Washington

May 29, 2012 – The director of the National Weather Service has stepped down after an internal investigation concluded that the federal agency misappropriated millions in taxpayer dollars.

Jack Hayes retired on Friday, a day after the head of the weather service’s parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, issued a memo spelling out the results of an investigation into allegations of mismanagement of funds.

This follows on the heels of a separate external investigation into NOAA that says the administration misappropriated $43.8 million by giving bonuses and extensions to contractors without proper justification.

In the weather service inquiry, the memo by NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said investigators found evidence that weather service employees at its headquarters inappropriately “reprogrammed” funds in 2010 and 2011 by moving millions of dollars in program accounts and redirecting them to 122 weather service offices across the country.

Read the full story at MSNBC.

 

 

 

May 25, 2012 – Representatives of Pew Environment Group and five top chefs recently wrote Congress to thank them for their work in managing the ocean’s resources via the Magnuson-Stevens Act. They also state their excitement at the NOAA 2011 Status of U.S. Fisheries Report, noting that improvements are being made in the fishery as a result of proper management. In their letter they include recipes that incorporated legal fishing practices. Information about the status of the fish involved in the specific recipes is also included.

See a copy of the letter and recipies distributed by Pew and Chefs.

 

 

May 23, 2012 – The following was release by Senator Kerry's office:

Washington, DC – This morning, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) delivered the following statement at a hearing that analyzed the U.S. national security and strategic imperatives for ratifying the Law of the Sea Convention (Treaty Doc. 103-39) with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, serving as witnesses.

“Some may ask why now, why consider a Treaty that's been untouched by the Senate for the last five years, and been hanging around for more than 25,” said Chairman Kerry. “I think the real question is why we wouldn't have this discussion, now, when today, we have the worst of all worlds. We’ve effectively lived by the terms of the Treaty for 30 years but, as a non-party, we’re on the outside looking in. We live by the rules but we don’t shape the rules.”

The full text of Chairman Kerry’s hearing statement, as delivered, is below:

Secretary Clinton, Secretary Panetta, and General Dempsey:  Welcome, we’re particularly privileged to have you here today and thank you for joining us.

It's really a rare occasion – I think in any committee – but it’s a rare occasion in this Committee when we have, simultaneously, a panel of witnesses that brings together America’s top diplomat, our country's top defense official, and the nation's top military officer.

But your presence here, all together, powerfully underscores the importance that you put on this issue.

Our Committee shares this sense of importance, which is why, I hope without respect to Party or ideology, we will begin an open, honest, and comprehensive discussion about whether the United States of America should join the Law of the Sea Convention.

I want to underscore the word comprehensive.  I’ve heard from countless military and business leaders – for some period of time – who believe it's urgent we ratify this Treaty.  And I’ve also spoken with Senators and some groups who oppose the Treaty.

I intend to make certain that the Committee does its job properly and thoroughly.  We will hear from all sides and we will ask all questions as we begin the process of educational hearings on this issue, the first since 2007.  The Senate has seen a fair number of new members elected since then, from both sides of the aisle, and our Committee also has new members, so I think a thorough examination of the Treaty is especially timely and relevant.

Some of us have had the opportunity in the past to evaluate this Treaty and even to vote on it in this Committee. I am personally deeply supportive of it and I believe it is now more urgent than ever that we ratify it because to remain outside of it is fundamentally, directly counter to the best interests of our country.

I am convinced beyond any doubt that joining the other 160 nations that are party to the Treaty will protect America’s economic interests and our strategic security interests. And I believe the evaluation we make over these next weeks will document that beyond any doubt. But I promise the Committee and the Senate that notwithstanding my support, we will conduct exhaustive and fair hearings to examine all the arguments pro and con.

Some may ask why now, why consider a Treaty that's been untouched by the Senate for the last five years, and been hanging around for more than 25.  I think the real question is why we wouldn't have this discussion, now, when today, we have the worst of all worlds. We’ve effectively lived by the terms of the Treaty for 30 years but, as a non-party, we’re on the outside looking in. We live by the rules but we don’t shape the rules.

It couldn’t be more clear. Without joining the LOS, we are deprived of critical benefits and protections under the Treaty. Let me give you a few quick examples:

Ratifying the Treaty will lock in the favorable navigational rights that our military and shipping interests depend on every single day. It will strengthen our hand against China and others who stake out claims in the Pacific, the Arctic, or elsewhere.

It will give our oil and gas companies the certainty that they need to make crucial investments to secure our energy future. It will put our telecommunications companies on an equal footing with their foreign competitors. And, it will help secure access to rare earth minerals, which we need for weapons systems, computers, cellphones, and the like.

