Four days after the head of NOAA issued a sweeping order to overhaul and repair the Asset Forfeiture Fund, a New York senator demanded on Monday that NOAA cease using the fund and start making plans to return money to aggrieved fishermen.
Meanwhile, it was revealed Monday that NOAA has been using the fund for years to pay 60 percent of the costs of the administrative law judges it hires from the Coast Guard, a payment that has been ended.
U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., held a press conference Monday calling on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to sell off the things it bought without authorization and prepare to return that money to fishermen who were unjustly prosecuted. Those items include hundreds of cars and a $300,000 boat. Fifteen NOAA staffers also used the forfeiture fund to travel to Norway for a conference, the Commerce Department's inspector general disclosed in a scathing report last week.
"It appears that we had an out-of-control regional (Northeast) fisheries office that used excess fines and forfeitures as a slush fund for excess," Schumer said. "The fact that the very people charged with enforcing the rules related to fishing have done so in an arbitrary and capricious way throws NOAA's entire enforcement program into doubt. I am calling on NOAA to hold people responsible, sell off the cars, boats and other unauthorized purchases and fund fishermen who were unjustly or excessively fined and whose fishing seasons have been shortened."
In a letter to NOAA administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Schumer also demanded that NOAA stop using the fund until it can be reorganized and is within the law. Lubchenco has moved the fund to the control of the comptroller of her agency, but the fund can still be used by the law enforcement office as long as it gets a sign-off on purchases over $1,000.
Schumer called on NOAA to do something it has resisted since the inspector general's preliminary report in January: revisit past cases and make restitution where called for.
He said NOAA should immediately analyze individual excess fines, recalculate an appropriate fine, and return the excess to Northeast fishermen. Schumer said that money not needed to reimburse excess fines be used as economic aid or re-training programs for displaced fishermen burdened by catch restrictions.
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