HB 983, like so much state policy, is based on bogus science | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    HB 983, now pending in the Legislature is another example of how public policy is made, and especially how it is administered, that is based bogus science and data that borders on "witch's brew." If there were ever a bill conservative Republicans should not only kill, but laugh out of the building, it is HB 983.

    We have said it here before, and we'll repeat it here again. The Republican "takeover" of North Carolina's government in both 2010 and 2012 was more the result of people being disgusted with the way the Democrat system operated than it was an affirmation of Republican ideals. The corruption of the Easley, Perdue, Black and Basnight regimes was simply more than most people could stomach. So they elected someone "other than a Democrat," even though many of them split their ticket, voting for both Democrats and Republicans. We have contended they voted Democrats out more than they voted Republicans in.

    When they saw that a Democrat governor could use the veto stamp to stymie things like voter photo ID, raise taxes in a recession, and other reforms of state government, including excessive spending and debt, campaign finance corruption continuing, they voted for Republicans hoping the GOP would change the way North Carolina government works.

    Many of us have been sorely disappointed.

    Most Republican legislative candidates, especially the new ones, ran on a platform of reducing excessive government regulations. It sounded good. It resonated with the voters. But when you ask any of them to be more specific about the regulations they would change you seldom got anywhere near a specific answer. And for many of us that was ok. We felt that if a representative was committed to the concept of less government control of our lives that when the specific issues presented themselves they would certainly vote for liberty over oppressive regulations, especially where those regulations were not based on sound science and when there was scant evidence that they would produce the desired results.

    But we haven't seen a strong movement toward conservative governing principles under the current leadership. There is no noticeable movement to clean up corruption in campaign finance. Instead we see the current leadership playing the same game the Black/Basnight crew ran in catering to Big Money special interests. In spite of the fact that the emerging solar farms and windmills not making a dent in improving the environment, a bill to end government subsidies for special interests was recently killed in committee.

    Now comes the push to ban commercial fishermen from catching three species of fish (Red Drum, Spotted Sea Trout and Striped Bass.)

    But here's the real intent: Because fishermen using nets can't control what species of fish are caught in their nets, they will be unable to comply with the law in its actual intent (not to catch these three species of fish). So it's easy to see the train coming thru the tunnel. Eventually they will ban the nets. It has happened in other states. That will effectively end one of the state's longest and most noble professions: The saltwater commercial fisherman. And it will take away the seafood resource these species offer to the restaurants and sea food markets as they have done for hundreds of years.

    Why would any legislator, especially a conservative "small-government" Republican even consider such an idea?

    The answer they give is in the bill itself, which reads:

    Whereas, the General Assembly recognizes the importance of providing plentiful fishery resources to maintain and enhance tourism as a major contributor to the economy of the State; and Whereas, the General Assembly recognizes the need to protect our coastal fishery resources and to balance the commercial and recreational interests through better management of these resources; and ..."

    But here's the problem. There is no valid or reliable scientific evidence that banning the commercial fishermen from catching these species will "provide plentiful fishery resources."

    We have previously reported on the fact that the numbers are not sufficient to decide certain fish species are endangered. The data simply is not sufficient to base public policy on the numbers produced. There is not even a single study that has been done that shows that if commercial fishermen in the state's waters caught none of these fish that it would have any demonstrable impact on the hook and line fishermen's take of those fish.

    Now think about that for a minute. Not one study that supports what this bill says it intends to accomplish. Not one. None. Nada. Zip. Zero. Yet this bill, would, if it leads to its logical conclusion, would eliminate the commercial fishing industry within the state's waters.

    If you Google "fisheries management" and just review the articles on the first page you find the fallacy in this entire mess. Fisheries management is a pseudo-science. Click here to read a more thorough discussion, but suffice it to say that the current state of the art in fisheries stock assessment is on the order of the same type of data that has been used to evoke damaging policies related to "climate change." As the article says, the approach currently used in fisheries management is to manage fishermen rather than fish. As another said: "coming up with a valid and reliable accurate count of fish stocks is like trying to read smoke signals of a windy day." You simply are not going to be able to do much more than make a guess.

    But in relation to HB 983 it is much worse.

    Even with a notoriously inaccurate, invalid and unreliable data collection system, the N. C. Division of Marine Fisheries (NCDMF) produces an annual "Stock Status Report." It assess the status of different species of fish and categories them into: "Viable, Recoverying, Concern, Depleted and Unknown."

    Again, we don't believe the methodology is sufficient to accurately determine these categories, but even if you accept them at face value here is what you find:

    For Red Drum: "Recovering"-- Overfishing is not occurring. A stock assessment completed in 2009 by the ASMFC continues to indicate that current regulations have been successful.

    Striped Bass--Albemarle sound and Roanoke River: "Viable"-- Based on results of the 2010 stock assessment the stock is not experiencing overfishing and biomass remains high. The stock age structure is broad including fish 17 years old. Amendment I to the N.C. Estuarine Striped Bass FMP was approved by the MFC to go to public comment in September of 2011. The plan is tentatively planned for final adoption at the November 2012 MFC meeting.

