Sustainable Texas Oyster Resource Management, LLC. (S.T.O.R.M.)
Jeri’s Seafood, Inc. and Sustainable Texas Oyster Resource Management, LLC. (S.T.O.R.M.) thank Representative Joe Deshotel, Chairman of the House Land and Resource Management Committee, for his courage in filing HB 3335 and standing up to the bullying tactics of Prestige Oysters and its hired henchmen.
HB 3335 recognized the authority of Navigation Districts to lease their submerged lands to the private sector for oyster cultivation, just like one Navigation District did for Texas Parks and Wildlife (TPWD) to cultivate oysters. The bill also authorized and directed TPWD to make rules about cultivating oysters on privately owned land that would ensure responsible oyster management practices and a healthy bay system.
But thanks to underhanded tactics – such as the hiring of discredited private investigator Wayne Dolcefino to intimidate members of the Texas Legislature – Prestige Oysters was also able to kill a bill containing industry agreed upon language to establish an oyster mariculture program and an oyster license buyback program at TPWD that helped everyone and hurt no one. In fact, Lisa Halili of Prestige Oysters testified personally against an effort by House Culture Recreation and Tourism Chairman Ryan Guillen to establish such a program.
However, the bill killing did not stop there. Thanks to amendments added and supported by Prestige Oysters that were designed to aid its efforts in a frivolous lawsuit, an important bill the Port of Houston needed also died.
Aided by freshman Galveston County Representative Wayne Faircloth, Prestige Oysters worked against the concept of private property stewardship of oyster beds using free market principles in favor of taxpayer-funded programs of which Prestige Oysters (which claims to be the largest oyster company in the United States) is the primary beneficiary. It is puzzling why Rep. Faircloth, a self-proclaimed conservative who states on his campaign website that “I believe that capitalism in a free market economy is the path to prosperity,” worked against the private property free market principle in favor of the status quo of more government subsidies for the oyster industry. In fact, the budget supported by Rep. Faircloth includes almost $700,000 for the recovery and enhancement of public oyster reefs – the same reefs being plundered by irresponsible oyster fisherman like those behind Prestige Oysters.
Prestige Oysters and its allies are no friends to Galveston Bay and the Texas oyster industry. As the largest importer of oysters harvested from neighboring states, Prestige Oysters enjoys immense profits from its out of state oyster importing business – against which Texas privately grown oysters must compete. Prestige Oysters and its allies testified against the establishment of an oyster mariculture program that would have benefited the entire Texas oyster industry by granting more private lease sites for oystermen to invest private capital, build reefs, and grow their own oysters sustainably. Days after testifying against the mariculture bill, Prestige Oysters, the Halilis and their allies proposed language that contributed to the defeat of an industry supported and Coastal Conservation Association (CCA) supported oyster license buyback bill – a bill that would have reduced harvest pressure on wild public reefs. Their sneaky addition of language to the bill would have allowed only those seven persons or corporations that currently have oyster leases to qualify for all new leases issued on private or state owned submerged land, with or without landowner consent.
Their language would have been a greedy, unethical use of the legislative system to create bad law by allowing a few people to control all the leases, creating an oyster cartel in Texas, because Prestige Oysters, the Halilis and their allies currently control a large majority of the current private leases of state land.
We at S.T.O.R.M. agreed to withdraw our HB 3335 and substitute it with Chairman Guillen’s mariculture bill. We supported other beneficial bills, such as the oyster license buyback program, oyster harvest vessel monitoring system, and everyone on board responsible for shell and undersize oyster harvest violations. We had no issues with the Port of Houston’s bill until the Halilis were allowed to amend the bill in an underhanded attempt to take Navigation Districts submerged land rights away.
We can verify every statement we make, the Halilis cannot. Do not believe the false misleading claims of Prestige Oysters, the self-proclaimed largest corporate oyster company in the United States, or its front group, Concerned Citizens of the Texas Gulf Coast.
Get the facts at http://www.oysterstorm.com.
Op-Ed paid for by S.T.O.R.M.
