AR-News: [US] Alligator Industry Fights Fees for Promotions

[Andrew Gach]

washingtonpost.com 
Alligator Industry Fights Fees for Promotions 


By Cindy Skrzycki

Tuesday, May 4, 2004; Page E01 


Now slithers the alligator into the swamp of marketing promotion programs that state and federal governments oversee.

Last month, the legal and regulatory community followed with fascination a case in Louisiana involving a state-sponsored research and marketing program that collects fees from alligator hunters and farmers to promote the legal sale of the skins. One company, Pelts & Skins in Kenner, objected to how the program spent the $320,000 it paid each year and took the state Department of Wildlife & Fisheries to court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit agreed on April 2 that the fee could not be spent on promotion, basically telling the state: Later, gator. The ruling stressed that although alligators are regulated by the state, that did not justify a "compelled subsidy for speech."

Full story

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64446-2004May3?language=printer
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.envirolink.org/pipermail/ar-news/attachments/20040504/71e4ff6c/attachment.html