AFFTA Fisheries Fund

Some excellent news from AFFTA.

The American Fly Fishing Trade Association (AFFTA) has created a funding arm dedicated to furthering fly fishing conservation and educational organizations and programs.  The AFFTA Fisheries Fund is targeted at fly fishing specific issues and organizations and funded by revenue from the International Fly Tackle Dealer (IFTD) show.  The Fisheries Fund will begin accepting grant applications immediately, with hopes of funding projects and organizations before the end of the year.

LINK (via: Angling Trade)

So you're bitching about Tenkara?

I really hope somebody records Erika Napoletano's "Firestarter” keynote at the upcoming America Fly Fishing Trade Association’s Aspen Dealer Summit in late October.

AFFTA Offers Group Commercial Liability Insurance for Guides and Outfitters

If you're a guide or offer guiding services you now have another reason to become an AFFTA member.

AFFTA has just announced a major new member benefit for fly fishing outfitters and guides, as well as retailers that offer in-house guiding and outfitting.

Beginning this month, AFFTA members in all 50 states who make a living guiding and outfitting clients will now have the opportunity to purchase commercial liability insurance as a group at a special industry discounted rate. Through this new AFFTA program, the annual premium for an independent guide is only $400.00. This comprehensive policy will include $2 million in aggregate coverage with $1 million of coverage per occurrence. Outfitters who employ guides will be able to pay the $400 annually for their own coverage, and can then add their guides to the policy for only $175 each (with the same amounts of coverage).

Get more details HERE.

Statement from AFFTA

I am happy to post this latest response from AFFTA regarding their award given to Senator Enzi. I'll be the first to give them credit for admitting to a lack of due diligence in selecting the good senator from Wyoming.

AFFTA’s choice of Sen. Mike Enzi for one of the Jim Range Legislators of the Year award and our reasons for doing so has continued to draw attention from some within the fly fishing community.

We have always said that the AFFTA board welcomes comments and feedback from within the industry, and in this case, we are not turning a deaf ear to the criticism that we have received. We have learned some valuable lessons, and as we said in our response “we are committed to making AFFTA a stronger organization,” for both our members and for the fly fishing industry as a whole. We fully understand that this is an industry that is passionate about the environment.

It's evident we have invoked an ardent response by the choice of this award. It was not our intent to create or incite controversy. Going forward, as the chairman of AFFTA’s Government Affairs and Affiliates Committee, I will personally ensure more rigor and outreach around these types of decisions,” said Mike Gawtry.

AFFTA is committed to conservation and the environment and we understand how important these issues are to our members and to our businesses. We think our track record is pretty good, but we'll fully admit that we can always do better.

We heard you, we will look at how these awards are chosen in the future. As a board and an organization, we will do better next time. We encourage all who commented on this issue to continue to stay involved. Feedback and participation on this level is how together we can move this industry forward.

Jim Klug, Chairman

Randi Swisher, President

Yes,we are an industry that's passionate about the environment but being passionate is not enough, it takes action. I would challenge our industry to use its resources to be even stonger advocates for the environment. If we lend the weight of our industry to the environmental causes that are crucial to the health of our planet it will also be good for the bottom line. As Yvon Chouinard once said, “Every time I've done the right thing for the environment, I've made a profit."

Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

Recently we posted an op-ed questioning AFFTA's decision to give Senator Mike Enzi their Jim Range Legislator of the Year award. In our opinion AFFTA's response confirms that our trade association is having difficulty seeing where the sun shines.

Let's take it point by point.

It's not about politics.

AFFTA is first and foremost a trade association that represents the fly fishing industry. As a trade group, it has always been our mission and our goal to reach out to and work with all members of Congress in advancing the interests of the sport of fly fishing and the fly fishing industry.

As a trade organization, we don't take the position of only working with and talking to those that score high on conservation issues. While we certainly recognize and appreciate politicians that champion fisheries-related conservation causes, we also need to recognize those members that work to help our industry on tax, trade, and business issues.

