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02/6/2013

Drakes Bay Oyster Company Appeals Judge’s Decision to Deny Injunction

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FEBRUARY 6, 2013

DRAKES BAY OYSTER COMPANY APPEALS JUDGE’S DECISION TO DENY INJUNCTION

The Lunny Family Continues the Fight to Keep the Farm in Business

 

SAN FRANCISCO – Cause of Action (CoA), a government accountability organization, Briscoe Ivester & Bazel LLP, and SSL Law today appealed Judge Gonzalez Rogers’s decision to deny an injunction for Drakes Bay Oyster Company, which would have allowed the company to remain open for the duration of the trial, Drakes Bay Oyster Company v. Salazar, et al.  Without an injunction, the family farm will be required to cease all operations, destroy millions of un-harvested oysters, and force several families living on the farm to move elsewhere by February 28.

“We are committed to fighting against government abuse and overreach to keep the Lunny family in business,” said Amber Abbasi, Chief Counsel for Regulatory Affairs at Cause of Action, “and are taking all the necessary legal steps to appeal this ruling.”

Kevin Lunny, owner of Drakes Bay Oyster Company offered this brief statement on behalf of the farm:

“We continue to be grateful for the outpouring of support from our community.  We have had time to weigh our options carefully, and have decided to appeal the judge’s decision.”

Cause of Action and Briscoe Ivester & Bazel LLP, and SSL Law represent Drakes Bay Oyster Company.

 

The judge’s decision can be found here.

 Our Appeal and Exhibits can be found here.

About Cause of Action:

Cause of Action is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that uses investigative, legal, and communications tools to educate the public on how government accountability and transparency protects taxpayer interests and economic opportunity. For more information, visit www.causeofaction.org.

 

 

 

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02/6/2013

Wednesday February 6, 2013 Morning News

More coverage of the Drakes Bay Oyster Conflict today. The Wall Street Journal reports (see also print edition, A4):

Its owners, Kevin and Nancy Lunny, declined to comment through Cause of Action, a Washington, D.C., advocacy group that represents them legally. “The Lunnys are weighing their options for next steps,” said Amber Abbasi, a lawyer for the group, in a statement.”

There is continued fallout from the NLRB case that overturned President Barack Obama’s recess appointments.  More from The Washington Free Beacon:

Critics of President Barack Obama’s recess appointments are calling on Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan to recuse herself from a potential Supreme Court hearing on the matter. The Chamber of Commerce raised the prospect of recusal, citing then-solicitor general Kagan’s defense of President Obama’s recess appointments in a previous case regarding the composition of the National Labor Relations Board.

Bloom Energy continues to reveal cronyism in their business dealings, this time paying workers nearly 2/3 less than minimum wage. Mercury News has this story:

A prominent Silicon Valley clean-energy startup has been ordered to pay back wages and penalties for bringing in workers from Mexico and paying them about $2.66 an hour in pesos, the U.S. Department of Labor announced Tuesday. Sunnyvale-based Bloom Energy, which makes fuel cells and sells energy to clients including AT&T, Adobe, Coca-Cola, eBay, Google and Wal-Mart, was ordered by a judge to pay $31,922 in back wages and an equal amount in damages to 14 welders who were brought in to work alongside domestic workers refurbishing power generators.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is concerned about how the DOJ is enforcing adherence to FOIA laws. 

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02/5/2013

Who is watching the watchdogs?

Recently, Cause of Action sent a letter to Congressman Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight Committee. In it, we address specific questions that we have about the efficacy and efficiency of the Office of Special Counsel (OSC).

Over the past few months, Cause of Action has been investigating the events leading up to and surrounding the Hatch Act violation by Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Though OSC’s investigation concluded that Secretary Sebelius was guilty of a Hatch Act violation, Cause of Action was concerned that not enough had been done. We were concerned that Sebelius, who was the highest ranking executive branch employee ever to have been found guilty of violating the Hatch Act, had been essentially let off the hook without any real form of punishment and curious about how that had come about.

In essence, OSC is an independent arm of the executive branch that acts as a watchdog for federal employees through investigations and prosecution. Among many other things, the OSC investigates allegations of Prohibited Personnel Practices such as waste of funds, mismanagement, and abusive practices by those in power, as well as Hatch Act violations.

What we found over the course of our investigation was that aside from providing gross misinformation in their report, that OSC ignored other potential violations of the law by both Sebelius and her aide, and that they also failed to report FEC violations—all things that should have been easily uncovered during the course of their investigation.

Our investigation also found that when Sebelius attended a function for Senator Sherrod Brown, she was prepped by HHS staffers and also used HHS funds for her travel. Even though the funds were ultimately reimbursed by the Brown campaign, this raises serious questions not only about Sebelius’ use of taxpayer funds, but also about the efficacy of an OSC investigation.

The HHS debacle aside, OSC also failed to investigate an event at the White House, sponsored by the Democratic National Committee, despite receipt of a letter sent from Chairman Issa to the OSC.

The question is: how effective is the OSC at dissuading employees of the federal government from engaging in Prohibited Personnel Practices if they never conduct thorough investigations? Further, when violations are found, what message does it send to federal employees when investigations do not yield meaningful punishment?

The culture of waste, fraud, cronyism and corruption that seems to have permeated the federal government needs to stop, and without a proper watchdog, who is there to do it?

See the letter to Congressman Issa and our press release for more information.

