Chris Oliver, who headed the National Marine Fisheries Service during the Trump administration, has joined Bering Sea trawl heavyweight American Seafoods as special adviser on government affairs.
Conflicts of interest have persisted for years with NMFS, NPFMC, Alaska state offices, Lobbyists and even family members. If you're making money off fisheries [and not actively fishing] you should not be steering it's direction.
Chris Oliver was never making money off of fisheries during his time in government. However, he was consistently a defender of the trawl fleet under the pretense of science and equity. Any reasonable person would surmise that lucrative future work influenced Mr. Oliver's decisions while at NPFMC and NOAA. People hate a government sell out. At best it shows a lack of integrity, at worst it's corruption.
Imagine my surprise seeing the head of NMFS transition to a corporate shill job with a factory trawler company.
ReplyDeleteConflicts of interest have persisted for years with NMFS, NPFMC, Alaska state offices, Lobbyists and even family members. If you're making money off fisheries [and not actively fishing] you should not be steering it's direction.
ReplyDeleteChris Oliver was never making money off of fisheries during his time in government. However, he was consistently a defender of the trawl fleet under the pretense of science and equity. Any reasonable person would surmise that lucrative future work influenced Mr. Oliver's decisions while at NPFMC and NOAA. People hate a government sell out. At best it shows a lack of integrity, at worst it's corruption.
ReplyDelete