Law

Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk and New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang have filed notice of their intent to appeal U.S. District Court Judge Rya Zobel's June 30 ruling rejecting challenges to the Department of Commerce's "Amendment 16" fisheries regulatory framework and its controversial "catch shares" management system imposed for New England in May 2010.

The mayor and their cities are among 30 plaintiffs from the fishing community who are challenging Amendment 16, claiming the implementation of the current system violated the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

On appeal, the plaintiffs will continue to argue that, in drafting and implementing Amendment 16, NOAA improperly created a system that was — in all but name — a Limited Access Privilege permit system, but that ignored the Magnuson-Stevens Act's requirement of a referendum before the enactment of a quota system, according to SavingSeafood.Com, a leading online fisheries news service.

"We all know the saying 'a rose by any other name would smell as sweet' from Shakespeare. That's what NOAA and the Council did," said Kirk. "They built a system that would have triggered a referendum if they had called it what it is. But the Council knew they couldn't win a referendum. So they renamed it.

"Then the crafty NOAA lawyers wrote an interpretation of the law that tiptoed around the clear meaning of the Amendment Congressman Frank inserted requiring a referendum," she added. "That's how we ended up with this system, but this system does not smell like roses."

 

Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times

 

 

 

 

 

 

BOSTON — Attorney General Martha Coakley is urging Congress to pass legislation that would reimburse local fishermen for legal fees incurred while appealing penalties.

In letters sent to the chairmen of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation and the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources, Coakley expressed her support for two bills filed by U.S. Sen. John Kerry and U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, which amend the federal Magnuson-Stevens Act Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

The bills were filed following an investigation by a federal Inspector General that found that the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration Office engaged in enforcement practices that were excessive and unreasonable. It also found that the appeals process was designed to create a disincentive for fishermen to appeal those fines, creating a lack of confidence on the part of fishermen that the appeal process was fair, transparent and impartial.

The bills would establish a formal process to reimburse local fishermen for legal fees incurred while appealing those excessive fines.

 

Read the complete story from The Herald News

 

 

 

 

Some $100,000 of a $150,000 fine paid by a former candidate to be the nation's top fisheries manager who was caught cheating a catch share system in Alaska has been directed to a foundation whose board includes NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco — architect of the nation's catch share policy.

Arne Fuglvog, who agreed to serve a 10-month prison sentence Thursday, was an ardent advocate of catch share management while standing as a candidate to head the National Marine Fisheries Service in 2009. Records now show he had been exploiting the system illegally over a number of years earlier in the last decade, according to published reports in Alaska.

The congressionally chartered National Fish and Wildlife Foundation has been providing funding to Lubchenco's campaign to privatize and commodify the nation's fisheries in the face of a binding vote by Congress last winter to bar new catch share conversions during the fiscal 2011 spending cycle, which ends Sept. 30.

Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times.

 

 

 

 

 

WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity today requested that the United States seek protection for Atlantic bluefin tuna under an international treaty that would ban cross-border trade of this imperiled fish. Listing bluefin under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the major international treaty on endangered species, would  allow countries to shut down the black market that has fueled much of the tuna’s dramatic decline.

“Illegal fishing is a scourge on bluefin tuna that undermines any attempt to recover healthy population levels. Any hope of pulling bluefin tuna back from the brink of extinction depends on unprecedented global cooperation to reduce overfishing,” said Catherine Kilduff, a Center staff attorney Kilduff.

Listing bluefin tuna under CITES could also improve compliance with catch limits and documentation that are required by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, which has failed to prevent bluefin tuna’s unsustainable slaughter for more than four decades.

Compliance with catch levels is critical to preventing the extinction of Atlantic bluefin tuna in part because, in June, the National Marine Fisheries Service denied Endangered Species Act protection to the enormous, warm-blooded fish in response to a Center for Biological Diversity petition. Since then Libyan vessels may have harvested bluefin tuna illegally, and Italian officials are investigating a huge, illegal fishing-and-trafficking operation targeting bluefin in the Mediterranean. Authorities say they’ve found more than 1,000 violations, including falsified fishing records and trading documents.

“Unfortunately, too many view bluefin tuna as a high-priced sushi item rather than an imperiled ocean species that desperately needs help,” Kilduff said “We simply have to have trade restrictions to curb the widespread exploitation that threatens the future of this magnificent species.”

The next CITES meeting will occur in 2013. At the most recent meeting, in March 2010, a proposal to list Atlantic bluefin tuna was overwhelming voted down despite U.S. support. Reportedly the Japanese delegation served bluefin tuna sushi at a party the night before the vote in order to sway countries against the ban. The next month, the Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred during prime western Atlantic bluefin tuna spawning season. In two years, when effects of the spill are better understood, the Fisheries Service will reconsider whether Atlantic bluefin tuna should be listed as endangered or threatened.

