a growing movement to industrialize our oceans for corporate profit, risking the health of consumers and putting thousands of working Americans out of business," said Hauter. " We see this daily with the continuing, unpopular spread of catch share programs and the development of a national aquaculture policy that allows expansion of ocean factory farms under this administration’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)."

She concluded, "It is critical that Obama appoint a strong Secretary of Commerce who will put the interests of consumers and fishing and coastal communities above the interests of big business."

The jury is out on whether Obama will appoint somebody better than Locke - or a person even worse for fish, fishermen, consumers and the public trust.

Speculation abounds as to Obama's potential choice for the next Commerce Secretary. Multiple news reports have identified U.S. Trade Ambassador Ron Kirk, who has worked on two major business deals in Texas involving the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), as Obama's potential choice for the position. Other reports claim that Obama is wooing Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google, for the next Commerce Secretary.

In regards to the environment and fish, Obama is worse than George W. Bush, although not as bad as Schwarzenegger, the darling of corporate "environmentalists," was in California. I wrote article after article about Bush's disastrous water and fish policies, but Obama has done things that even Bush wouldn't dare do. These include:

1. Officially backing the peripheral canal/tunnel to export more water from the imperiled Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to southern California and corporate agribusiness on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. The Obama administration is the first federal administration to officially endorse the canal, an enormously expensive and environmentally destructive government boondoggle that is opposed by fishermen, Indian Tribes, conservationists, environmental justice advocates, family farmers and Delta residents.

2. Supporting the privatization of the ocean through the "catch shares" program that concentrates fisheries in fewer, corporate hands. Obama appointed as his NOAA Administrator Jane "Privatize" Lubchenco, the former vice-chair of Environmental Defense and a strong advocate of "catch shares" and ocean zoning.

3. Fast-tracking the approval of genetically-engineered salmon. The FDA under the Obama administration is pushing for the approval of the first genetically-engineered fish for human consumption, the Franken Salmon, even though the approval of the fish poses enormous health and environmental consequences. The Aqua Bounty fish is an Atlantic salmon with eel pout and Pacific chinook salmon genes.

4. Convening the National Academy of Sciences to "review" the rewritten salmon and Delta smelt biological opinions, begun during the Bush administration, because they were too favorable to the fish. This was done at the request of Stewart Resnick, the largest tree fruit grower in the world who owns over 120,000 acres of land in Kern County and has made millions of dollars in profits off the privatization of public water.

5. Colluding with the UK government to keep Diego Garcia "safe" for CIA renditioning of "terror" suspects and denying Chagossians the right of return by supporting the creation of the world's largest "marine protected area" in the Indian Ocean around the Chagos Islands.

6. Promoting unsustainable open water corporate aquaculture in ocean waters. These operations, consisting of giant floating net pens and cages in open water, are the equivalent of factory farms on the high seas.

We got "change," all right - "change" for the worse with Obama!