"The union's position is that (Juliand) is being hung out to dry by higher ups" in the department, the IG's office, and members of Congress who wrote the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which was reauthorized in 2006 and contains language allowing fines of $140,000 per count for violations, said Richard Hirn, a Washington lawyer for the National Weather Service Employees Organization.
Two leading industry lawyers, Stephen Ouellette and Pamela Lafreniere, while stopping short of exonerating Juliand for his role in imposing harsh sentences for minor violations, joined Juliand in pointing the finger of greater responsibility farther up the NOAA chain of command.
A New Bedford lawyer, Pamela Lafreniere said the IG's report was "a great beginning," but added that "none of these people acted alone and an entire system had to be complicit for this kind of activity to occur."
"The real problem here is NOAA's unfettered ability to issue fines, the basis of which is non-discoverable, and under the administrative law system, non-reviewable," Gloucester attorney Steve Ouellette wrote. "The penalties imposed have no relation to the 'harm' caused, nor do they take into account the actual economics of the fishery."
Ouellette said the focus should be on NOAA's top leadership which "sat by complacently over the last decade, in the face of explicit and well documented complaints while this abuse was inflicted on hardworking citizens of this nation."
"The current leadership at NOAA is hostile to the fishing industry — enforcement abuses are but one manifestation of this attitude," Oullette said. "NOAA's overly restrictive and anti-industry interpretation of statutory language has resulted in excessive restrictions … loss of jobs and waste of our natural fishery resources."
Ouellette and Lafreniere are also co-authors of a U.S. District Court suit with multiple industry plaintiffs up and down the Atlantic Coast challenging the legality and constitutionality of the method of managing the New England groundfishery created over more than three years around transforming the commonly held resources of the sea into shares of a regulated commodities market designed to attract external investment.
Their amended complaint contends the new regimen "imposes overly restrictive limits on a fishery that is substantially rebuilt" devalues permits in violation of the Fourth Amendment which bars "unreasonable search and seizures" and gave illegal preferential treatment to sub groups including one that has a business partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund, which has been the number one advocate of catch shares.
Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times.