04-03-2018

MISCELLANEOUS
11
SuNDAY, MArCh 4, 2018
Washington Legislature phases
out Atlantic salmon farming
The Washington Legislature on Friday
voted to phase out marine Atlantic
salmon aquaculture, an industry that
has operated for decades in the state
but came under heavy criticism after
tens of thousands of nonnative fish
escaped into waterways last summer,
reports UNB.
After lengthy debate, the Senate
passed the bill on a 31-16 vote. The
House earlier passed it on 67-31 vote
and it now heads to Gov. Jay Inslee, a
Democrat who has expressed support.
The bill would end state leases and
permits for operations that grow
nonnative finfish in state waters when
current leases expire in 2022.
The bill targets Canada's Cooke
Aquaculture Pacific, the largest
producer of farmed Atlantic salmon in
the U.S., whose net pens in northwest
Washington collapsed Aug. 19. Cooke
currently has two leases with the state.
State officials last month blamed
Cooke's negligence for failing to
maintain its net pens. They said the
escape of the salmon put the state's
ecosystem at risk and fined the
company $332,000. Up to 263,000
invasive Atlantic salmon escaped into
Puget Sound, raising fears about the
impact to native Pacific salmon runs.
Sen. Kevin Ranker, a Democrat who
sponsored similar legislation in the
Senate, said the "state ban is a strong
stance to ensure the protection of our
marine environment and native
salmon populations." Joel Richardson,
vice president of Cooke, said in a
statement that the company was
"deeply disappointed" with the bill's
passage, the potential impact on the
industry and "more than 600 rural
workers and their families that rely
upon salmon farming for their
livelihoods."
He said the company will evaluate its
operations and investments in the state
and ensure that whatever decision they
make puts families and workers first.
Richardson told lawmakers last
month that Cooke would be able to seek
damages under a provision of the
North American Free Trade Agreement
if the measure passed. He said the bill
would strip the Canada-based
company of its $76 million investment
in the state in an unfair way. He did not
address that issue in his statement
Friday.
Sen. Judy Warnick, a Republican,
said "we are putting an industry out of
business." Other Republicans who
opposed the bill said it would put
people out of work, shut down a vital
industry and set a bad precedent.
"This is the wrong action tonight and
I'm just appalled that this is the
direction we're going," said Sen. Shelly
Short, a Republican.
Republicans introduced numerous
amendments that were rejected,
including proposals to allow growing
native fish or single-sex Atlantic
salmon in net pens and a tax incentive
package to help the industry transition
to other operations.
Atlantic salmon farming has been in
the state since the 1980s but remains
controversial in the Northwest, famed
for its native Pacific salmon runs and
where tens of millions of dollars are
spent each year to bring back declining
populations of wild Pacific salmon
stock. Washington state joins Alaska,
which has banned commercial finfish
aquaculture. Oregon and California do
not have commercial salmon farming
operations. State officials last month
blamed Cooke's negligence for failing to
maintain its net pens. They said the
escape of the salmon put the state's
ecosystem at risk and fined the
company $332,000. Up to 263,000
invasive Atlantic salmon escaped into
Puget Sound, raising fears about the
impact to native Pacific salmon runs.
"Phasing out of industrial ocean fish
farms in Washington is a victory for our
oceans and coastal communities," said
Hallie Templeton with Friends of the
Earth in a statement.
Cooke, based in New Brunswick,
Canada, is the only company to farm
Atlantic salmon in state waters. The
company bought operations from Icicle
Acquisition Subsidiary in 2016. It was
in the process of getting permits for an
expanded operation near Port Angeles
when the net pens off Cypress Island
capsized.
Nor’easter hits
East Coast,
grounds flights
and halts trains
A nor'easter pounded the
Atlantic coast with
hurricane-force winds and
sideways rain and snow
Friday, flooding streets,
grounding flights, stopping
trains and leaving 1.6 million
customers without power
from North Carolina to
Maine. At least five people
were killed by falling trees or
branches, reports UNB.
The storm submerged cars
and toppled tractor-trailers,
sent waves higher than a
two-story house crashing
into the Massachusetts
coast, forced schools and
businesses to close early and
caused a rough ride for
passengers aboard a flight
that landed at Dulles Airport
outside Washington.
"Pretty much everyone on
the plane threw up," a pilot
wrote in a report to the
National Weather Service.
The Eastern Seaboard was
hammered by gusts
exceeding 50 mph, with
winds of 80 to 90 mph on
Cape Cod. Ohio and upstate
New York got a foot or more
of snow. Boston and Rhode
Island were expected to get 2
to 5 inches.
The storm killed at least
five people, including a 77-
year-old woman struck by
a branch outside her home
near Baltimore. Fallen
trees also killed a man and
a 6-year-old boy in
different parts of Virginia,
an 11-year-old boy in New
York state and a man in
Newport, Rhode Island.
Floodwaters in Quincy,
Massachusetts,
submerged cars, and
police rescued people
trapped in their vehicles.
