Has lawsuit delayed South Coast MLPA closures?
Newspaper article traces money that funded the corrupt process
Nobody on either side of the lawsuit is talking, but the California Fish and Game Commission has not yet forwarded the package of fishing closures along the South Coast to the Office of Administrative Law.

The Department of Fish and Game's Jordan Traverso said late last week that the F&G Commission had not sent the regulatory package to Office of Administrative Law (OAL) but will "in a month or so." The commission approved an array of fishing closures from Point Conception to the Mexican border and including the Channel Island on Dec. 15, 2010.

Before those closures can become law, the regulations must be scrutinized and approved by the OAL. The OAL process can take place as quickly as 30 days, although governmental blackout days caused by the budget crisis have caused delays in recent years.

But the OAL cannot act until it receives documentation from the governing body responsible for crafting the regulations, in this case the Fish and Game Commission. The commission, however, is named in a lawsuit filed by Robert Fletcher, United Anglers of Southern California, the Coastside Fishing Club and the Partnership for Sustainable Oceans that cites a lack of statutory authority for adopting the regulations, and, in the case of the South Coast regulations, numerous violations of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in the commission's environmental review of the regulations. The suit also seeks to overturn the closures along the North Coast already in the books as regulation

The Department of Fish and Game has a policy of not comment on litigation while it is underway and representatives of the fishing groups have also declined comment. Whether the lawsuit will delay the South Closures even more or even derail the closures completely is impossible to say at this time without further input. If the OAL does receive the package in "a month or so" the closures could go into effect as soon as May.

The Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative process that created closure zones is also under fire, with a previous lawsuit by Fletcher resulting in the court stating that bodies appointed by then-Governor Schwarzenegger and his agency heads were in fact governmental agencies and subject to state laws regarding public meetings. The judge ordered that all documents and communications between the Blue Ribbon Task Force, Science Advisory Team and the Department of Fish and Game and the Resources Agency be provided to Fletcher et al. These documents helped trigger the latest lawsuit and could be the basis for further legal action.

In an article by the Fish Sniffer's Dan Bacher, the PSO's George Osborn was quoted as saying the documents revealed much evidence of close-door dealing. "After reviewing the documents turned over to us, which previously the BRTF had improperly withheld from the public, we now have evidence, indicating that the public meetings of the BRTF have been an elaborately staged Kabuki performance choreographed and rehearsed down to the last detail, even to the crafting of motions, in scheduled private meetings held before the so-called public meetings of the BRTF," said Osborn. "Clearly, this has not been the most open and transparent process, as it has so often been described."

Bacher also repeated the findings of an investigative piece by Ted Reckas in the Laguna Beach Independent published on February 11 that detailed the private money that funded the program to create a network of "marine protected areas" on the California coast.

"Five non-profits, including one based in Laguna Beach, donated a total of $20 million to see the drafting process to completion since the state legislature never budgeted adequate funding for the marine-protection law, which was enacted in 1999," noted Reckas in his article, "Marine Hearings Buoyed by Nonprofits" www.lbindy.com/2011/02/11/marine-hearings-buoyed-by-nonprofits.

The money was given to the process by the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, (which Bacher calls "a shadowy organization that North Coast environmental leader John Lewallen describes as a 'money laundering operation' for corporate money") in return for a timetable of predetermined results (memorandum of understanding) signed off on by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Resources Agency director, Mike Chrisman.

The David and Lucillle Packard Foundation contributed $8.2 million to fund MLPA hearings, according to Reckas. Julie E. Packard, the executive director and founder of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, serves as Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the foundation. In the Central Coast project, the first of the MLPA project areas, large swathes of the coastline and waters offshore and adjacent to Monterey were closed to fishing.

The Laguna Beach-based Marisla Foundation, founded by Getty Oil heiress Anne Getty Earhart, gave $3 million to the MLPA over several years, according to the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation. "The most recent tax records show Marisla donated $12 million in 2008 to 50 causes, including $1.1 million towards the MLPA. A foundation spokeswoman declined comment," noted Reckas. The entire coastline of the City of Laguna was designated a no-fishing area under the auspices of the MLPA South Coast project.

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation donated $7.4 million. Gordon and Betty Moore are the founders of the Foundation, and Gordon also serves as chairman of the board. Gordon Moore is co-founder of Intel Corporation and Chairman Emeritus of the Corporation's Board of Directors. Prior to Intel, Gordon co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957.

The Keith Campbell Foundation's contributed $1.2 million to the MLPA Initiative. D. Keith Campbell founded Campbell and Company in 1972, and currently serves as Chairman of its Board of Directors. Campbell and Company is now one of the largest derivative investment managers in the world. Finally, Reckas noted the Annenberg Foundation contributed $200,000. The Annenberg Foundation is a private foundation established in 1989. It is the successor corporation to the Annenberg School at Radnor, Pennsylvania founded in 1958 by Walter H. Annenberg.

MLPA officials contend that the private funding of a public process is "good public policy."

"They wanted the law implemented and were willing to put up $20 million to ensure that we had a public process and everyone was heard. That's good public policy," Ken Wiseman, executive director of the MLPA Initiative, told Reckas.

Bacher noted that fishermen, seaweed harvesters and grassroots environmentalists contend that the MLPA process was rigged from the start and that funding a public process with private funding is a huge conflict of interest.

Bacher said MLPA critics, including fishermen, environmentalists and Indian Tribal members, have charged the initiative with corruption, conflicts of interest and institutional racism since Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger privatized the initiative in 2004 by directing the Resources Agency and Department of Fish and Game to sign the MOU with the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation.

He noted the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force groups that implemented the law are dominated by oil industry, real estate, marina development and other corporate interests. Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association, served as chair of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast and on the task forces for the North Central Coast and North Coast.

MLPA opponents, Bacher said, also slam the MLPA process for setting up marine protected areas that fail to protect the ocean from water pollution, oil spills and drilling, military testing, wave energy projects, corporate aquaculture and all other uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering.