By Rebekah Rast — President Obama is moving full-speed ahead on his Executive Order “Stewardship of the Ocean, Our Coasts, and the Great Lakes,” which he put into order on July 19, 2010.
The White House claims this Executive Order “strengthens ocean governance and coordination, establishes guiding principles for ocean management, and adopts a flexible framework for effective coastal and marine spatial planning to address conservation, economic activity, user conflict, and sustainable use of the ocean, our coasts and the Great Lakes.”
But the truth is this is nothing more than an absurd power grab by the Obama administration. To control the country’s lakes, oceans and coastlands by issuing strict usage regulations and restrictions will only hurt such livelihoods as farming, fishing and logging. And because the president issued it by Executive Order, there is nothing Congress or anyone else can do about it.
This map makes clear that Obama’s ocean policy will, at minimum, impact three-fifths of the states; and if upstream states are included, as they likely will be, there will be even more.
What’s interesting is many of these states affected have a liberal leaning. If Obama’s plans continue to come together this quickly, he could anger his coastal allies, which very well may put a much-welcomed end to this Executive Order.
