June 29, 2020 — In response to a June 5 order by President Trump that would open a national marine monument 150 miles off the coast of New England to commercial fishing, the National Resources Defense Council and other entities have come together to file a lawsuit to protect the region.
The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument was established in an area that was previously open to commercial fishing, supporting fish, red crab, squid, and lobster harvests. The monument was designated in 2016 by President Barack Obama as a way to protect the habitat “for a wide range of species, from endangered whales to Atlantic puffins to centuries-old deep-sea corals,” according to the N.R.D.C.
A group called Saving Seafood has fired back, issuing a June 17 statement of its own that said the marine monument had been established “without appropriate stakeholder consultation” in the first place. The environmental conservation community “chose the politically expedient route, and used their contacts and clout in the Obama administration to circumvent the scientific and public process. What they are now discovering is that what one president might create with the stroke of a pen, another president might take away.”