Of the many complaints about actions taken by Kitty Simonds, executive director of the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council, one of the most frequent and serious concerns the council\u2019s apparent involvement (directly or through contractors) in lobbying at the state and federal level.<\/p>\n
\tChanges proposed by the National Marine Fisheries Service would tighten up language intended to prohibit lobbying by councils. The changes are included in proposed rules published March 27, 2009, in the Federal Register.<\/i><\/p>\n
\tFirst, in the existing section (50 CFR Part 600, \u00a7 225) titled \u201cRules of conduct,\u201d a paragraph that now protects council employees from being fired or punished for their political affiliation is deleted. In its stead is language requiring \u201ccouncil members, employees, and contractors\u201d to comply with the restrictions attached to the grants through which the councils receive federal funds. Those \u201cFederal Cost Principles applicable to Regional Fishery Management Council Grants and Cooperative Agreements\u201d contain proscriptions on lobbying, but the new language emphasizes this, noting that compliance is required \u201cespecially with regard to lobbying.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tSecond, an entirely new section (\u00a7 600.227, titled \u201cLobbying\u201d) is proposed to be added to the regulations. Under this section, council members, employees, and contractors are instructed to comply with proscriptions on lobbying contained in both federal law and Department of Commerce regulations.<\/p>\n
\tMuch of the proposed new language is taken directly from the restrictions on lobbying that appear in Appendix B to \u201cFederal Cost Principles\u201d (2 CFR Part 230, also known as OMB Circular A-122).<\/p>\n
\tHere, the list of prohibited activities specifically calls out efforts to influence:<\/p>\n
An exception is made for providing \u201ca technical and factual presentation directly related to the performance of a grant, through hearing testimony, statements, or letters to Congress or a state legislature\u2026 if made in response to a documented request.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tDeadline for comment on the proposed rules is July 7, 2009. (For more information on the proposed rules, see the link on our website, [url=https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org.)]www.environment-hawaii.org.)[\/url]<\/p>\n
— Patricia Tummons<\/p>\n
Volume 19, Number 11 May 2009<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Of the many complaints about actions taken by Kitty Simonds, executive director of the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council, one of the most frequent and serious concerns the council’s apparent involvement (directly or through contractors) in lobbying at the state … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-may-2009"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}