    Striped Bass--Atlantic Ocean Migratory stock: "Viable"-- Based on results of the ASMFC 2010 updated stock assessment, Atlantic coast striped bass are not overfished and overfishing is not occurring. The model estimates that the resource remains at a high level of abundance with female spawning stock biomass well above the target level.

    Striped Bass--Central Southern--"Concern"-- Stocks lack a quantified stock assessment and show a truncated size and age distribution that lacks older age classes. Improved dependent and independent data collection must be conducted before an accurate stock assessment can be made. Amendment I to the N.C. Estuarine Striped Bass FMP was approved by the MFC to go to public comment in September 2011. The plan is tentatively scheduled for final adoption at the November 2012 MFC meeting.

    Seatrout, Spotted--"Depleted"-- The 2009 N.C. spotted seatrout stock assessment indicated that the stock in North Carolina and Virginia has been overfished and overfishing has been occurring throughout the entire 18-year time series. Last year's mild winter likely enabled the stock to partially recover from the previous two unusually cold winters.

    So using the state's own assessment, there is no real problem of stock depletion to be addressed by HB 983, even if it banned commercial fishermen from catching these fish. In other words, there is no shortage.

    And note the comments for the Spotted Seatrout. It says that another variable (winter weather) may have more of an impact on stocks than commercial fishing catches. And to that we would simply suggest that the Legislature might be just as productive in protecting the fish stocks if it passed laws to regulate the winter weather. That would be as foolish as what HB 983 proposes.

    Developing state regulations and the enforcement of those regulations has been found before to be based on flimsy science. One of the prime examples was right here in Beaufort County back in 2010 when the U. S. 17 By-pass was being built. When the bride was about half finished the state bureaucrats made the contractor stop work. Some 90 people lost their jobs, just as the recession hit. The regulators claimed that the pile driving for the bridge would interfere with the spawning fish. But when we asked them to furnish us with the data and any studies that supported their position they were unable to produce even one study of the effect of sound on spawning fish and the one we found on our own said essentially that sound of the magnitude of the pile driving had no appreciable effect on the fish, except that they just swam around the noise. But worse than that, and directly applicable to the data HB 983 is based upon, they could not furnish us with the data itself they said they were basing their decisions on. In short, 90 people lost good paying jobs based on bureaucratic decision that had NO data behind it. Click here if you want to read that story.

    Jim Bispo has written about the same issue.

    Moreover, the data those lobbying for HB 983 claiming an enormous economic impact from sport fishermen is equally bogus. Again, the Department of Commerce contracts this research out and the contractor hides behind "proprietary information" and refuses to release the actual data and methodology they use to project all this impact.

    Added to that, the sports fishing lobby grossly distorts even the bad data. They throw out huge numbers they content sports fishermen spend but they have no data showing what these three species of fish produce. The way they present it makes it sound like these three species of fish generate all this economic impact, when we doubt more than a handful of fishermen would sell their boats if the commercial fishermen continue to catch these three kinds of fish.

    But the most serious indictment of the hype that has been created around HB 983 is the simple fact that the data is simply not sufficient to even determine with any real degree of accuracy what the stock population actually is and more importantly which variable cause, contribute to or correlate with ebbs and flows in the stock counts. We asked for the descriptive statistics of the data. We want to know how much variance there was in the population counts. Not available we were told. The DMF has for years made recommendations on restricting catches of certain kinds of fish on no more than three years of data. That's simply not enough data points to determine patterns and trends. It is, in plain language, bogus science.

    And finally we will point out the most glaring deficiency in this "fisheries management" debacle. The NCDMF reports all this, and lawmakers and regulators act on it, without independent verification of their data and conclusions drawn therefrom. We don't know the descriptive statistics that are the basis for the staff's conclusions and the regulatory action because they don't publish the raw data! Sound like climate change bunk again?

    And that brings us back to the Republicans who ran on a platform of doing away with unreasonable government regulation. If ever they want a good place to state, fisheries management would be an excellent one to begin with.

    We would propose an alternative to HB 983. It would be to adopt a statute that prohibited the DMF from enforcing any regulation based on unverified, inaccurate, unreliable and invalid data.

    What we've got here is a case of the state using its power to wipe out a traditional industry on the basis of bogus science. We would suggest that a wiser alternative would be to eliminate state-supported "fishery stock management" and replace it with a system that develops a sound data management system along with sound education.

    And while the Legislature is at it, it should also take a look at the other angle this bill talks about--that of tourism and economic development. There too the state does not have a sound data collection and assessment system, as we have.

    It is about time our Legislative leadership served notice on the special interest lobby and state bureaucrats that it is not going to buy bogus science as a basis for public policy. In fact, the time has long passed that it should have done that. Killing HB 983 would be a good place to start.