Saving Seafood

Regulators walk back catch limits for Atlantic herring

June 25, 2025 — Federal regulators have proposed expanding catch limits for Atlantic herring, reversing course on earlier restrictions set to bring the stressed fishery back from the edge of collapse.

NOAA Fisheries’ proposed rule would expand 2025 harvest limits to 4,556 metric tons, 68 percent higher than the current limit of 2,710 metric tons. The proposal, which adopted recommendations from the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC), would further raise catch limits to 9,134 metric tons in 2026.

“The Council’s proposed specifications is anticipated to prevent overfishing and meet other conservation and management goals for the fishery,” Jamie Cournane, the NEFMC’s lead fishery analyst for Atlantic herring, said in a statement.

Read the full article at E&E News

New England herring fishery restricted through year’s end

November 14, 2024 — Federal fishing regulators are limiting the amount of herring that fishermen can catch off New England until the end of the year. The fish is used for food and bait.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says it’s implementing a 2,000-pound herring possession limit per trip in the inshore Gulf of Maine through Dec. 31. The inshore Gulf of Maine, known as Atlantic Herring Management Area 1A, touches coastal Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.

The agency says it’s taking the step because 92% of the catch limit in the area will have been harvested Wednesday.

The catch limit goes into effect Thursday at 12:01 a.m. Vessels that enter port before 12:01 a.m. Thursday may land and sell more than 2,000 pound of herring from Management Area 1A from that trip, provided that catch is landed in accordance with state management measures.

Also effective Thursday at 12:01 a.m., federally permitted dealers may not attempt to or purchase, receive, possess, have custody or control of, sell, barter, trade, or transfer more than 2,000 pound of herring per trip or calendar day from Area 1A.

NOAA Fisheries has declared Atlantic herring as overfished and has created a plan that will require years for the stock to rebuild.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries 

MAINE: Maine lobstermen worried about cuts to how much herring they can catch for bait

November 1, 2024 — Fishermen in Maine say they’re dealing with a new setback: a nearly 90 percent cut in how much herring they can bring in to bait lobster.

Congressman Jared Golden says he’s opposed to the limit, which would reduce the herring catch by 89 percent over three years.

Fishermen in Maine say they question how regulators came to that catch limit, saying the fish are out there.

Read the full article at Fox 23

New England fishermen sentenced in complex herring fraud case

July 15, 2024 — Several commercial fishermen in New England have been sentenced in a fraud scheme that centered on a critically important species of bait fish and that prosecutors described as complex and wide-ranging

The fishermen were sentenced for “knowingly subverting commercial fishing reporting requirements” in a scheme involving Atlantic herring, prosecutors said in a statement. The defendants included owners, captains and crew members of the Western Sea, a ship that operates out of Maine.

Western Sea owner Glenn Robbins pleaded guilty in March to submitting false information to the federal government regarding the catch and sale of Atlantic herring and a failure to pay taxes, prosecutors said. Members of the ship’s crew conspired to submit false trip reports to the federal government from 2016 to 2019, court records state. The charges are misdemeanors.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

NEFMC: Last Call for Atlantic Herring Amendment 10 Scoping Comments

April 18, 2024 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council is wrapping up the scoping period for Amendment 10 to the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan. Amendment 10 is an action to: (1) minimize user conflicts, contribute to optimum yield, and support rebuilding of Atlantic herring; and (2) enhance river herring and shad avoidance and catch reduction.

Two opportunities remain to offer input on the potential range and direction of this amendment.

  • Join the April 22, 2024 Webinar: This is a webinar-only meeting that begins at 6:00 p.m. Here’s the link to register for the webinar. Voice your positions and offer suggestions during this final scoping session.
  • Write a Letter: Let the Council know your thoughts by letter or email. All written comments must be received by the Council no later than 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday, April 30, 2024. Written comments should be addressed to Executive Director Cate O’Keefe and mailed or emailed to:

New England Fishery Management Council 50 Water Street, Mill #2
Newburyport, Massachusetts 01950
comments@nefmc.org
** Please label your letter or email as “Atlantic Herring Amendment 10 Scoping Comments.” **

Herring fishermen cautiously optimistic after US Supreme Court hears arguments on at-sea observer requirements

January 21, 2024 — The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), which has been representing commercial fishermen in an ongoing case before the U.S. Supreme Court, expressed cautious optimism that the court would align with their reasoning following oral arguments.

