Senator Mark Pryor (D-Ark) Makes Environmental Terrorism Threat

[Scuba]

"Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor wants fish farmers compensated for losing their ability to sell their crops of live bighead since the federal government in December listed the bighead carp as an "injurious species," making it illegal to import the fish or move it across state lines.

If the farmers are not given some relief, he said, no one should be surprised if the fish are accidentally let loose."


http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/118476549.html

[inademv]

1. Unfortunately the Democrats have idiots too

[Modern_Matthew]

2. Hmm, well they should be compensated. I don't condone his suggestions, though. nt

[Arkansas Granny]

3. Please read the article. Pryor was not making a threat but stating a possibility.

"I worry that the law could even lead to greater environmental harm to the Mississippi River and Great Lakes region without mechanisms to ensure the proper disposal of the bighead carp currently sitting in aquaculture ponds in Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama," the Democrat wrote to President Barack Obama in December.

<snip>

"Because this new law would prohibit transportation of these species to these markets, economic harm to bighead growers is certain," Pryor wrote to Obama. "The only uncertainty resulting from the law is how these aquaculture farmers will dispose of these fish now that they are far less marketable under the new law."

Pryor went on to speculate that the fish farmers might just accidentally let the fish loose into the wild.

"Today these farmers are faced with the difficult decision of draining the ponds that currently contain bighead carp, now of little value, so that they may begin another crop cycle with a different species," he wrote. "This process could lead to the potential release of large numbers of cultured bighead carp into the Mississippi River drainage."

[Scuba]

4. You inferred differently than I. Sounds like a veiled threat to me.....

"Pryor went on to speculate that the fish farmers might just 'accidentally' let the fish loose into the wild" if they aren't paid off.

[Arkansas Granny]

5. The accidental release could happen when they were draining

the ponds to get them ready for another kind of fish that could be raised for market. They are asking for compensation to help them dispose of the carp in a way that will avoid this accidental release.

-----
Fish farmers want compensation because they say the injurious listing came too quickly and without a required economic impact study. Federal fishery officials acknowledge that most injurious listings usually do come with an economic impact study, but this one didn't. The reason is that Congress bypassed the normal process and simply passed a law, said Kaitlin Steiger-Meister, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Nancy Sutley, chair of the Obama administration's Council on Environmental Quality, responded to Pryor in a letter last month that the fish farmers should expect no direct compensation, though federal fishery officials would be available to assist fish farmers with the technical issues related to disposal of the fish.
Arkansas fish farmer Mike Freeze says he can understand how people in the Great Lakes might not have sympathy for the fish farmers' plight today, but he thinks they have a legitimate complaint.

"You have to remember that it was our government that conducted the research with these fish, urged the farmers to raise them to 'feed the hungry' (in an) increasing world population, and then closed the door on their best legal market without compensating the producer," said Freeze, also the former chairman of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/118476549.html

[Scuba]

6. Thanks. It was never my intent to demean the farmers, who apparently...

...signed on to this program partly through altruism.