U.S. Policies for Prosperity from the World’s Oceans
Oceans are a lot like land, just wetter. Wet is good for life, and the world’s oceans covering 70% of the planet can be a source of vast new wealth or conflicts. A May,...
Category: Marine Natural Resources
Hope and Chains: Many Affirmative Cases Will Collide or Fail
Many of the federal government’s current marine natural resource policies are failures. That is, they have failed to achieve the goals stated when current policies and legislation was first proposed or amended. This reality...
It’s a Big Ocean With Lots of Room for More Fish
Civilization began as societies learned to plant and raise grain, fruit, and vegetables in farms, orchards, and gardens rather than wander the countryside gathering them, and learned to raise and herd cattle rather than...
A Panama Canal for California Salmon?
Why be stupid about California water, fish, and energy? Federal marine natural resource policies, not nature, are at the heart of stupid for California’s recent water shortage. The Federal government’s Central Valley Project “annually...
Marine Natural Resource Crime and Punishment
It seems a crime for students to debate federal marine natural resources policies all year without addressing overcriminalization. According to Five Solutions for Addressing Environmental Overcriminalization, “Texas has 11 felonies related to oyster harvesting.” Couldn’t Texas...
Thinking Negative: Why Proposed Reforms Probably Won’t Work
Much in the public policy world invites reform. Broken federal policies and programs abound. The quest for policy debaters is to craft and advocate reform proposals likely to make the world a better place....
Geothermal Technology for Turning Seawater to Fresh Water
What I’ve wondered for years and wish a debater would research: why not use new deep drilling technologies and geothermal energy to turn saltwater to freshwater from mountain tops? Below is picture along California...
Sovereign-to-Sovereign Relations in High Seas Fisheries
Terry Anderson and Bryan Leonard discuss the economics of managing international fisheries in their article Fish of Fence? Sovereign-to-Sovereign Relations in High Seas Fisheries. The abstract and article are available online.
Planning the Ocean
The House of Representatives and Executive Branch disagree on the federal role for marine natural resource policies. Doc Hastings Chairs the House Committee on Natural Resources and lists the new bureaucratic layers established by...
Markets Prevail; Hatcheries Fail
If you owned a river, how would you manage it? You could let it flow freely and naturally and feel at peace with the world. But nature has some rough edges and in times...