Bills aimed at reforming fish law enforcement

In a moment of increasing partisan tension, U.S. Sens. John Kerry and Scott Brown on Wednesday and Thursday filed their own bills aimed at correcting specific and systemic wrongs in the misuse of federal law enforcement authority against members of the New England fishing community.

A Democrat, Kerry, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has been a righthand helper to President Obama, filed the more limited bill a day ahead of Brown. Kerry's bill would repay legal fees to a precise class of victims of miscarriages of justice — those to whom Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke offered reparations for the harm done on the May day a public apology was also issued for past wrongs by NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco.

Filed less than 24 hours after Kerry's, Brown's bill would remove the Asset Forfeiture Fund from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where, according to the Commerce Department Inspector General, it was filled with nearly $100 million in fines from fishermen, many of them improperly high, and used without controls for improper purposes by officials in the federal fisheries law enforcement system.

Under the Brown bill, the the fund would be put under under the authority of the U.S. Treasury and used to help the regional fishery councils, NOAA and fishermen "with the ever-growing costs of regulatory compliance."

In addition, the Brown bill, like the Kerry bill, allows the reimbursement of legal costs to fishermen whose improper fines were reimbursed in the retrospection by Locke based on the findings of a special judicial master.

The back-to-back announcements comes a the week after a Senate subcommittee hearing, organized by Brown, a Republican, highlighted and underscored the failures of NOAA fisheries policy and law enforcement actions.

The period also marked a flurry of behind-the-curtain partisan political pressure from Democrats on figures within the fishing industry to reduce or end actions and public comments in praise of Brown.

A number of industry figures who considered themselves under pressure to distance themselves from Brown described the calls to the Times, and said the pressure threatened to upend the congressional bipartisanship that has characterized the pushback against NOAA policies across party lines — including Republicans such as Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine and the retired Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, Brown, almost immediately after he won the special election to fill the seat vacated by the death of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in January 2010, and Congressman Walter Jones of North Carolina.

"I felt like I was dealing with children," said one fisheries activist, who claimed to have been told in no uncertain terms to "stop making Brown look good."

The Democratic Party has targeted Brown for defeat and to reclaim the seat that Kennedy held for 47 years.

But the bipartisan fishing struggle has uncomfortably pitted the core of Obama's Democratic coalition in Massachusetts — including Gov. Deval Patrick and Congressmen John Tierney of Salem, whose district includes Gloucester, and Barney Frank of Newton who represents New Bedford — against the president's fisheries policies and appointees, notably NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco.

At the Senate subcommittee hearing in Faneuil Hall on Jane 20, Tierney reiterated the position he and Frank have previously stated that Lubchenco was hostile to the fishing industry and should be replaced.

Both congressmen along with Republican Jones and Sen. Brown — but not Kerry — appeared at a national rally against NOAA policies that drew thousands to the U.S. Capitol grounds in February 2010.

Kerry has been conducting his own campaign for the fishing industry because of his unique position, as a senior senator, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a frequent informal envoy for the White House in the Middle East tinderbox and elsewhere.

He is also considered a possible successor to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has announced her plan to resign rather than serve a second term.

To date, the natural rivalry between the Democrat Kerry and the Republican Brown has not threatened to rend the bipartisan effort to fix federal fisheries policy. Brown made his entry to the field in the winter of 2010 during the national protest demonstration, which found him deferential to his more senior colleagues, and the week of lobbying by industry activists to advance a bill to modify the Magnuson-Stevens Act to include some flexibility on stock rebuilding mandates.

Drew O'Brien, state director for Kerry, categorically denied that the senator or his staff was responsible for efforts to squelch favorable opinion of Brown.

"Sen. Brown continues working with people on both sides of the aisle on commonsense policies to help our fishermen," said his press secretary, Colin Reed. "The fishing industry is critical to New England's economy, and transcends partisan politics."

Kerry's bill, titled "Fisheries Fee Fairness Act of 2011," deals with the specific harms done by federal fisheries law enforcement, and entitles the 11 named parties who were remitted penalties charged wrongly, according to the findings of Secretary Locke, to reimbursement for their legal costs, which ran into the tens of thousands and even the hundreds of thousands for the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction, former New Bedford scallop fisherman Larry Yacubian, and New York fish dealer Marc Agger.

In addition to the 11, including a number of boat owner-fishermen from Gloucester, others could be added later when the special judicial master Charles B. Swartwood III completes his reviews of more than 30 other cases which Locke allowed to go to Swartwood without previously being assessed by Inspector General Todd Zinser.

Brown's bill, the "Asset Forfeiture Responsibility Act of 2011," attacks the systemic problem of abuse and misuse of the Asset Forfeiture Fund. In a speech on the Senate floor Thursday, Brown described the problem as an example of "overregulation.

He said the abuse of the fund has "corrupted the relationship between fishermen and their regulators."

Richard Gaines may be contacted at 978-283-7000 x3464 or rgaines@gloucestertimes.com.

Top Stories

Search Results

Discussion

Partisan politics targeting Brown could derail efforts

Site Map

Contact Us