April 24, 2011 – Senator Kerry's office sent the following statement to Saving Seafood with regard to the email exchange between the Senator and his brother Cameron, general counsel to the Department of Commerce, which was obtained by the Gloucester Daily Times via the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.
"Senator Kerry has said publicly and privately that the last decade has been very difficult for Massachusetts fishermen and he's been working hard to convene all the stakeholders in the state and in Washington, D.C. to talk face to face and create a better working relationship. He's obviously a dogged and persistent advocate for Massachusetts and no one would expect anything else."
In an email to his brother Cameron, U.S. Sen. John Kerry wrote that "despite all the opportunities we've given her," NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco "has failed" to convey to the fishing industry that she is doing everything possible to help it through increasingly hard times.
The Massachusetts Democrat, one of President Obama's essential allies in the Senate, said that, in his 26 years in Washington, he'd never seen a "supposedly friendly (administration)" in such a position.
"I know that it's hard to deliver bad news, but there are ways to do it that make people feel you're doing everything possible to help," Kerry wrote to his brother. Cameron Kerry is general counsel to the Department of Commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's parent federal agency.
"Lubchenco has failed to convey that despite all the opportunities we've given her," the senator wrote.
"I'm aware and at wit's end," Cam Kerry wrote back.
A bipartisan group of federal lawmakers, including Democratic Congressman John Tierney and Barney Frank, Republican Sen. Scott Brown and Republican Congressman Walter Jones of North Carolina have all urged President Obama to replace Lubchenco as the essential first step in rebuilding trust by the industry in the government.
The email exchange between the Kerry brothers was obtained via the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Times.