“After many years, our clients were finally before a court that seemed disinclined to defer to the agency they have been fighting as to what the law is,” NCLA Senior Litigation Counsel John Veccione said.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

America’s Supreme Court is inclined to clamp down on regulators

January 18, 2024 — A pair of spirited Supreme Court hearings on January 17th confronted a question at the heart of American democracy: what is the balance of power among the three branches of the federal government? The justices seemed inclined to shift that balance towards their own chambers.

The cases under review both involve fishermen objecting to a regulation requiring them to pay hefty fees for monitors who keep an eye on them as they troll for herring. The rule was issued in 2020 by the National Marine Fisheries Service, an agency of the executive branch. It was then blessed by two circuit courts of appeal as consonant with the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, a law passed by Congress in 1976.

Read the full article at the Economist 

Conservative Justices Appear Skeptical of Agencies’ Regulatory Power

January 18, 2024 — Members of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed inclined on Wednesday to limit or even overturn a key precedent that has empowered executive agencies, threatening regulations in countless areas, including the environment, health care and consumer safety.

Each side warned of devastating consequences should it lose, underscoring how the court’s decision in a highly technical case could reverberate across wide swaths of American life.

Overruling the precedent, Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar told the justices, would be an “unwarranted shock to the legal system.”

But Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh responded that there were in fact “shocks to the system every four or eight years when a new administration comes in, whether it’s communications law or securities law or competition law or environmental law.”

Read the full article at The New York Times

US Supreme Court appears split over US agency powers in fishing dispute

January 17, 2024 — The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared divided over a bid to further limit the regulatory powers of federal agencies in a dispute involving a government-run program to monitor for overfishing of herring off New England’s coast.

The justices heard arguments in appeals by two fishing companies of lower court rulings allowing the National Marine Fisheries Service to require commercial fishermen to help fund the program. The companies – led by New Jersey-based Loper Bright Enterprises and Rhode Island-based Relentless Inc – have argued that Congress did not authorize the agency, part of the U.S. Commerce Department, to establish the program.

The companies have asked the court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, to rein in or overturn a precedent established in 1984 that calls for judges to defer to federal agency interpretation of U.S. laws deemed to be ambiguous, a doctrine called “Chevron deference.”

The questions posed by the justices did not reveal a clear majority willing to overturn the precedent. Some of the conservative justices seemed skeptical of the doctrine’s continuing force. Others signaled hesitation about reversing it. The court’s liberal justices appeared ready to preserve the doctrine’s deference to the expertise of agencies.

Read the full article at Reuters 

Case brought to Supreme Court by herring fishermen may gut federal rulemaking power

January 17, 2024 –– The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case today, brought by fishing interests who are friends of Saving Seafood, which could upend the Chevron doctrine. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in two cases, Loper Bright Enterprises, Inc. v. Raimondo, Sec. of Comm. (22-451) and Relentless, Inc. v. Dept. of Commerce (22-1219).

From National Public Radio:

Judges are supposed to follow a two-step procedure. First, they’re supposed to ask whether the law is clear when someone challenges a federal rule. Then, if the law is not clear, if there’s an ambiguity, the court is supposed to defer to the agency interpretation if it’s reasonable.

In practice, that’s meant that courts often defer to people inside federal agencies who are experts on things like pollution, banking and food safety.

But all of it could be upended by a conservative supermajority on the court at the request of an unlikely set of plaintiffs: a group of herring fishermen based in Cape May, N.J.

One of them is Bill Bright, a first-generation fisherman whose family has followed him to the sea.

“My boys are working on the boats,” Bright said. “And my daughters, we have a shoreside business and they run that. So we’re all, the whole family is, in the seafood business 100%.”

Bright said he welcomes regulations to keep the herring population strong in the Northeastern United States. But he said the fisheries service went too far when the government mandated that vessel owners like him had to pay for observers on the boats to make sure they’re following the rules. 

Paul Clement, a former solicitor general in the George W. Bush administration, has argued more than 100 times before the Supreme Court. He represents the herring fishermen.

“Can’t think of a better way to mark the 40th anniversary of the Chevron decision than with an overruling,” Clement said. “In our view, this really has gotten out of control.”

He said the current system means Congress never has to weigh in and reach a compromise on the toughest policy questions, because one side or the other can just wait for a change in the executive branch every four or eight years, and the rules will swing back and forth based on the views of the political party in power.

“I think it’s really as simple as this: which is when the statute is ambiguous, and the tie has to go to someone, we think the tie should go to the citizen and not the government,” Clement added. “And one of the many problems with the Chevron rule is it basically says that when the statutory question is close, the tie goes to the government, and that just doesn’t make any sense to us.”

Read the full story at NPR