Floridian Bruce Buckson deserves congratulations for being named as the new national fisheries police chief and head of the now-disgraced NOAA Office of Law Enforcement.
Buckson takes the reins a full 15 months after National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration head Jane Lubchenco slid former chief Dale Jones out of his post and into another six-figure job with her agency — despite, of course, a federal inspector general's charges against him of derelict financial oversight, excessive enforcement, and shredding of documents at the height of a federal investigation. So you might think Buckson has nowhere to go but up when it comes to rebuilding NOAA enforcement's credibility.
If only that were the case.
U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, the Maine Republican who questioned Lubchenco about the broken trust between the regulated and the regulators at her own 2009 confirmation hearing to head NOAA, noted in reaction to Buckson's Monday appointment that Buckson has an enormous amount of trust to win back.
Read the complete editorial from The Gloucester Times.