Executive Order 13366

The president signed a new Executive Order yesterday. The news about it got buried in the congressional wranglings concerning extending jobless benefits and the news of the cap on the oil spill. However, this order could have a profound affect on you if you make your living from the sea. It says in part:

This order adopts the recommendations of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, except where otherwise provided in this order, and directs executive agencies to implement those recommendations under the guidance of a National Ocean Council. Based on those recommendations, this order establishes a national policy to ensure the protection, maintenance, and restoration of the health of ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes ecosystems and resources, enhance the sustainability of ocean and coastal economies, preserve our maritime heritage, support sustainable uses and access, provide for adaptive management to enhance our understanding of and capacity to respond to climate change and ocean acidification, and coordinate with our national security and foreign policy interests.

This order also provides for the development of coastal and marine spatial plans that build upon and improve existing Federal, State, tribal, local, and regional decision making and planning processes. These regional plans will enable a more integrated, comprehensive, ecosystem-based, flexible, and proactive approach to planning and managing sustainable multiple uses across sectors and improve the conservation of the ocean, our coasts, and the Great Lakes.

Go read the whole thing here.

Note the term "coastal and marine spatial plan". This means that the ocean will be divided in to zones, that operate much like onshore zoning ordinances. In other words, certain activities will only be allowed in specific areas zoned for that activity. Then look at the term "ecosystem-based". This means that the use of that zone will be determined by its ecology and not national need or the economy. And when it says "build upon and improve existing Federal, State, tribal, local, and regional decision making and planning processes", I take that to mean that it will override these existing procedures.

For comparison, the old MMS used the concept of "multiple use". That is, no single activity could pre-empt any other activity. Under this concept, oil development activities had to take place using facilities that were compatible with other uses. For example, seafloor structures had to be built to allow trawls to pass over them without snagging. Under this new order, trawling could be limited to only certain areas. And if they determine that the ecology of that area demands it (i.e., low shrimp populations or benthic organisms), trawling could be prevented entirely. Note the sentence "ensure the protection, maintenance, and restoration of the health of ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes ecosystems". This defines the main objective of the new ocean policy and it has nothing to do with extracting minerals, farming the sea or using the ocean for recreation.

The National Ocean Council formed under this Executive Order will have the ability to limit where you fish, where you can explore for oil, where you can site wind farms or any other activity, commercial or recreational, that takes place upon the water.

A big piece of freedom has been taken away from you and you don't even know about it because the media failed to cover it.