Law

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Coast Guard administrative law judge whose harsh financial ruling against a former fisherman put the accused out of business, then was overturned through a Cabinet-level apology with reparations of $400,000, has removed himself from overseeing the follow-up to the case.

Judge Parlen J. McKenna has defended his handling of the case against Larry Yacubian, who was a New Bedford scalloper and political activist in 2005 when the case was tried, and asserted Thursday in his motion recusing himself from presiding over the legal fees' assignment that he had no legal reason to do so.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its National Marine Fisheries Service have used the Coast Guard administrative law judge system to hear cases the agencies have brought against fishermen and fishery-related businesses.

The administrative judge's actions in and outside the courtroom were chastised in May by a special judicial master retained by federal Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, who called in retired federal magistrate Charles B. Swartwood III to examine the most egregious cases of justice miscarried against the fishing community. The additional probe came in the aftermath of a two-year investigation by the Commerce Department Inspector General Todd Zinser.

Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times.

 

 

 

 

 

BOSTON (Saving Seafood) July 28, 2011 —  Judge Parlen McKenna has granted a motion for recusal in the case of former New Bedford Scalloper Larry Yacubian.  Saving Seafood first reported on July 8, that two Coast Guard administrative law judges were been reassigned to adjudicate additional legal requests in controversial NOAA enforcement cases.  The cases, involving former New Bedford scalloper Larry Yacubian and the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction, were among the cases in which an independent special master found the defendants' rights so severely trampled that they received apologies for the wrongdoing from Secretary Gary Locke and NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco as well as reimbursement of the judge's imposed fines.  

In a May 17, 2011 decision memorandum , Secretary Locke "directed NOAA to terminate the Coast Guard Administrative Law Judge contract" for adjudication of fisheries cases.  On July 11, after learning that the same judges who were critcized by the special master had been re-assigned to the Yacubian and Gloucester Auction cases, Congressmen Barney Frank and John Tierney asked Secretary Locke to make it his "highest priority to arrange for an alternative adjudication forum".

In his order, Judge McKenna wrote:

"Appearance of bias is the incorrect standard to use in disqualification of an administrative law judge because administrative law judges work for the agency whose action they review and an "appearance of impropriety" standard would require recusal in every case. … No justifiable basis exists for Applicants and their counsel to claim actual bias or prejudgment in this case despite their efforts to raise issues that have nothing to do with resolving Applicants' EAJA claim.

Nevertheless, in order to ensure that Applicants receive consideration of their EAJA claim without unnecessary distractions and to uphold the integrity of the United States Coast Guard's Administrative Law Judge Program from further baseless attacks, I will recuse myself from these proceedings.

ORDER

WHEREFORE: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Applicants' Motion for Recusal is GRANTED and I will have no further involvement in considering or ruling upon Applicants' EAJA claim.

Done and dated this 29th day of July, 2011 at Alameda, CA.

HON. PARLEN L. MCKENNA
Administrative Law Judge United States Coast Guard"

 

 

 

 

 

A former fisherman, awarded $400,000 in reparations from NOAA for a miscarriage of justice that cost him his boat and business but brought a fierce rebuttal from the trial judge, said Monday said that in the course of the rebuttal the judge might have libeled him.

But his lawyer is going further, saying that the entire group of Coast Guard administrative law judges who heard cases brought against fishermen and fishing industry businesses by the National Oceanic Administration was guilty of "collusion.''

Lafreniere said, based on documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, that all the Coast Guard administrative law judges were guilty of "collusion" with McKenna.

Lafreniere said a trove of redacted, exchanged internal emails between McKenna and other Coast Guard administrative law judges commenting on the claimed failings and falsehoods McKenna found in the Swartwood report also showed improper "collusion" and so, "no respondant that has appeared before Special Master Swartwood can receive a fair and impartial hearing" from any Coast Guard administrative law judge.

Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times.

Read the emails from Judge Devine.

Read the emails from Judge Brudzinski.

 

 

 

 

BOSTON (AP) — Fishing industry advocates who filled a Boston courtroom in March, hoping to persuade a federal judge to strike down new rules that set catch limits, got a blunt message from an opposing lawyer: If they really want change, they're in the wrong building, he said.

"They need to take that up with Congress," Department of Justice lawyer James Maysonett told U.S. District Judge Rya Zobel.

Last month, Zobel ruled against the industry, leaving it with little choice but to follow Maysonett's advice and try to change fishery law though legislation in Washington.

It won't come easy. Amending the Magnuson-Stevens Act will be a massive undertaking with uncertain prospects. Fishermen have recent legislative wins and backing from high-profile Massachusetts lawmakers Rep. Barney Frank and Sens. John Kerry and Scott Brown. But that political pull is diluted by a legislative process that requires support from lawmakers from inland states where the fishing industry has little influence.

Read the complete story by The AP at My San Antonio.