April 19, 2012 – U.S. Sen. Scott Brown has formally urged President Obama to fire NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco and instruct the Justice Department begin "an outside review" of scandals at her agency.
In a letter to the president dated last Friday, Brown accused Lubchenco of excessively protecting those "who should be facing serious discipline."
The White House did not respond Wednesday to Times telephone and emailed requests for a response.
Lubchenco has repeatedly cited the Privacy Act as a bar to giving a public account of any action taken against agency personnel for violating the rights of fishermen in a still unfolding story of the law enforcement system run amok.
But she did authorize individual, confidential briefings for Brown and Sen. John Kerry, who had complained separately and together about NOAA's refusal to divulge how the misconduct, documented by the Commerce Department inspector general and a special judicial master, has been handled by the agency.
Based on his briefing last November, Brown wrote to the president that "not a single person has been fired or seriously disciplined for … serious misconduct."
Read the full story at the Gloucester Times.