It will also address issues of Military Effectiveness. As our national security focus shifts towards the Asia Pacific region, it’s more important than ever that we’re part of this Treaty. China and other countries are staking out illegal claims in the South China Sea and elsewhere.

Becoming a party to the treaty would give an immediate boost to U.S. credibility as we push back against excessive maritime claims and illegal restrictions on our warships or commercial vessels. There is no doubt in my mind that it would help resolve maritime issues to the benefit of the United States and our regional allies and partners. We will hear from every single former Chief of Naval Operations, and Commandant of the Coast Guard, to that effect.

The treaty is also about Energy Security. While we sit on the sidelines, Russia and other countries are carving up the Arctic and laying claim to the oil and gas riches in that region. We, on the other hand, can’t even access the Treaty body that provides international legitimacy for these types of Arctic claims. Instead of taking every possible step to ensure our stake in this resource rich area, we are watching others assert their claims and doing nothing about it because we have no legal recourse.

This Treaty is also about Rare earth minerals. China currently controls the production of rare earth minerals – 90 percent of the world’s supply we are dependent on from China.  There is no way that enhances American security.  We need this for cellphones, computers, and weapons systems. U.S. industry is poised to secure these minerals from the deep seabed, but they cannot do so through the United States as it is because we’re not a party to the Treaty.

But don't take my word for it. Listen to our top companies.  Just last week, Bob Stevens, the CEO of Lockheed Martin, wrote to me urging that that the Senate pass Law of the Sea Treaty.  I want to just take a minute to read from his letter. He said:

“[T]he multi-billion dollar investments needed to establish an ocean-based resource development business must be predicated upon clear legal rights established and protected under the treaty-based framework of the LOS Convention, including the International Seabed Authority (ISA).  Other international players recognize this same reality and are acting upon it.  Countries (including China and Russia) are moving forward aggressively within the Treaty framework, and several of these countries currently hold exploration licenses from the International Seabed Authority….

Unfortunately, without ratifying the [Convention], the United States cannot sponsor claims with, or shape the deep seabed rules of the ISA.  Yet, that is the critical path forward if the United States intends to expand and ensure access—for both U.S. commercial and government interests—to new sources of strategic mineral resources.”

Without objection, I’ll place the full letter into the record.

I’d also would just point out quickly that today there’s a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal, placed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce states three reasons – the first of which is pure economics – jobs – the United States economy depends on the passage of this.

Whether it’s rare earths, the Arctic, or illegal maritime claims, China is moving the ball over the goal line while we’re sitting on the sidelines.  To oppose this Treaty is to enable China and Russia to continue to utilize the Treaty to their benefit and our disadvantage.  How does that make sense for American economic or strategic security?

And the Treaty is also about Telecommunications. The treaty provides a legal framework to lay and protect submarine cables. I don’t need to tell most people about how critical the Internet is to our economy and national security. We need to put ourselves on the best footing possible to protect those cables through which the Internet flows, and the treaty does that.

That’s why AT&T, Verizon, Level 3, and others, support this Treaty.  Again, don’t take my word for it.  In a recent letter, AT&T explained that:

“[S]ubmarine cables provide backbone international transmission facilities for the global internet, electronic commerce and other international voice and data communications services that are major drivers of the 21st Century global information-based economy….[I]t has never been more important to our U.S. economic infrastructure, and our participation in the global economy, to strengthen the protection and reliability of international submarine cables.  The Law of the Sea Convention, particularly as assisted by the enforcement mechanisms available to parties under Article 297, is a critical element of this protection.”

I'd like to enter this letter into the record as well.

Now let me say a last thing about the process and timing for consideration of this Treaty.  I think it that is important – what I’m going to say.  Obviously this is a Presidential election year and it is one that has already proven difficult, if not, at times, toxic.  I do not want this Treaty to become victim to that race or to the politics of the moment.  A number of colleagues on and off the Committee have been very candid and suggested they would be more comfortable if we can avoid pushing this deliberative process into the middle of an election. I would like to see this Treaty stay out of the hurly burly of Presidential politics. Heeding that advice, and preferring that we encourage the kind of evaluative and educational process which does justice to this Committee, and justice to the United States Senate ratification process, I announce today that I do not currently intend to bring the Treaty to a vote before the November elections.

We will have extensive hearings.  We will do our due diligence.  We will prepare for a vote.  But unless, somehow, the dynamic were to shift, or change, we will wait until the passions of the election have subsided before we vote.

