California fishermen land court ruling [San Diego Union-Tribune]
Like
a lot of government agencies, the California Fish and Wildlife Department has a
tendency to turn crawfish over any lawsuit filed by groups who are intent on
stopping fishing and hunting in this state by using the courts. Either the
agency rolls over and gives the anti-hunting and fishing groups anything they
want or it overreacts and does more harm than can possibly be imagined. In the
case of challenges to its regulations regarding stocking fish and fish-rearing
businesses, it did both. It rolled over and did more harm. But this time it
didn’t work. On Tuesday, in a monumental ruling in favor of fishing, the
California Third District Court of Appeals has “struck down the state
Department of Fish and Wildlife’s illegally drafted permitting requirements on
recreational freshwater fishing — regulations that threatened to decimate the
$2.4 billion industry by driving fishing lakes, private hatcheries, and fish
farms out of business,” according to a release from the Pacific Legal
Foundation, which represented the California Association for Recreational
Fishing (CARF) against the California Department of Fish and Wildlife….Said
Craig Elliott, president of CARF and a recreational fishing lakes operator and
fish farmer: “We could not be more pleased with the Appellate Court’s rejection
of the Department’s illegal regulations. This ruling ensures that freshwater
fishing will continue to be an affordable and accessible form of recreation for
California families and a source of jobs.
Merced
County groundwater law won’t be retroactive, board decides [Merced Sun-Star]
Despite
a strong push from one member, the Merced County Board of Supervisors decided
Tuesday that a proposed groundwater ordinance will not be retroactive to
January 2014. The ordinance’s first reading is scheduled for March 3. A second
reading and possible adoption is set for March 17. If approved, the countywide
groundwater ordinance would go into effect 30 days later. For nearly a year,
the supervisors have been working on an ordinance that prohibits groundwater
mining and exports outside the county basins without a permit…. Many Merced
County farmers, impacted by neighbors pumping large amounts of groundwater and
transferring it elsewhere, are being forced to put in replacement wells. Some
pay the costs of drilling their wells deeper to get enough water to continue
farming.
Supervisors
to revisit ordinance to manage Paso Robles basin [San Luis Obispo Tribune]
It
took two votes, but the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday
reversed a decision it made last week and voted to discuss extending a
temporary emergency ordinance to manage the dwindling Paso Robles groundwater
basin. At an upcoming meeting, supervisors will discuss a longer-term temporary
or permanent ban on new agricultural pumping from the basin unless it is offset
by an equal amount of conservation. No date for the hearing was set. Last week,
supervisors voted 3-2 to not pursue a permanent offset ordinance for the Paso
Robles basin as well as the Los Osos and Nipomo Mesa basins, which are also
being overpumped….The key difference on Tuesday was direction to county staff
to include options to make the offset temporary.
Little
trade movement with Cuba seen despite policy shift [Visalia Times Delta]
A
World Ag Expo panelist said trade opportunities with Cuba for American
companies will come slowly despite the Obama administration's recent changes in
policy toward the island country. Charles Barclay, a Foreign Service officer
with the U.S. Department of State, said not to expect any significant movement
in the near future. "There are opportunities, but it's a long haul,"
he said. "We should not see uptake in trade with Cuba. The Obama
administration action tweaked the embargo, but it didn't lift it."
Bunch
of bright spots in 2014 grape crop [Stockton Record]
Despite
the drought, California grape growers delivered a large 2014 crop to processors
last fall, totaling 4.16 million tons of fruit crushed for wine and other
products, down 11 percent from the record high 2013 crush of 4.7 million tons,
state officials said Tuesday. It is the third year running that the state crush
has topped 4 million tons, which contributed to an increasing divide in the
multibillion- dollar winegrape industry. Farmers, mostly in the Central Valley,
see weak prices for grapes destined for lower-tier wines, those generally
selling for $9 a bottle or less. At the same time, strong consumer demand for
more premium wines sustains higher prices for better-quality fruit, mostly from
California’s North and Central coasts.
Industry
abandons lawsuit against meat origin labels [Minneapolis Star Tribune]
Having
failed at several levels of judicial review to delay implementation of new meat
labeling rules, the meat industry has abandoned a lawsuit that claimed the rules
violated businesses’ free speech. The meat industry sued the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) in 2013 over new rules that required product packages to
list the individual countries where animals were born, raised and slaughtered.
A First Amendment challenge that sought to temporarily delay application of the
rules until legal challenges were resolved lost in federal district court and
in appeals to a three-judge panel and the entire D.C. Circuit Court. A Feb. 9
federal court notice of dismissal ends the suit. It leaves the remaining issues
in the case to potential congressional intervention and to the World Trade
Organization. The WTO has said that the labeling rules place an unfair burden
on meat producers in Canada and Mexico.
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