July 31, 2012 — In separate letters, U.S. Sens. John Kerry and Scott Brown have expressed impatience at the delay by the U.S. Commerce Department in making public what is expected to be a second scathing set of case studies by a retired judge of federal fisheries law enforcement gone bad.
Kerry, whose brother Cameron Kerry, as general counsel for the department, has the lead role in approving the redacted version of the work of special judicial master Charles B. Swartwood III, wrote first to NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco on July 23.
Three days later, last Thursday, Brown wrote to Acting Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank, asking for the report “as a member of Congress and under the Freedom of Information Act.”
Attorneys with clients that are among the 66 cases that Swartwood reviewed on the direction of former Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, have said that Swartwood made his full report to the then Commerce Secretary John Bryson in March.
If true, Bryson, and his acting successor, Blank, have had the second report for four months — three months longer than than it took Locke to review, redact and release the first set of findings more than a year ago.
“This Department thinks that it is accountable to no one,” said New Bedford attorney Pamela Lafreniere, who has more than a dozen clients whose cases are among those studied and reported on by Swartwood. “Why would anyone be surprised that they would withhold this report from the public?”
“It is imperative that the Department of Commerce release the final report of the Special Master in a timely manner. Fishermen who were unduly targeted and fined by NOAA’s (Office of Law Enforcement) should receive appropriate compensation and reprieve as soon as possible,” added Congressman John Tierney, whose district includes Cape Ann.
“It is disappointing – but not surprising – that we are again waiting on NOAA to release the second report under Special Investigator Charles B. Swartwood, III,” said Rep. William Keating, the Democrat whose district includes the ports of central Massachusetts and Cape Cod.
A spokesman for Rep. Barney Frank said the congressman also believes the report should be released “immediately.”
“It continues to be disappointing that the department is stuck in a pattern of delay and denial,” said Rep. Walter Jones, whose district includes coastal North Carolina. “This is all the more reason why administrator Lubchenco should resign.”
Frank and Tierney, both Democrats, and Brown and Jones, both Republicans, have all called for Lubchenco’s ouster, but their demands have fallen in deaf ears elsewhere on Capitol Hill or within the Obama administration.
The first Swartwood report became the basis of a Cabinet level apology and more than $650,000 in reparations distributed to the 11 most harmed victims — businesses based in Gloucester and New Bedford.
Read the full story in the Gloucester Times