July 19, 2023 — The Supreme Court is being asked to overturn a decades-old law giving federal regulators wide-ranging powers as it weighs a legal challenge by New Jersey commercial fishermen over new monitoring rules.
The high court is considering a lawsuit filed in 2020 by plaintiff Loper Bright Enterprises of New Jersey, challenging a rule requiring the industry to fund monitors to go out on commercial fishing vessels to collect data to craft new regulations. The fishermen argue the rules will force them to pay more than $700 per day to contractors, or about 20% of their pay.
But plaintiffs in the case say the dispute over federal monitors also provides an opportunity for the high court to blunt the powers of federal agencies by overturning the so-called Chevron deference.
“It’s a classic David versus Goliath story,” said Ryan Mulvey, an attorney with Cause of Action Institute representing commercial fishermen. “Chevron deference tips the scales of justice towards powerful federal agencies and away from citizens like the fishermen who are seeing their livelihoods threatened by a bureaucracy run amok.”