September 8, 2025 — The legal fight over on-board fishing monitors, which sparked the demise of a decades-old legal theory last year, is continuing on in federal appeals court.
The New Civil Liberties Alliance is appealing a decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, which found this summer — for a second time — that commercial fishing boat owners have to pay for monitors on their vessels to prevent over-fishing.
The district court ruling in the Relentless Inc. v. Department of Commerce case came after the fishing industry, represented by the NCLA, successfully argued before the Supreme Court that courts should no longer defer to federal agencies’ reading of ambiguous laws under what is known as Chevron deference.