Tag Archives: Samuel D. Rauch III
Trouble in Paradise? WPFMC Destroys Tape of Secret Meeting – Council Staff Limits Public’s Access to Documents
On Feb. 24, just a few days after learning of the existence of the recording, we filed a formal Freedom of Information Act request to obtain a copy of it. The response came on April 4. “The Western Pacific Fishery Management Council staff has advised that an audio recording of the subcommittee meeting was erased on February 22, 2014,” stated the letter signed by Samuel D. Rauch III, administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service. “We are in the process of reviewing the circumstances of this action.” Read more here 16:05
NOAA report ignores ‘disaster’
Without acknowledging the socio-economic disaster that has befallen the Northeast groundfishery, endangering the scale of the nation’s oldest fishery and the viability of small ports like Gloucester, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Thursday released its annual status of the stocks 2012 — proclaiming “significant continued progress to “end overfishing and rebuild fish stocks.” continued
NOAA Responds to Massachusetts legislators on cod, haddock, and yellowtail flounder: the answer is still no
Many legal observers, Members of Congress and elected officials disagree with that interpretation. Saving Seafood requested the legal opinion of the General Counsel under the Freedom of Information Act. The Department found 2
9 pages of written material constituting the advice, but refused to release any of them under 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(5), which exempts from disclosure inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters that would not be available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency. Saving Seafood continues to ask the agency to explain their legal rationale in the face of such widespread disagreement from numerous legislators and lawyers with qualifications to comment. continued
NOAA economic report seen as ‘sham’ – Sales, job data doesn’t add up, fishermen say
NOAA’s annual statistical progress report on the vitality of the nation’s fishing industry, which traditionally accentuates the positive, indicates that 2011 produced the “highest landings volume since 1997 and the highest value” in dollars “ever recorded.” continue
