The head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, Oregon’s own Jane Lubchenko, has apparently discovered the wonder of plundering the proletariat to buy luxury items for the cadres.

 
Take the new vessel that she uses for booze cruises for example.

“NOAA officials used the boat for the following: trips to dockside restaurants; hamburger and hotdog BBQs and alcohol-fueled parties; and ‘pleasure cruises’ at high rates of speed, with beer consumed onboard. Let’s be honest. A booze cruise is a booze cruise.”

So said a steaming Senator Scott Brown who, along with a Democrat Congressman have been po’d over Lubchenko’s version of lifestyles of the rich and famous while Massachusetts fishermen suffer in the recession.

Lubchenko is using “unreasonable” fines levied on fisherman to finance the $300K + vessel that had ‘no official purpose.” That’s money that was to have stayed in Massachusetts. 

From the Washington Examiner (here):

The craft is the subject of a damning — and highly redacted — 34-page report of an investigation by the U.S. Commerce Department’s inspector general titled “Irregularities in NOAA’s $300,000 Undercover Vessel Procurement.”

Three weeks ago, Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., and Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., both of whom have substantial seafood catching, selling, and consuming constituencies, obtained a copy of the report under the Freedom of Information Act.

It was an iron-eyed investigation of NOAA’s law enforcement office in Seattle, spurred by a fed-up whistleblower disgusted by higher-ups who dodged procurement rules to buy a luxury pleasure boat.

Brown had to battle NOAA to get information from the IG’s report through a freedom of information request. A sitting Senator couldn’t get the report from an unaccountable bureaucrat! Very interesting. Another insight into Obama’s World.

I think Brown has it about right: NOAA now stands for: No One is Accountable to Anyone.