High waves battered
nearby Scituate, making
roads impassable and
turning parking lots into
small ponds. More than
1,800 people alerted
Scituate officials they had
evacuated, The Boston
Globe reported.
Massachusetts Gov.
Charlie Baker activated
200 National Guard
members to help victims.
Will firms go elsewhere after
Georgia lawmakers-Delta spat?
Georgia lawmakers' decision to punish Delta
Air Lines for publicly distancing itself from
the National Rifle Association was an
extraordinary act of political revenge, reports
UNB.
By killing a proposed tax break on jet fuel,
pro-gun Republicans won a political victory
that could pay off in the short term, but other
companies won't soon forget that Georgia
allied itself with the NRA over one of its
largest private employers, with 33,000
workers statewide.
"When you inject naked politics - and
that's what this is - into the economic
equation, I think that it does have the chance
of spooking the business community," said
Tom Stringer, a New York-based consultant
for the business-advisory firm BDO. "One
thing about the business community is that it
has a very long memory."
The uproar began last Saturday when
Delta stopped offering fare discounts to NRA
members in the wake of the school massacre
in Florida. On Friday, Delta CEO Ed Bastian
insisted in a memo to employees that the
company was "not taking sides" on gun
control and made the decision in hopes of
removing itself from the gun debate. He said
the company's "values are not for sale" and
"we are proud and honored to locate our
headquarters here."
Delta recently signed a 20-year lease to
keep its hub at Hartsfield-Jackson
International Airport in Atlanta, and
business consultants said other Atlantabased
firms, such as Coca-Cola and UPS, will
likely stay put too. But GOP lawmakers'
willingness to use public money to try to
intimidate corporations could damage
Georgia's ability to attract new industry -
including Amazon, which recently named
metro Atlanta a finalist for its coveted second
headquarters.
"I think it's fair to say that this situation
would not be helpful to the state of Georgia
in potentially securing the Amazon site," said
Jerry Funaro, Chicago-based vice president
for global marketing at TRC Global Mobility,
a relocation management company. "They
could certainly say that this would be a
reason to look elsewhere."
Amazon didn't immediately respond to a
message seeking comment.
Republican Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, who is
running in a crowded primary for governor
in May, set the stage for the fight with a tweet
Monday saying conservatives would fight
back. He defended the move Friday.
"We cannot continue to allow large
companies to treat conservatives differently
than other customers, employees and
partners," Cagle wrote in an opinion piece
published by The Atlanta Journal-
Constitution. "The voters who elected us and
believe strongly in our rights and liberties
expect and deserve no less."
Another GOP candidate for governor,
Secretary of State Brian Kemp, even
suggested using the estimated $38 million
the state would save by killing jet fuel tax
break to pay for a tax-free "holiday" on
purchases of guns and ammunition.
Other GOP leaders openly cringed at the
combative tone Cagle and others took.
Republican Gov. Nathan Deal, who is
term-limited and serving his final year,
bemoaned the controversy as an
"unbecoming squabble" fueled by electionyear
posturing. GOP House Speaker David
Ralston called it "not one of our finer days"
when the firestorm erupted Monday.
Republicans have controlled the
governor's mansion in Georgia since 2003, a
deep red streak that makes this year's GOP
gubernatorial nominee a likely favorite in
November.
Deal and other governors for decades have
made it a priority to ensure Georgia was an
attractive location for prospective employers,
said Charles Bullock, a political science
professor at the University of Georgia. Before
the NRA controversy, he said, many GOP
lawmakers defended the jet fuel tax break as
necessary to protect jobs.
"What this really does is it says, in terms of
setting priorities, that taking a stand on the
NRA is more significant," Bullock said. "The
jobs thing now is pushed to the back."
After Delta announced it was cutting ties
with the NRA, it took pro-gun Republicans
just days to make good on their threats by
passing a sweeping tax bill - minus the jet
fuel tax break.
Deal, who said an estimated $5.2 billion in
overall tax savings was too important to
sacrifice, swiftly signed the measure into law
Friday. He vowed to keep pursuing the jet
fuel exemption as a separate issue.
Delta revealed Friday that the NRA
discount that triggered the showdown had
barely been used. Offered recently for NRA
members flying to the group's 2018
convention in Dallas, only 13 discounted
tickets had been sold, Delta spokesman
Trebor Banstetter said.
Delta isn't the only company to take action
since the Feb. 14 slayings of 17 students and
educators in Parkland, Florida, by a gunman
armed with an AR-15 assault-style rifle.
Walmart, Kroger and Dick's Sporting Goods
have tightened their gun sales policies.
Meanwhile, MetLife, Hertz and others have
joined Delta in ending business ties with the
NRA.
The extent of the backlash Georgia might
face from businesses is unclear. But firms
from outside the South may think twice
about Georgia if they see a clash of corporate
values on guns and other social issues, said
Jon Gabrielsen, a business-strategy
consultant who worked 17 years in Georgia
before moving recently to Mexico.
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