NEW BEDFORD — U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., has been joined by a dozen other legislators of both parties in filing legislation to steer money from the misused NOAA Asset Forfeiture Fund into paying reparations to fishermen and financing state-based fisheries research.
The bill, which Frank had promised was coming, tracks the approach taken by U.S. Sens. Scott Brown and John F. Kerry toward NOAA's record of failure to account for the fund over a decade's time, as discovered by Commerce Department Inspector General Todd Zinser.
Frank's bill would amend the Magnuson-Stevens Act to require NOAA to pay the legal expenses and other costs of fishermen who were found by Special Master Charles Swartwood III to have been the victims of wrongful and/or excessive prosecution by NOAA's law enforcement division.
After that, Frank's bill would redirect forfeiture funds in the future toward state-based research, such as that done by the UMass School of Marine Science and Technology.
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