Sportfishermen, Hunters &, Divers. Get Ready! The Solution is Coming

Responding to an Editorial in Florida Sportsman, Representative Needelman provided the following solution to address the out-of-control FWC by creating an agency that is more responsive TO THE PEOPLE they serve...

By Representative Mitch Needelman

It was Alexander Hamilton, one of our nation’s founding fathers, who said a great difficulty in creating a government was “obliging it to control itself."

There have to be checks and balances in place for a government to operate effectively and be of the greatest service to its people.

The same goes for government agencies.

In 1942, and again in 1998, Florida voters approved constitutional amendments to create an agency with full authority to pass rules concerning fish and wildlife conservation. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commissioners were charged with reducing the influence of special interests and protecting the environment – an admirable duty.

However, the FWC has run into Hamilton’s great difficulty: controlling itself.

Unlike rules approved by Florida’s other agencies, FWC rules adopted under constitutional authority are not subject to administrative challenges that can block them from taking effect while they are being challenged.

The FWC will tell you its due process procedures do provide for rule challenges in Circuit Court. But in reality, court rulings three years ago determined that the courts have no jurisdiction over the FWC's rulemaking process and that those rules can't be challenged in court.

Bottom line: there is no constitutional due process.

To put it in perspective, if the commission were to adopt a rule that deer hunting was off limits year round, nothing could be done to challenge the rule. If they determined that trout was off limits during the peak of the season, no appeal could change that.

This type of no-appeal administration does not fit in with the government our Founding Fathers had in mind.

I believe the FWC now has assumed more self-appointed power than what the voters intended.

Sure, they announce meetings, hold discussions and send out public notices when developing rules. But once the commissioners make a decision on a rule, you have no appeal process.

That is why I proposed a constitutional amendment creating a Department of the Interior and removal of the constitutional mandate for a Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The amendment would strengthen due process, not stifle it.

Essentially, the FWC, Department of Environmental Protection and five regional water management districts would be under one, efficiently minded department, thus putting everything under a single umbrella and bringing continuity to Florida's resource protection.

The amendment also would streamline the big government, bureaucratic process when it comes to conserving and protecting the natural resources and scenic beauty of our state.

If made a cabinet post, the Department of Interior’s director would be elected by the people, not appointed by the governor, thus elevating accountability for our state’s natural resources to the top of the ballot every four years.

This idea is not new.

If one were to do a little homework, they’d find that Florida Gov. Fuller Warren proposed similar legislation in 1952, which was then backed by Gov. Daniel McCarty in 1953 when he began moving toward the merger of the Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission and the State Board of Conservation to form a Department of Interior headed by an elected cabinet official.

However, the change was cut short by McCarty’s untimely death.

My intent is the real protection of our natural resources and ensuring that the voice of the people no longer gets lost in the bureaucratic shuffle.

Unfortunately, Karl Wickstrom, editor-in-chief of Florida Sportsman Magazine, misunderstood that intent and, in his November editorial, tried to tie this amendment to the net ban.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the net ban.

I do not have the power, the authority or the desire to overturn the net ban. That’s up to the people.

What I do want, what the people of Florida deserve, is a government that not only serves its citizens but has the proper checks and balances in place to deliver the best service for its people.

We have to do something now if we want to protect the environmental resources for our grandchildren.

Representative Mitch Needelman