My hope and expectation is that everyone will exhaust all avenues of inquiry and carefully consider the arguments on both sides.

The contentious political season will now give us a chance to do what this Committee, historically, has done best – which is not to politicize, but to spend a lot of serious, thoughtful time deliberating and debating all questions of substance.

While I’m pleased to see that the Internet is already beginning to buzz with some discussion with this, but I will say up front that there is a lot of misinformation, and there’s a certain amount of mythology.

I look forward to clearing that misinformation, and the mythology.  As my friend Senator Moynihan used to say – our friend, then-Senator Clinton and Senator Warner who’s here – a famous phrase, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”

There are facts, with respect to this Treaty, and I look forward to this Committee establishing what they are.

Ultimately, this issue needs to be decided by the members of this Committee asking tough questions of the witnesses that come before us, not by outside groups.

So I am pleased that we will have the opportunity over the next several weeks, and the next couple of months, to hear from multiple witnesses. We begin today with our top national security leaders.

They will be followed by military commanders, including those who are in charge of our operations, top business leaders – the Chamber of Commerce and others, treaty experts, and opponents. Once again, I simply ask that everybody work hard to find out what is factual and what the realities are with respect to how this works.

With that I would like to welcome today’s distinguished witnesses once more:

As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has worked tirelessly to advance our security and economic interests abroad, and I think everyone agrees she has done a tremendous job of doing so.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has served with great distinction across four decades in government. He’s earned broad respect from Democrats and Republicans for his pragmatic and thoughtful approach to national security.

And, General Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has done a tremendous job in his stewardship of our military during a time of extraordinary challenge and transition.

Visit the committee web page on the hearing which includes all testimony.

 

 

May 17, 2012 – WASHINGTON — The lead federal agency in charge of dealing with the tsunami debris from Japan can't say what kind of flotsam will make landfall and how hazardous it might be. It also can't say who will be in charge of clean up or even how 911 operators should handle debris sightings.

That was the testimony offered Thursday at the first Senate oversight subcommittee hearing on response planning for the vast marine junk field projected to hit Washington and Alaska coasts late next year.

David Kennedy, assistant administrator with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), fielded an hour of pointed questions from Sen. Maria Cantwell and two other members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

Cantwell, along with Mark Begich, D-Alaska, and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, grilled Kennedy about NOAA's contingency plan for the coming economic and ecological problems.

The March 2011 earthquake and tsunami washed an estimated 5 million tons of garbage out to sea. Some 70 percent of that likely sank immediately, leaving 1.5 million tons drifting slowly across the Pacfic Ocean. The debris field now is so vast and dispersed that NOAA has turned to classified high-resolution satellite images to help track it.

Kennedy testified that NOAA's 13-person Marine Debris Program is doing its best to anticipate where, when and what debris will hit U.S. shores. But when it does, Kennedy told Begich that it would be largely up to local communities to handle it.

Read the full story at the Seattle Times.

 

 

May 17, 2012 – After three-plus years with Jane Lubchenco at the helm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, its National Marine Fisheries Service and its Northeast regional office in Gloucester, the organizations are in flux — if not transition, transformation or relocation.

In NMFS's regulatory side, the top eight officials are all in "acting" positions.

With many of the fisheries it manages, including Gulf of Maine cod, which is in crisis and essential to the Gloucetser fleet's wellbeing, the continued existence of NMFS's regional office in Gloucester has been put in doubt by the U.S. Senate, while the catch share commodification program introduced to restore the stocks has been repudiated by the U.S. House.

The catch share approach, which leads to capital consolidation and job loss, has been held by Gov. Deval Patrick to be responsible for a social and economic fisheries failure.

Yet, despite ample notice that the Northeast regional administrator was stepping down last December, no full-fledged successor to Pat Kurkul has yet been appointed. In the interim, Daniel Morris has been serving as the acting regional administrator, setting off chain reaction of acting officials — an acting deputy and acting assistant regional administrator, as well as an acting director of the science center.

The state of NOAA's leadership has attracted congressional attention.

"I don't think it's anything but obvious to say that not having a NOAA regional administrator makes it that much more difficult for fishermen to have the productive face-to-face interactions they need to be heard by the bureaucracy," U.S. Sen. John Kerry in an email.

The Senate's fiscal 2013 budget for Commerce, Science and Justice — which includes NOAA — defunds the Northeast regional office under plans to relocate it to NMFS headquarters in Silver Spring, Md. In January, President Obama announced a proposal — one that wold also need congressional approval — to shift NOAA from the Commerce Department to the Department of the Interior.