Nobody has issues with AFFTA working across the political spectrum, the issue is giving an award to someone with an atrocious environmental record.

And it's not just about fisheries fellas.

AFFTA's second point.

Mike Enzi is a champion of legislation that is important to our trade association.

Senator Enzi is a highly respected Member of the United States Senate who has used his senior positions on the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee to advance legislation that is extremely important to our trade association.

AFFTA then goes on to list 6 pieces of legislation Enzi has either "sponsored or co-sponsored" that help small business. Care to take a guess as to how many of those pro business bills have advanced into law? Hint: It starts with Z and ends with O.

Links to the individual bills are below, judge for yourself the benefits to our trade association. By the way, he was a not a sponsor of any of this legislation, just a co-sponsor.

Small Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act – S. 3578
Save Our Small and Seasonal Business Act – S. 388 
Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act – S. 428
United States Optimal Use of Trade to Develop Outerwear and Outdoor Recreation – S. 704
Carbon Storage Stewardship Trust Fund Act – S. 1502 
Heart Mountain Relocation Center Act – S. 2722

Here is one example of legislation sited as proof of Enzi's pro business cred.

The Save our Small and Seasonal Business Act if passed would, Amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to extend for three years after the date of enactment of this Act the annual cap exemption for returning H-2B aliens (temporary nonagricultural worker).

This legislation was so critical to small businesses that the following "trade organizations" registered overwhelming support for that bill.

American Horse Council

American Nursery & Landscape Association

Professional Landcare Network

Save Small Business

The Association of Pool and Spa Professionals

So exactly how does this act benefit the fly fishing trade.... other than making it easier to hire someone to mow the lawn and clean the casting pool?

Now, let's balance the record of Mr. Enzi, champion of small business and kid's health, with his environmental record.

Here is his evironmental voting scorecard for his entire tenure in the US Senate.

110th Congress: 15%

109th Congress: 7%

108th Congress: 0%

107th Congress: 0%

106th Congress: 0%

Hey, at least it's improving!

Here is how it breaks down by actual number of votes cast.

You can review Senator Enzi's entire environmental voting record here on the League of Conversation Voters website.

Outlined below are three of those 122 votes, pay particular attention to the first one which would have  gutted one of the sacred cows of conservation funding, the Land and Water Conservation Fund. 

The Land and Water Conservation Fund is used by land management agencies to protect recreational access, natural resources and cultural heritage sites.

During consideration of the Interior-Environment appropriations bill Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) offered an amendment that would have taken funding for land acquisition under the Land and Water Conservation Fund and authorized it for operations, maintenance, and repair or rehabilitation projects for constructed assets. Had this amendment passed, the Land and Water Conservation Fund would effectively have been raided for the foreseeable future to give priority to construction projects. Construction was not the original intent of the 1965 law establishing this fund, which stated that offshore development royalties be used to acquire new lands – an asset for an asset. Because of the sheer number of operations and maintenance projects in the agency pipelines, the Land and Water Conservation Fund might not have received any land acquisition money at all and this important program would have ceased to exist as we currently know it.

On September 24, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) offered a motion to table the Coburn amendment,which passed by a vote of 79-19 (Senate roll call vote 297).

YES IS THE PRO-ENVIRONMENT VOTE - Mike Enzi was one of the 19 who voted NO.

Sorry kids!

How's this for supporting the business of fisheries?

The Bay-Delta Estuary is the largest estuary on the West Coast. It is an ecosystem that supports an important array of species including listed salmon, steelhead, sturgeon, and smelt populations. In recent years, the Delta ecosystem has been on the verge of collapse. Water diversions from the Delta have depressed salmon numbers and resulted in the closure of the salmon fishery for the last two years. This has caused an economic disaster along hundreds of miles of the Pacific Coast, with estimated losses in California of $2.8 billion and 23,000 jobs in the commercial and recreational fishing industries in 2008 and 2009.