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02/5/2013

Tuesday February 5, 2013 Morning News

The judge in our Drakes Bay Oyster company lawsuit issued a ruling on the motion for preliminary injunction yesterday. The Associated Press reports:

A federal judge on Monday denied a Northern California oyster farm’s request to have its removal from Point Reyes National Seashore overturned, and ruled against allowing it to continue doing business in the park while its lawsuit is being heard in court. The judge denied owner Kevin Lunny’s request to void Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s refusal to renew the historic oyster farm’s lease for another 10 years. The rulings dealt a blow to the popular Drakes Bay Oyster Co.’s last-ditch effort to remain in business beyond its March 15 eviction date. 

[UPDATE] Be sure to read our response to the judge’s ruling.

President Obama is starting to vet replacements for cabinet members. More from Reuters:

A California-based hospital company says it will not comply with at least two National Labor Relations Board rulings from the past year after a federal court invalidated three of President Barack Obama’s recess appointments to the NLRB last week. 

A DOJ memo detailing legal justification for drone strikes, even on American citizens, was leaked. The New York Times has this story:

Obama administration lawyers have asserted that it would be lawful to kill a United States citizen if “an informed, high-level official” of the government decided that the target was a ranking figure in Al Qaeda who posed “an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States” and if his capture was not feasible, according to a 16-page document made public on Monday.

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02/5/2013

Press Release: Cause of Action Exposes Negligence and New Hatch Act Concerns at Office of Special Counsel

 

Cause of Action Exposes Negligence and New Hatch Act Concerns at Office of Special Counsel

Board Designated with Investigating Hatch Act Violations is Rife with Problems

 WASHINGTON – Cause of Action (CoA), a government accountability organization, sent a letter to Chairman Darrell Issa of the House Oversight Committee on Monday outlining new discoveries about Hatch Act violations and internal problems at the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) that warrant investigation.

The letter follows an OSC complaint filed on January 29, 2012 by Cause of Action requesting an investigation into AJ Pearlman, an aide to Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who committed a Hatch Act violation while accompanying the Secretary during a February 2012 trip. Cause of Action filed the complaint in concert with a complaint to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) concerning the Democratic National Committee’s reimbursement to the government for Secretary Sebelius’s political activity.

What Cause of Action is now revealing is a breakdown of accountability at the OSC on multiple levels:

  • OSC’s Investigation into HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Failed to Disclose a Potential Hatch Act Violation by Sebelius’s Aide AJ Pearlman
  • OSC Did Not Consider that Secretary Sebelius and Her Staff’s Support of Senator Sherrod Brown may Raise Hatch Act Concerns
  • OSC Failed to Investigate Potential Hatch Act Violations Arising from an Event at The White House Sponsored by the Democratic National Committee (DNC)
  • OSC Has Launched a Hatch Act Investigation into Secretary of the Interior Kenneth Salazar, but Will they Conclude that Investigation Before He Leaves Office in March 2013?
  • OSC Lacks Clear Guidelines for Appropriate Disciplinary Action against Federal Employees that Violate the Hatch Act
  • OSC’s Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner Used a Non-government E-mail Account to Conduct Agency Business

Executive Director of Cause of Action Dan Epstein explained the consequences of Cause of Action’s findings:

“The Office of Special Counsel exists, in part, to hold federal government employees to the standards of the law, yet we have found a breakdown of responsibility, ethics, and duty within their own agency.  As the primary Congressional body with jurisdiction over OSC, we are presenting our findings to the House Oversight Committee for their review.  Taxpayer dollars are funding an agency who is failing to execute its duties, and we intend to hold them accountable. The ripple effects of their failures mean that numerous agency employees are potentially getting away with breaking the law.”

The letter and the exhibits can be found here.

 

To schedule an interview with Cause of Action’s Communications Director Mary Beth Hutchins, contact Jamie Morris, jamie.morris@causeofaction.org.

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02/5/2013

CoA Letter to Issa on OSC issues

Letter to Issa

Issa Letter Exhibits

Investigation Learn More
02/4/2013

Statement from Drakes Bay Oyster Company in Response to Denial of Preliminary Injunction

Drakes Bay Oyster Company and Legal Team Respond to Federal Court Decision to Deny Request for Preliminary Injunction

 

WASHINGTON – Cause of Action (COA), a government accountability group working on behalf of Drakes Bay Oyster Company (DBOC) and owner Kevin Lunny, responded to Judge Gonzalez Rogers’s decision to deny an injunction for Drakes Bay Oyster Company, which would have allowed the company to remain open for the duration of the trial, Drakes Bay Oyster Company v. Salazar, et al. Following a November 2012 decision by Secretary of the Interior Kenneth Salazar which will shut down the oyster farm on February 28, DBOC filed a lawsuit against Salazar, the National Park Service, and the Department of the Interior for violating the law and not adhering to sound science.

 

Amber Abbasi, Cause of Action’s Chief Counsel for Regulatory Affairs, offered this response on behalf of the legal team representing DBOC, which includes pro-bono attorney services from Stoel Rives, LLP; SSL Law Firm, LLP; and Briscoe Ivester & Bazel, LLP:

 

“We are disappointed in the judge’s decision to deny our request for a preliminary injunction. Without this injunction, not only will a small business close, but families will be forced out of their homes, and the community will lose a sustainable farming resource.  The Lunnys are weighing their options for next steps and will make their decision known in the coming days.”

The judge’s decision can be found here.

About Cause of Action:

Cause of Action is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that uses investigative, legal, and communications tools to educate the public on how government accountability and transparency protects taxpayer interests and economic opportunity. For more information, visit www.causeofaction.org.

 

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