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The Medellin Charitable Trusts



Outsourcing has millions of NOAA dollars flowing to private companies for the groundfish observer program. One of those companies, MRAG, is owned by former NOAA Assistant Northeast Regional Administrator Andrew Rosenberg. He promoted the catch shares program, which calls for observers. His company is also being paid to assess the effects of the catch shares program by the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation, which also paid to have catch shares promoted. In 2009 Rosenberg was appointed senior advisor to the White House to help draft what would be the National Ocean Policy. The G&B Moore Foundation is also funding the development of the National Ocean Policy. Another MRAG client is the Environmental Defense Fund, known for promoting fisheries resource privatization to investors. This is a tightly woven group of insiders circling the trough behind a curtain of obfuscation.

Veteran New Hampshire groundfisherman David Goethel recalled the 1970s, when there were 8,000 boats in federal waters off New England and the National Marine Fisheries Service operated out of a trailer on the wharf in Gloucester employing about a dozen people. Today there are about 800 boats left in federal waters and NMFS has a $40 million fortress in Gloucester with about 500 employees.

NMFS claims it has no money to pay for the observer program it authorized, forcing funding of a federal program on businesses, unlike in any other industry, at rates that would make 60% of the boats unprofitable to operate. As a result, Goethel has initiated a request for the inspector general to investigate the observer program.

Compounding the distortion of reality is the influx of tax haven inheritance laundries like Pew Charitable Trusts, the David and Lucille Packard Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Instead of paying taxes to support the country that enabled them to make fortunes, the wealthy send the taxes to a foundation where their heirs can control government policy and tell taxpayers how to live their lives. Pew reportedly spent $100 million to promote no-fishing zones. That must be where all the fish are hiding—behind the property lines on the bottom.

If the drug cartels were to set up the Medellin Charitable Trusts, would the public be duped into accepting that money in lieu of their right to control their government and how it affects their lives?