Commerce Gary Locke travels to Boston and Portland, ME to meet with elected officials, fishermen, and fishing industry leaders.
The invitation-only meetings will be held at Suffolk Law School in Boston (73 Tremont Street).
The schedule is as follows:
9:15-9:30am: Secretary Locke will meet with elected officials (closed press)
9:30-10:30am: Secretary Locke will meet with fishermen, elected officials invited to join (closed press)
Later in the day, the Secretary will travel to Maine for similar meetings to be held at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute at 2 p.m. in Portland, Maine.
Last week, Secretary Locke announced sweeping reforms to increase accountability and transparency and strengthen the public's trust in NOAA's Office of Law Enforcement and the General Counsel for Enforcement and Litigation.
This came in the wake of a report by the U.S. Commerce Department inspector general which found multiple cases of likely abuse of police or legal authority in the federal fisheries law enforcement system, and argued that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration needs to "look back" and redress miscarriages of justice against fishermen.