Sen. Scott Brown, in standing up for Massachusetts fishermen during a scathing indictment of federal fishing regulators at Faneuil Hall Monday, showed again why he’s a political natural who will be hard to topple in 2012. Sen. Brown accused the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its agents of stonewalling, shredding of documents, an out-of-control accounting system “that would have made Enron blush."
[The Senator noted that NOAA Enforcement often would arrive] toting guns and treating fishermen like criminals, destroying their livelihoods by levying unfair and excessive fines, and wasting the money it took in through fines on the industry.
Brown, citing a “damning review” by an inspector-general brought in by new NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, said NOAA’s enforcers wastefully bought more cars (202) than there were agency staffers (172) and a $300,000 “luxurious boat” which “CBS News says was used for fishing. There’s some irony.”
But the angriest man in the building was Ed Boynton of Gloucester, sitting at the hearing in a work shirt, faded jeans and a wheelchair. He lost a leg years ago.
“I was a fisherman for 33 years until the bastards (from NOAA) forced me out,” a boiling Boynton told me in a hallway. Under a stringent rule aimed at how often fishermen were allowed at sea, “They got me down to 11 days at sea to make my living,” he said. That wasn’t nearly enough for the groundfish dragger to earn sufficient income for his family, and he gave up fishing in 2006 and now subsists on disability checks.
Brown was hot, too, as he lashed out at a panel of NOAA officials. Things improved under Commerce Secretary Gary Locke (now on his way out) and the new NOAA administrator, but they are still far from where they should be. Brown said he had asked NOAA three weeks ago for documents for the hearing, but got them only last Friday.
“So what does it take to get fired over there?” he asked, asserting that most NOAA employees who violated the public trust remain employed at six-figure salaries.
Read the complete opinion piece from The Boston Herald.