Western Atlantic bluefin tuna do not cross the Atlantic but migrate from Gulf of Mexico nursery areas to rich feeding grounds off New England. Those bluefin tuna from the Mediterranean, however, traverse the ocean in a matter of weeks as early as age one. Overfishing in Europe means that fewer Mediterranean tuna reach U.S. waters.

Since 1970, western Atlantic bluefin tuna have declined by more than 70 percent due to overfishing. In response to the decline of the bluefin, the Center last year launched a nationwide boycott of bluefin tuna. (Visit bluefinboycott.org for more information.) More than 25,000 people have joined the Center’s campaign and pledged not to eat at restaurants serving bluefin tuna; dozens of chefs and owners of seafood and sushi restaurants have pledged not to sell bluefin.

For more information about the Center’s campaign to save the Atlantic bluefin tuna, visit: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/fish/Atlantic_bluefin_tuna/index.html.

 

 

 

 

 

A group of New York state and New Jersey fishermen-plaintiffs have asked U.S. District Court Judge Rya Zobel to reconsider her June 30 blanket rejection of challenges to the groundfish regulatory regimen that has also been put in place covering the fishermen of Gloucester and New England.

The so-called catch share system, the signature fisheries policy of the Obama administration and its National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has engendered fierce opposition in ports along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and Congress. The experience in New England so far has been typical and what NOAA expected — fewer boats involved in a consolidating market.

Hundreds if not thousands of job are being lost, according to industry estimates.

The Mid-Atlantic group filed a suit against NOAA independent of one filed for New England and North Carolina interests by attorneys for the cities of Gloucester and New Bedford.

Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The court has made public the plea documents associated with the Fuglvog case.

Read the document.                

 

 

 

 

 

HONOLULU (CN) – Environmentalists and native Hawaiians say the National Marine Fisheries Service broke the law to bend over for big business and issue a "Special Coral Reef Ecosystem Fishing Permit" to let private company to run a "a free-floating fish farm in a vast area off the western coast of the Island of Hawaii."

Food and Water Watch and Kahea say the NMFS and the Secretary of Commerce issued the permit illegally, under pressure from the fish farmer, and did so without the required environmental impact study.

Kona Blue Water Farms' 1-year permit "is the first ever commercial fishing permit issued for an aquaculture facility in federal waters," according to the federal complaint.

Kona Blue is not named as a defendant. But the plaintiffs say Kona Blue misrepresented the scope and scale of its project and did not conduct a full environmental impact study, and that the NMFS and Secretary of Commerce failed to fully evaluate the project's effects.

Read the complete story from Courthouse News Service.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A fisheries and resources aide to U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski pleaded guilty to violating sablefish catch limits, court records that were filed Monday revealed.

Arne Fuglvog, who worked in Murkowski’s office for five years, agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor violation of the Lacey Act. He entered the plea as part of an agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s office.

The deal was made in April, but was only announced this week. Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Steward did not respond to a phone call Tuesday regarding the delay between the April 8 signing of the plea agreement and its being filed in federal court Monday. Also unclear is how the case came to the attention of federal prosecutors.

In a statement provided by his Anchorage lawyer, Jeff Feldman, Fuglvog stated, “It has been the greatest privilege of my life to work for Senator Murkowski on behalf of Alaska. I deeply regret the mistakes I made before I came to work in the U.S. Senate and fully accept the consequences of my actions.”

If a judge agrees to the terms of the deal, Fuglvog will spend 10 months in prison, pay a $50,000 fine and send another $100,000 to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for enhancing fisheries in the coastal areas of the Gulf of Alaska.

Read the complete story from Juneau Empire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ANCHORAGE, Alaska—A fisheries aide to U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has acknowledged falsifying records that netted him an extra $100,000 while commercial fishing in southeast Alaska in 2005.

Arne Fuglvog admitted in a plea deal to one count of violating the Lacey Act for falsely reporting where he caught sablefish.

He resigned from Murkowski's staff Sunday.

Fuglvog signed the plea agreement with the federal government April 8, but it was only made public Monday in U.S. District Court records, as first reported by the Alaska Dispatch.

Read the complete story by The AP at The Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski's fisheries aide has resigned and faces prison time after admitting to breaking commercial fisheries laws.

Arne Fuglvog, who has long played an influential role in Alaska fisheries politics, will be sentenced to 10 months in jail if a judge agrees to his plea deal on the charge of falsifying fishing records. The deal also includes $150,000 in fines and an admission of guilt.

Fuglvog has agreed to plead guilty to one count of violating the Lacey Act — a federal law prohibiting the sale of illegally taken wildlife, fish and plants — by harvesting twice as much sablefish as he was allowed and then lying about where he caught the fish. According to the plea agreement, Fuglvog falsified records of his commercial catches several times between 2001 and 2006 while operating a boat called the Kamilar. He would fish in one area and report he'd caught the fish somewhere else, the document says.

Read the complete story from The Anchorage Daily News.