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Carol Browner addressing Great Lakes leaders in Cleveland

That's the headline Keep America Fishing used when they recently published the Presidential candidate's answers to some policy questions surrounding various issues important to anglers. One of those questions specifically revolved around the Great Lakes, most notably the threat from invasive Asian Carp. It's always easy to make policy statements, it's another to back them up. A recent Great Lakes event in Cleveland is perhaps more telling when it comes to the respective candidates answer to that Great Lakes policy question.

Romney's Silence on Great Lakes Protection Speaks Volumes

Last week in Cleveland, over 500 leaders from around the Great Lakes gathered in Cleveland to talk about the challenges facing the drinking water source for 38 million Americans - our Great Lakes.

On the agenda were assessments of toxic waste cleanup projects, the threat of Asian Carp and other invasive species, the growing water quality problem of nutrient pollution and algae overload, and evidence that climate change is already having significant impacts on this critical resource.

After weeks of considering whether to participate, the Romney campaign ultimately made the call: blow it off.

President Obama's campaign sent Carol Browner, until recently Obama's top adviser on energy and environmental policy, and also former head of the EPA for eight years. Browner spoke knowledgeably and forcefully about Obama's Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a program Obama created to clean up contaminated sites, restore the Great Lakes ecosystem's natural areas, and protect drinking water. She talked about the administration's multi-pronged defense against the Asian Carp, and of the new Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement the administration just signed with Canada.

LINK (via: The Huff Post)

How do you know the Pebble Mine debate has reached new political heights?

When serial gas bag Grover Norquist takes to writing an op-ed on the proposed mine in Politico.

LINK

Republicans and the Environment

Russell Train, who led the Council on Environmental Quality under President Nixon and then the Environmental Protection Agency under Gerald Ford, died Monday, September 17. The New York Times in its obituary said that Mr. Train, "shaped the world’s first comprehensive program for scrubbing the skies and waters of pollution, ensuring the survival of ecologically significant plants and animals, and safeguarding citizens from exposure to toxic chemicals."

In 2004 Patagonia published an essay Train wrote that is as timely today as it was seven years ago.

I’ve been a Republican all my life. For eight years, under the administrations of Nixon and Ford, I was Undersecretary of Interior. I was the first Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality. I was the second head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

I list these things not to boast, but to establish both my credentials and my point of view when I say that the environmental clock is now running backwards. Environmental quality is a key determinant of the quality of our lives – of our health, the health of ecosystems, our economic well-being, even the security of our nation.

LINK (via:The Cleanest Line)

Presidential Hopefuls Share Their Views on Recreational Fishing

Keep America Fishing asks the President, and the stiff trying to take his job, eight questions regarding recreational fishing. Given that Keep America Fishing is funded in large part by the conventional tackle industry, it should be no surprise that there are a couple of questions regarding federal "overreach" in recreational marine fisheries management.

LINK

Kitzhaber seeks peace in Columbia salmon wars

Trying to head off a ballot measure to ban gillnetting for salmon on the Oregon side of the lower Columbia River, Gov. John Kitzhaber has told state fisheries managers to come up with new regulations that would accomplish a similar goal while still keeping gillnetters on the water.

Meanwhile.....

On the Washington side of the river, Department of Fish and Wildlife Regional Director Guy Norman said they hoped to work out a way to keep Washington's regulations compatible with Oregon's, but reserved the right to go their own way.

LINK (via:The Seattle PI)

Stop Gillnets Now, the organization that got the gillnet ban placed on the ballot, has come out in favor of the Governors plan, the gillnetters have not.

LINK (via:Coast River Business Journal)

Senate defeats attempt to study genetically engineered salmon

The Senate yesterday defeated an amendment, 45-50, by Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, to require comprehensive environmental study of what she called a “test tube” salmon before the government approves it for the food supply.

LINK (via: SF Gate)