July 15, 2024 — A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is not measuring up to bycatch-monitoring standards.
In its 60-page report, GAO outlined a number of ways in which NFMS has failed to adequately tackle bycatch issues and harm to marine mammals and other species. According to the report, a central failing from the NMFS was a lack of observer coverage of fisheries.
March 19, 2021 — A report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released on 19 March found that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been failing to follow its own procedures or meet key goals regarding warning letters sent to seafood companies violating food safety regulations.
The report, which came with a GAO recommendation that the FDA monitor whether it is following procedures and meeting goals for its warning letters, found that out of 125 warning letters sent for significant inspection violations, just 14 were properly followed up on. The FDA’s own goal for all warning letters requires follow-up inspections within six months to ensure violations have been corrected – a goal the administration rarely meets.
“For the letters that FDA sent from 2014 to early 2019, FDA didn’t consistently follow key procedures or meet key goals,” the GAO said in a press release.
The GAO analyzed 167 imported seafood warning letters issued by the FDA from 1 January, 2014, through 11 March, 2019, finding that for those letters the FDA “did not consistently follow key procedures or meet key goals for its warning letter process.”
December 3, 2020 — In May 2020 Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced the allocation of $300 million in fisheries assistance funding provided by Sec. 12005 of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, also known as the CARES Act. We’re less a month away from 2021 … so the funds have all been dispersed, right? Not quite. According to a recent report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), as of October 23, only about $16.5 million of the $300 million has been disbursed.
The CARES Act authorizes the Department of Commerce to provide assistance to eligible tribal, subsistence, commercial and charter fishery participants who have been affected by COVID-19. NOAA turned to their partners—the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, and the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission—to disburse the funds. However, before they could begin the payouts, the commissions had to work with the states, tribes and territories to develop spend plans for NOAA’s approval.