[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2093-2094]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  NOAA

  Mr. BROWN of Massachusetts. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments 
of the Senator before me. I wish to rise to inform colleagues and the 
public of some highly disturbing information that I have just learned 
about a broken agency within our Federal Government, something actually 
that Senator Carper and I have been working on. I know he will have 
great interest in this issue. I am talking about the National Oceanic 
and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA.
  We all know Washington does not spend our money wisely, the money 
they collect from individual citizens. They do not spend it wisely. But 
sometimes it is worth highlighting examples of the corruption and waste 
that is actually taking place in the Federal Government.
  Yesterday morning, I contacted the Commerce Department inspector 
general to request a copy of their report on NOAA's purchase of a 
$300,000 luxury boat. It would be bad enough if they purchased this 
boat with taxpayer dollars, but they did not. They paid for it with 
money that should belong to our struggling fishermen. They paid for it 
out of fines fisherman pay into the pot when they mistakenly catch the 
wrong kinds of fish. Those dollars are supposed to stay in the fishing 
community to help the fishermen.
  I would like to point out--this is the boat. This is a photo of the 
actual boat that was purchased. For a government vessel, I would say 
that is pretty flashy. Let's take a look inside this boat. This is a 
fully appointed bar, the latest onboard entertainment systems, the 
leather furniture complete with the ice check and tackle rack. I think 
anyone would love to have a boat such as this. NOAA has this boat.
  Furthermore, the fines fishermen have been paying are putting 
fishermen out of business. These stories will break your heart. This 
story breaks my heart. It is something I speak about regularly when I 
am with my fishermen in Massachusetts. Let me describe the situation to 
people who are listening in the gallery and also people who are 
watching.
  NOAA levied totally unreasonable fines against our fishermen. They 
used that money to buy themselves a luxury boat.
  What else did the IG investigation find? Here we go:
  According to the IG, NOAA had no reasonable official use for this 
boat. Let's start there. They didn't need it. Period. They had some 
story about needing an ``undercover vessel'' to sneak up on 
whalewatching vessels. Imagine that--armed Federal agents sneaking up 
on school groups and tourists trying to learn about nature. The IG 
found this to be as ridiculous. NOAA officials wanted this useless 
luxury boat. Then they-invented a reason to buy it with fishermen's 
hard-earned dollars.
  So why did NOAA go to such lengths to ``manipulate'' and ``violate'' 
the government purchasing rules to get this boat? NOAA already has many 
boats and more cars than it has agents, so why add this to the 
inventory? They apparently didn't need it for official purposes. We 
know that because the IG says that it was never--I repeat--never--used 
for official business.
  The sad truth is that it was a fishermen-funded party boat for 
bureaucrats, Mr. President. That's right, while fishermen in Gloucester 
and New Bedford are struggling to put off foreclosure or mourning the 
loss of their livelihood because of NOAA's overzealous enforcement, the 
NOAA office was living the good life on their dime.
  NOAA officials used the boat for the following: Trips to dockside 
restaurants; Hamburger and hotdog BBQs and alcohol-fueled parties and 
with family and friends; ``Pleasure cruises'' at high rates of speed, 
with beer consumed on-board; Even though Federal rules ban non-
employees from being on vessels, a NOAA supervisor even told a 
subordinate that his wife was welcome to ``kick back and watch TV'' on 
the boat; They filed expense reports and reimbursed themselves for 
these trips.
  What excuse did NOAA employees give for this behavior? They needed to 
do all these things to maintain the recreational appearance of this 
``undercover'' boat . . . that was never even used for the 
``undercover'' work that it was supposedly purchased for.
  Mr. President, let's be serious: A booze cruise is a booze cruise. 
One NOAA officer decided to take his family on a weekend trip to a posh 
resort. He took the undercover NOAA party boat to get there, but he was 
untrained in how to operate it and blew out a $30,000 engine. Rather 
than turn back and write the taxpayers a check, he simply abandoned it 
and took a marked NOAA law enforcement boat the rest of the way to 
their resort. Nothing could get between this NOAA employee and a good 
time. When asked about that incident, the NOAA employee lied to the IG 
and said there was no family on board. That was just one of many 
instances of NOAA employees deliberately misleading the IG.
  Another NOAA officer used the undercover NOAA boat to take his wife 
to lunch in Seattle. On this trip, the boat engines stalled in a 
shipping lane because the boat ran out of fuel due to another operator 
error. The guy didn't know how to switch the tanks. So they were stuck 
drifting in a dangerous shipping lane. The officer and his wife 
apparently found the situation comical. I don't think that the 
fishermen in New Bedford or Glouster or Fall River are laughing. Again, 
the money that belonged to our hard-working fishermen is paying for all 
this. I cannot fathom that type of behavior, especially in this tough 
time when we are all in a fiscal emergency.
  To this day, no one has been held accountable. No one has been 
disciplined, fired or even reprimanded for anything having to do with 
this boat.
  As we see today, NOAA has a culture of corruption that has created a 
chasm of distrust between the agency and the fishing industry. That 
trust is something that absolutely needs to be reestablished.
  I would like to take 1 more minute. My question is addressed to the 
President--not the Presiding Officer, the real President, President 
Obama, and to Dr. Lubchenco. What does it take to get fired from NOAA? 
We have the abusive treatment of fishermen resulting in the decimation 
of the fleet; investigations motivated by money, shredding parties 
destroying 75 to 80 percent of the required documents before an 
investigation, lying to the IG, discouraging cooperation with the IG, 
misleading Members of the Congress, the $300,000 party boat purchases, 
$12,000 in party boat expenses paid with fishermen's fines, a $30,000 
engine destroyed by a NOAA employee on his weekend vacation and no one 
is held accountable.
  This needs to change. Accountability starts at the top. NOAA's 
leadership needs to change. I am calling one more time to have 
President Obama fire NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, and if not now, 
when? If for not this, then for what? What does it take to get fired at 
NOAA? Our fishermen and the

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American taxpayers deserve better from the Federal Government.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.

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