COMMERCE
Subscriber Services
Classified Ads
Subscribe
Advertise
NEWS
This Month
Editorial
Letters
F/V Safety
Past Issues
ABOUT US
Contact Us
Latest Issue
Subscribe
History
MORE CONTENT
CFN Archives
Links
Each month exclusively in the PRINT edition of CFN
Along the Coast
Ask the Lobster Doc
Bearin’s
Classifieds
Coming Events
Editorial
Enforcement Report
FISH SAFE
Fleet Additions
Letters
Lobster Market Report
New Boats
News Catch
Quahog Market Report
|
Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 37 Number 12
August 2010
NOAA should return undue fines to fishermen
A ppalling. That was the word used repeatedly by members of Congress to describe a report issued on July 1 by Commerce Department Inspector General Todd Zinser on his office’s review of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Asset Forfeiture Fund (AFF).
According to Zinser, the objective of the review was to examine the fund “based on industry concerns raised to us that NOAA’s fines were excessive, constituting a form of bounty, partly because of NOAA’s ability to retain and use proceeds from its enforcement cases.”
The abuses detailed in the report are extensive. A forensic accounting firm hired by Zinser’s office was unable to verify the actual amount in the fund because no one in the agency even had a clear understanding of what the AFF was or how it worked.
In fact, the fund was not identified in any NOAA or Commerce Department annual budget document, reflecting what Zinser concluded was “a lack of transparency and accountability.” Furthermore, while NOAA last year estimated the fund contained $8.4 million, the accounting firm found the agency had collected over $96 million between Jan. 1, 2005 and June 30, 2009.
The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA) allows NOAA to use the fund to pay for certain “expenses directly related to investigations and civil or criminal enforcement proceedings.” However, the report found that the agency has been spending the money in questionable ways.
Zinser pointed out that the NOAA Office of General Counsel for Enforcement and Litigation uses the AFF to fund more than 99% of its nonsalary operating expenses, and the National Marine Fisheries Service Office for Law Enforcement (OLE) has used AFF money to pay for vehicles, boats, and travel not directly related to MSA-sanctioned activities.
For example, OLE used the money to purchase approximately 200 vehicles at a cost of $4.6 million – 200 vehicles for an agency that employs about 172 enforcement personnel.
The review further found that these vehicles were assigned to virtually all OLE enforcement staff, including its director, deputy director, and assistant directors, and that the agency had no policy in place to restrict their personal use. OLE also purchased 22 boats at a cost of nearly $2.7 million, including one described by the manufacturer as “luxurious.”
And then there was the issue of travel. According to the report, the OLE and the Office of General Counsel charged nearly $580,000 to the AFF for international travel during the four-and-a-half-year review period. That figure included $109,000 to send 15 OLE and Office of General Counsel employees to a training workshop in Norway.
Talk about rubbing salt in a wound. Back in January, Zinser released a report that found the aggregate fine assessments by NOAA general counsel attorneys in the Northeast region were five times higher than in the other four regions of the country.
In reaction to the latest revelations, US Rep. Walter Jones (D-NC) has introduced legislation – HR 5668 – to eliminate NOAA’s ability to keep proceeds from forfeitures, seizures, fines, and penalties in fisheries enforcement cases.
And US Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called on NOAA to immediately begin selling off unauthorized purchases made with AFF money and return the proceeds to the fund and to any fisherman who has been subjected to what amounts to a federal shakedown.
“If it is determined that fishermen in the Northeast were over-fined, NOAA must return the excess money to the fishermen in order to serve justice and regain public trust,” Schumer said.
We agree. /cfn/
Back to story list
|
|
Tell us what you think.