During consideration of FY 2010 Interior-Environment appropriations bill, Senator James DeMint (R-SC) introduced an amendment to instruct the Senate Appropriations Committee to prohibit funding for court-mandated protections, or a biological opinion, for the California Bay Delta Estuary and for the threatened and endangered species that depend on the estuary. The amendment would have also threatened thousands of fishing jobs.

Implementation of these protections is critical to restoring the health of the Bay Delta ecosystem and sustaining California’s sport and commercial salmon fishery. The biological opinion is the result of several years of consultation with state and federal agencies and has undergone two separate peer review studies.

On September 22, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) offered a motion to table the DeMint amendment. The motion was passed by a vote of 61-36 (Senate roll call vote 292)

YES IS THE PRO-ENVIRONMENT VOTE - Mike Enzi voted NO.

The Interior-Environment appropriations bill allocates yearly funding for many federal environment and natural resource programs that protect our public lands, wildlife, air and water and safeguard communities from toxic pollution. In addition, as the nation increasingly grapples with the need to address climate change and its impacts, the Interior-Environment appropriations bill has become an important vehicle for making advances on this critical front.

H.R. 2996, the FY 2010 bill as passed by the Senate, while not perfect, made important strides in reviving programs devastated by years of starvation budgets, providing a total of $32.1 billion, $4.5 billion (16%) over the FY 2009 level. The bill provided significant funding in a number of areas including $3.63 billion for clean drinking water and wastewater; $478 million to protect great bodies of water such as the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay; $419 million for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and Forest Legacy; and significant increases for wildlife conservation and to bolster management of our national forests, wildlife refuges, parks, monuments and other public lands.

In addition, the Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement (FLAME) Act of 2009 was added as an amendment to the bill on the Senate floor, intended to help create a dedicated, steady and predictable funding stream for wildfire suppression activities and to alleviate the pressure from fire fighting activities on regular agency budgets.
On June 26, H. R. 2996 passed the Senate by a vote of 77-21 (Senate roll call vote 298).

YES IS THE PRO-ENVIRONMENT VOTE - Mike Enzi voted NO.

So lets review AFFTA's response again.

It's not about politics. We have to work across the political spectrum and we balanced Mike Enzi's pro business support and perfect Casting Call attendance along with his shitty environmental record and he still qualified.

Last time I checked The National Casting Call is a DC lobbying event and is rooted in politics. Nobody is suggesting not working with politicians who don't support a clean and healthy environment but it's not OK to honor them with an award.

Mike Enzi is such a hero of small business that he deserved the award. 

If we subscribe to that argument then a senator who believes in developing the Pebble Mine could win the award, where do you draw the line? Based on the public record Enzi is also not a champion of legislaltion that helps the fly trade.

Finally, AFFTA uses this argument, which in my mind is  the most egregious.

Senator Enzi has also been an eloquent voice on the importance of fishing to the health of American Children; an important statement from the Ranking Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Seriously!? I'm happy he's a voice for the importance of fishing for the health of our kids. Unfortunately, the health of ALL children depends on clean air and water. Just a cursory glance at Mr. Enzi's record makes it clear that he is no friend of children's health. He has also also voted against stricter mercury emissions, and increased lead paint restrictions, two issues that profoundly effect the health of kids.

Enzi is also a co-sponsor of recent legislation that would abolish the EPA by merging it with the Department of Energy. 

Have you checked the air quality surrounding Pinedale Wyoming lately?

AFFTA is right about one thing, it's not just about legislation that supports healthy fishiries.

Enzi led the oppostion for funds to provide health care to 9/11 responders.

Senator Mike Enzi and other Republicans push to repeal U.S. requirements for energy-efficient light bulbs.

We close with a link to a recent post on AFFTA's website.

AFFTA continues to express concerns about proposed federal conservation cuts

There must be better way to express your concerns than giving an industry award to a senator who supports those cuts.

"There is no business to be done on a dead planet."

AFFTA has printed a response to those of us questioning the logic of giving Senator Mike Enzi their "Jim Range Legislator of the Year" award.

Give it a read, we'll have more on their response Monday.

This is not the first time Mr. Enzi has graced the pages of the Chum.