NOAA finally named its new law enforcement director Monday, 15 months after sliding Dale J. Jones into another job in the midst of a scandal of maladministration, overzealous agents and score-settling that debilitated or crushed fishing businesses and infuriated congressmen representing Atlantic coastal districts.
On Sept. 4, Bruce Buckson, a Floridian with 29 years of state and federal wildlife law enforcement experience, takes over federal fisheries law enforcement, a department of more than 200 agents scandalized, in shambles and under continuing investigation in the aftermath of Jones' decade at the helm.
Commerce Secretary Gary Locke described the department's problems as systemic, owing to a lack of training of agents, but the professional association representing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's enforcement litigators countered that the actions explored in multiple reports were for the most part authorized by management.
Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times.