September 1, 2020 — The National Marine Fisheries Service is failing to develop a plan to rebuild Atlantic cod stocks that have been depleted by overfishing, according to a lawsuit filed in a Washington federal court.
The agency’s failure is arbitrary and capricious and violates the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, under which NMFS has a mandatory duty to rebuild fisheries as quickly as possible, according to the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.