Previous Posts
April 17th
Crab Rationalization: A Gorilla in a Wedding DressApril 1st
Of Codfishes and Kings: ADF&G Commissioner McKie Campbell Visits KodiakMarch 6th
The FixFebruary 20th
"Scotty Matulich, Scientist for Hire"February 16th
The Rush to Rationalize: How Fear and Money Drive Fisheries Management PolicyFebruary 7th
Catching The CheetahFebruary 1st
No Fisherman Left BehindJanuary 25th
EthicsMay 4th
All the News That's Fish to Print
A delegation of Kodiak officials visited Juneau recently, probably looking for money to help replace our leaky pool, or patch our pockmarked pavement. To this end they sat down with Alaska's State Senator Ben Stevens.Their entreaties were cut short by the barking Benito.
"Who is the publisher of that G--damned Kodiak Daily Mirror?" he
demanded.The audience was stunned.
"How do they get away with printing that stuff by John Finley and Terry Haines?" His head bobbled. He began to shift through shades of red and purple like an agitated octopus. He made it rather clear that he especially didn't like being compared to Paris Hilton.
Oops. My bad. I had compared the two in a brilliant piece that called into question his motives for the introduction of Alaska's Senate Bill 113, which would radically change the way our fisheries are managed. My point was that since he is the Senator from Anchorage, which is not a fishing community, his only qualification in framing this legislation is that he works as a lobbyist ("consultant") for a handful of multimillion dollar corporations, mainly based in Japan.
(You can see this piece, as well as Jay Hammond's excellent take on the subject on the front page of www.4alaskafishers.com)
Governor Hammond's piece, "Legislator or Lobbyist?" asks whether Ben's $174,000 a year job as a "consultant" for the Exxons of Fish might influence what he does in his $29,000 a year State Senator job. Like introducing a bill designed to complement the federal privatization plan. It is worth noting here that a central concept of SB 113 is DAPs or Dedicated Access Privileges. Ben was so unfamiliar with the material that when he presented it in he referred to them as Direct Access Privileges. McFly! How can I hand in my homework in your handwriting? He went so far as to tell Governor Hammond that he wasn't the one who introduced the bill (he was).
The fact is this homework was done for him by a nebulously identified confederation of Alaska Board of Fish and North Pacific Fisheries Management Council members. It can be assumed that a move this bold could never be attempted without permission of the Red Queen, Madame Chair of the Council. She also works as a lobbyist, for the Pacific Seafood Processors Association. Both Benito and the Red Queen are in the enviable position of lobbying themselves. I wonder if they change chairs and hats when they do that.
If this sounds like the perfect system, with corporations composing the laws they want, whether tax breaks for oil or linkages for cod, and simply handing them to legislators for introduction it would be, except for one thing. That "G--damned Kodiak Daily Mirror". The free press. Articles by Mirror reporters and letters by people like John Finley showed 113 for what it was, a blank check that would allow the Board of Fish to mimic the processor dominated agenda of the NPFMC. As the electorate became increasing educated and vocal the bill began to crumple up and is probably about to be tossed into a Juneau trash can, to be replaced by a slicker version. Its funny, Ben didn't even do a very good job at lobbying himself.
In fact, now that I think about it, I must apologize for comparing Ben Stevens to Paris Hilton. Never again will I insult the industrious Ms. Hilton in such a manner. She has chosen to step out of her daddy's shadow by branching out into trashy reality TV and amateur porn. Ben has set up a lawn chair and barbeque in his daddy's shadow.
And when his secret deal making him one of the Lords of Adak, enriched by his father's boon of pollock to that distant rock, was revealed by the Anchorage Daily News it prompted another of his patented "sputter and curse" phone calls to a Daily News reporter.
His dad, "Uncle" Ted Stevens, our venerable U.S. Senator, went one step further, threatening a Congressional investigation of the company that owns the newspaper, saying ".I intend to show them we can fight back." Of course the investigation would have nothing to do with the facts of the Adak story. It would probe an old dispute about circulation numbers in Minnesota. Well, as long as newspaper advertisers in Minnesota get a fair deal, I guess it's alright to subvert our system of government. When asked if there was a connection between his obsession with circulation numbers and his anger at the newspaper for breaking the story Uncle Ted replied:" I don't see a connection any more than you see the connection in connecting me with my son. Okay? You draw your own conclusions."
The Daily News' publisher Mike Sexton noted that even though Uncle Ted claimed to be completely ignorant of his son's secret ownership of Adak Fisheries, saying he had read about it in the paper, his blustering threat was issued before the story came out.
It was "a very interesting approach" said Sexton, to attack the paper about "a story yet to be published."
The Senior Stevens argument is this: money is better than truth. He chided the Daily News: "And whether you know it or not, I'm responsible for almost three billion dollars a year that goes into the Alaska economy. My ability to do that now is questioned. The reason for my doing that is questioned. I think that you've harmed Alaska by this malicious attack on me."
Uncle Ted's attitude is simple. He is Alaska. Without him we're Manitoba.
Unfortunately there is a grain of truth to this. Senator Ted Stevens' Hulk tie still scares people in Washington town. And he has god-like influence over our national fisheries policy, which is getting completely pimped right now. The Magnuson Stevens Act is the new battleground for control over our nation's fish, and the market to sell them.
The "rationalization" process at the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council is increasingly bogged down by truth and awareness. Alaska's governor, Frank Murkowski, reportedly requested that the Council back burner the increasingly unpopular Gulf Groundfish "rationalization" until after the November elections. That means the battle moves to Washington DC where language will be inserted in MSA that will allow for national processor monopolies, and which will "grandfather in" whatever groundfish privatization plan rears its ugly head at the NPFMC. Of course it is much easier for the lobbyists to follow the process to Washington. The fishermen have to fish.
If only we could afford Ben Stevens. He may not be very good at lobbying himself, but lobbying his dad is a different story. Having him on the payroll certainly didn't hurt the processors when Uncle Ted drove through crab rationalization by screaming "Hulk smash!" while standing over a spending bill that was needed to fund hospitals and Coast Guard cutters.
Luckily there is a free press, and this story just gets better and better. What a cast of characters!
Here is a free story tip for all of you journalists out there: on June sixth the NPFMC will be holding a day of public testimony in Kodiak. Be there. It will feature hotdogs, live music and truth.
Ironically, the publisher for the Kodiak Daily Mirror has been replaced since Benito's tirade.
(No member of the Kodiak delegation told me the details of their meeting with Ben. A third party present at the meeting related it, just in case bitter thoughts of revenge against a whole town are contemplated on my account. Of course the ability of Kodiak to sustain itself on the resource right outside it door is being taken away. Maybe that will be revenge enough.)
Published May 3rd