To be fair, Lubchenco has taken a few steps to try to move past the IG's damning report.
Lubchenco, Schiffer and Schwaab are presiding over an enforcement wing that, under the likes of Gloucester-based "special" agents Andrew Cohen and Charles Juliand, openly bragged to fishermen and auction workers that they were "accountable to no one."
The term "moving forward" has a positive, progressive ring to it.
Yet, it is all too often a code phrase for something else — an attempt to duck any accountability for what has happened in the past.
And that's the aroma coming from a package of changes announced late last week by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration aimed at, "moving toward an effective enforcement program" of the fishing industry.
In essence it says, "We're moving forward. Forget the past." And that became even clearer in NOAA's case through the statement of Lois Schiffer, the agency's national chief counsel now teamed with National Marine Fisheries Service chief in cleaning up the NOAA law-enforcement quagmire.
"We are not here re-examining specific cases or data mentioned in the (Inspector General's) report or looking at the history of our offices," Schiffer indicated. And while that obviously raised a number of questions, Schiffer declined to field any from the Times, other than to say that her memo to NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco "speaks for itself."
So, hey, let's maybe sit down for a good ol' "summit," maybe hold hands, sing a song or two, and start fresh, right?
Baloney.