Only time will tell, of course, what the Inspector General's office of the federal Department of Commerce will find in its investigation into the tactics the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's enforcement wing has used against the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction and beleaguered fishermen of Gloucester and beyond.
But the fact that a team of five staffers from the IG's office in the nation's capital will be conducting private interviews with fishermen and fishing industry representatives beginning today shows that Inspector General Todd Zinzer's office is giving these issues the attention and priority they deserve.
It's also good to hear Assistant IG Scott Berenberg — who will get the reports from Greg Segbben, the special agent in charge of the investigative team that's in our area today — tell the Times his agency comes into the probe with "no prejudiced ideas." And it's encouraging that Berenberg admits he's very aware of the enormous gap of distrust between the fishing industry and its regulators.
"My job," Berenberg said, "is to make sure that my team operates in a manner that is objective and makes a fact-based assessment."
Amen. The truth is, those mere statements and the scheduling of interviews with the likes of high-profile Rockport fisherman and underwater photographer Bill Lee and fishing legal expert Steve Ouellette — both of whom confirmed they have appointments with investigators — represent marked steps in the right direction.
After all, NOAA and National Marine Fisheries Service have barely given fishermen and the industry the time of day, let alone a fair hearing process.
Remember that, despite efforts by NOAA's acting fisheries administrator Jim Balsiger to bridge credibility gaps between fishermen and their enforcement overseers, NOAA's national enforcement director, Dale Jones, never even gave the well-respected Lee the courtesy of a response to his concerns over the shameful handling of his own alleged violations and boarding by a five-member Coast Guard enforcement crew. And let's face it: Other so-called reviews or investigations of the myriad issues surrounding the NOAA enforcement process have come up as devoid of credibility as some of the NOAA citations themselves.
Just last month, the U.S. General Accounting Office found that the Coast Guard's administrative law judge system is indeed a valid court operation that affords "justice" to mariners brought to trial. And that finding seems downright laughable — though not the least bit funny — given that the Inspector General's office is also carrying out investigations into charges raised by one of the system's own former administrative law judges that a colleague, the man now assigned the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction case, admitted to deciding cases based on orders from his chief justice rather than the evidence in the case. Yikes!
There is every reason to believe this probe will be different.
For one thing, the fact that this investigation, called for by new NOAA chief Jane Lubchenko, is really rooted in sharply worded letters and complaints from the likes of U.S. Sens. John Kerry and Edward Kennedy, and Congressmen Barney Frank and John Tierney. That should make the fishermen's complaints more difficult to quickly dismiss.
Other law enforcement personnel will clearly be watching, too. Indeed, it took Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley just a little over an hour to visit the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction and recognize that "something is wrong" with the seemingly vindictive NOAA enforcement campaign aimed at shutting it down.
Frankly, none of that should influence the Inspector General's investigation, either. The IG's investigators should take and verify the evidence they find this week, and report solely on their independent findings in what will be a national probe of NOAA enforcement, but a probe initially focused on what's been happening in Gloucester and New England.
The fact that the agents will be talking privately with the fishermen and getting other input from those within the industry is a reason to think this will be the independent, unprejudiced probe that's been so long overdue.
We can only hope it will ultimately lead to the desperately needed enforcement reforms that are so, so long overdue.