The House budget for the second straight year has a rider barring expansion of catch share commodification, Lubchenco's signature fisheries program, which has been promoted by the Environmental Defense Fund with grant funding by Walmart's Walton Family Foundation.

Read the full article from the Gloucester Times.

 

 

NOAA made its annual report Monday to Congress on the status of the nation's fish stocks, and noted that, in 2011 the so-called Fish Stock Sustainability Index — a kind of Dow Jones Industrial Average for 230 key fish stocks — continued improving for the 11th straight year.

When the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration created the index in 2000, it stood at 357.5; after 2011 it was at 598.5, an improvement of more than 67 percent, according to Monday's report.

The index calculations are shorthand for slow, steady improvement, which Emily Menashes, deputy director of the Office of Sustainable Fisheries, and Galen Tromble, chief of the Domestic Fisheries Division, emphasized in their joint national teleconference. The presentation came as the NOAA budget for fiscal 2013 remains divided, having cleared the House and the Senate Commerce Committee with a variety of amendments needing reconciliation.

The Senate version would defund the Northeast Division offices here in Gloucester and consolidate them in Silver Spring, Md., where NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service is headquartered.

Read the complete article in The Gloucester Times

 

 

 

 

 

May 14, 2012 – Venue: U.S. Capitol Visitor Center

Cause: Combating “seafood fraud.”

Bona fides: Concerned mom and beach-goer; plays a grim-faced accountant/cat lady on “The Office.”

Backup: Chef-activist Barton Seaver, Gulf Coast fisherman Donald Waters, officials from the conservation group Oceana.

What she wants: Better labeling, more inspections and enforcement to prevent sellers from passing off cheap fish as premium species or sneaking endangered and restricted seafood into U.S. markets.

What she wore: Summery green dress, open-toed shoes.

How she sounded: Much warmer, more personable than her TV persona, reports our colleague Aaron Leitko. Generous with the small talk, despite first-time celebvocate jitters.

Read the full story at the Washington Post.

 

 

They may disagree on everything else under the sun, but Republican incumbent Scott Brown and his Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren — who are locked in a tense, high-profile struggle for a U.S. Senate seat — agree on the basic problems harming the Massachusetts fishing industry.

Their agreement is that the federal government has been levying excessive fines and overregulating the fleet, which has been further weakened from a combination of statutory limits on catch levels and a commodification market program adopted in 2010 and taken directly from a policy paper co-written by NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco while she was still serving on the board of directors at the Environmental Defense Fund. The lead financer for the policy paper advocating catch shares was the Walton Family Foundation, endowed with Wal-Mart profits and controlled by the family that founded and still owns the world's largest retailer.

Asked by the Times to respond to a 30-second radio ad that began running last week about what ails the fishing industry, Warren issued a statement that did not attempt to differentiate herself from Brown's extensive pronouncements. Brown has also filed multiple bills to ameliorate the problems.

"Our fishermen work hard and play by the rules, and they deserve to have a fair shot at success," Warren said in the prepared statement.

Read the complete article in The Gloucester Times

 

 

 

 

 

PANAMA CITY — Rep. Steve Southerland’s amendment to stop the expansion of a controversial form of fisheries management has passed the U.S. House of Representatives.

The subject of Southerland’s amendment is Limited Access Privilege Programs, commonly called “catch shares.” The system essentially uses a quota-like system in an effort to prevent overfishing.

Earlier last week, the House voted 220-191 to pass the Southerland-Grimm Amendment to stop new federal funds for catch share programs not already developed, approved or implemented for any fishery along the Atlantic coast or Gulf of Mexico.

“By gifting a select few with a stake of the annual allowable catch, catch shares amount to nothing less than a cap-and-trade management system that privatizes access to once open waterways,” said Southerland, R-Panama City, in a press release.

Read the complete article from The Panama City News Herald

 

 

 

 

 

A Massachusetts senator and frequent critic of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is calling for leadership change at that agency and a review of its travel policies, in part, based on an exclusive Reporter/Keynoter report last week about a questionable Philadelphia, Pa. conference.

Republican Sen. Scott Brown wrote a letter Thursday to John Bryson, secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce, NOAA’s parent agency, saying his office still has not been told the reason for the location of the April 30 through May 3 conference, attended by 135 members of NOAA’s office of General Counsel.

NOAA has no offices except for weather stations in Philadelphia, and sources familiar with the conference said all hotels, travels and meals were paid for with taxpayer money. NOAA has not responded to repeated questions from The Reporter about the cost of the conference or the official agenda.

Brown said his staff has also been unsuccessful in finding out any specifics about the meeting.

Read the complete article from The Reporter