October 8, 2026 — Six commercial fishing businesses and fishermen, including two on the Treasure Coast, have filed a lawsuit challenging a two-week recreational red snapper fishing season for Florida, Georgia and South Carolina that starts Oct. 9.
The lawsuit contends the decision to allow the 14-day season was based on unsupported assumptions that will lead to overharvest of red snapper.
October 7, 2026 — The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up a lawsuit challenging a Maine rule requiring commercial lobstermen to use electronic vessel tracking systems.
In an unwritten decision, the high court denied lobsterman Frank Thompson’s petition for a writ of certiorari to consider a case against the Maine Department of Marine Resources, claiming that GPS monitoring of private boats violates Fourth Amendment protections. The decision effectively ends the long-running legal fight, upholding a previous federal appeals court ruling rejecting the lawsuit.
Thompson, who was represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, had claimed the 24/7 surveillance unfairly targets Maine’s federally licensed lobster fleet.
October 6, 2026 — The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a case that argued against 24/7 GPS monitoring of the Maine’s lobster fishing fleet.
In 2023, Maine began requiring commercial lobstermen in the state to install GPS monitoring devices that would enable 24/7 tracking of the vessels – a move called for by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. Soon after, lobstermen sued, calling it a violation of both the fourth and 14th amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
October 6, 2026 — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a case challenging Maine’s requirement that certain commercial lobstermen use electronic vessel tracking devices, leaving in place a lower court ruling that upheld the program.
The case was brought by Frank Thompson, a Maine lobsterman who argued the state’s tracking requirement violates the Fourth Amendment by forcing fishermen to submit to continuous GPS monitoring as a condition of keeping their fishing licenses.
September 28, 2026 — A Supreme Court case over lobster boats in Maine could affect far more than one fisherman’s daily routine.
The dispute asks whether Maine can require federally permitted lobster and Jonah crab boats to keep GPS trackers running at all times, including when they are not being used for commercial fishing.
For working waterfront families, the case has become a clash between privacy and property rights on one side and fishery oversight on the other in an industry that helps sustain communities across coastal Maine.
September 28, 2026 — The tug-of-war between regulators and recreational fishermen isn’t over as North Carolina has decided to appeal a judge’s ruling that the state has mismanaged its coastal fisheries.
The move comes roughly a month after a Wake County judge found that there was overwhelming evidence that the state had failed to protect and manage its fish stocks in the public interest of all North Carolinians.
In the case filed by the Coastal Conservation Association of North Carolina and dozens of other private individuals, the recreational fishermen argued that the regulators failed to adequately protect the state’s fisheries for long-term sustainability and the benefit of all residents.
But how to turn the proverbial tide while protecting the interest of all parties − recreational fishermen, commercial fishermen and the fish themselves − remains as murky as ever. The state’s decision to appeal the case drags that process out.
September 24, 2026 — A coalition of 21 state attorneys general is challenging the Trump administration’s changes to the Endangered Species Act (ESA), setting up a legal fight over rules that could affect commercial fisheries, species protection, and marine habitat.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta co-led two lawsuits filed against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries. The states are challenging revisions involving the definition of “harm,” critical habitat designations, and protections for species listed as threatened.
The lawsuits ask the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to vacate the rules, arguing they violate the Endangered Species Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act.
The changes could be particularly relevant to commercial fishermen because NOAA Fisheries administers the ESA for many marine and anadromous species. ESA protections can influence fishing regulations, federal permitting, habitat protections, and measures intended to reduce interactions with protected species.
September 24, 2026 — The U.S. state of North Carolina is appealing a court ruling that found evidence “overwhelmingly” shows the state’s government failed to protect coastal fisheries.
North Carolina Attorney General Marc Bernstein filed notice of the state’s intent to appeal on 16 September, roughly a month after Judge Bryan Collins of the Wake County Superior Court determined the evidence presented in court showed the state “failed to meet its ‘obligation to manage and protect fisheries for the benefit of the general public’ as required under the public-trust doctrine.”
September 23, 2026 — Democratic attorneys general from California and New York sued the Trump administration Tuesday over its plans to buy back offshore wind leases as President Donald Trump seeks to discourage the expansion of wind energy in favor of fossil fuels.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said he is suing over removal of a project off his state’s coast planned by Chicago-based Invenergy. The Trump administration said in June that it’s buying back the company’s U.S. offshore wind leases for four wind projects on the East and West coasts.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, meanwhile, led seven states in suits seeking to block the Invenergy deal and another proposal with Bluepoint Wind, which agreed in April to end a wind farm under development off the New York and New Jersey coast.
The deals would hand energy companies $1.4 billion in taxpayer dollars in exchange for the cancellation of multiple projects. ln all, the Trump administration has pledged nearly $4 billion to companies to walk away from projects across the country.
September 23, 2026 — A federal judge in Honolulu has refused to let the Trump administration delay a hearing that could decide whether a deep-sea mining lease sale off American Samoa broke federal law, leaving open the chance that a court could block the sale before it happens.
U.S. District Judge Jill Otake denied the government’s motion to continue in an order issued Friday. She kept an Oct. 30 hearing intact on Earthjustice’s motion for summary judgment, meaning the case could be decided roughly three weeks before American Samoa’s lease sale, tentatively set for Nov. 19.
Earthjustice’s lawsuit targets the National Marine Fisheries Service, not the Marine Minerals Administration, the Interior agency actually running the sale. The fisheries service issued what’s called a letter of concurrence, agreeing with MMA’s finding that leasing wouldn’t likely harm whales, sea turtles and other protected species. Earthjustice argues the agency never seriously weighed what mining itself, not just leasing, could do to marine life.
The timing carries weight beyond American Samoa. Earthjustice is pursuing a nearly identical case over mining leases planned 47 miles from Guam, and the attorney handling both cases says the Hawaii ruling will shape how the Marianas fight unfolds.
“How things go with American Samoa will greatly inform how things go with (Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands),” said Harley Broyles, the Earthjustice attorney, in an interview Wednesday with The Guam Daily Post, “because of the similarity of the issues.”