Saving Seafood

Supreme Court rules for fishermen in landmark ‘Chevron deference’ case

July 1, 2024 — Herring fishermen in New Jersey and Rhode Island who objected to paying fees for fishery observers scored a victory in the U.S Supreme Court Friday that could upend 40 years of federal rulemaking.

The court’s 6-3 decision in the twin cases will have profound effects across U.S. government and industry, setting new limits on how executive branch agencies regulate energy, transportation, food and drugs and other health, safety and environmental rules.

Lawyers with conservative legal activist groups brought the cases, Loper Bright v. Department of Commerce and Relentless v. Department of Commerce, on behalf of fishermen who challenged a National Marine Fisheries Service rule that required them to carry onboard observers to monitor fishing, and pay costs for the observers contracted by NMFS, at up to $700 a day.

The cases hinged on the so-called “Chevron deference,” a landmark ruling in federal administrative law dating back to a 1984 dispute between the oil giant and environmental activists of the Natural Resources Defense Council. In that earlier Supreme Court decision, justices ruled that the courts should “defer” to executive agencies’ reasonable interpretations of federal statutes.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

The Supreme Court weakens federal regulators, overturning decades-old Chevron decision

June 28, 2024 — The Supreme Court on Friday upended a 40-year-old decision that made it easier for the federal government to regulate the environment, public health, workplace safety and consumer protections, delivering a far-reaching and potentially lucrative victory to business interests.

The court’s six conservative justices overturned the 1984 decision colloquially known as Chevron, long a target of conservatives who have been motivated as much by weakening the regulatory state as social issues including abortion. The liberal justices were in dissent.

The case was the conservative-dominated court’s clearest and boldest repudiation yet of what critics of regulation call the administrative state.

Bill Bright, a Cape May, New Jersey-based fisherman who was part of the lawsuit, said the decision to overturn Chevron would help fishing businesses make a living. “Nothing is more important than protecting the livelihoods of our families and crews,” Bright said in a statement.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Supreme Court delivers blow to power of federal agencies, overturning 40-year-old precedent

June 28, 2024 — The Supreme Court on Friday overturned a 40-year-old precedent that has been a target of the right because it is seen as bolstering the power of “deep state” bureaucrats.

In a ruling involving a challenge to a fisheries regulation, the court consigned to history a 1984 ruling called Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. That decision had said judges should defer to federal agencies in interpreting the law when the language of a statute is ambiguous, thereby giving regulatory flexibility to bureaucrats.

It is the latest in a series of rulings in which the conservative justices have taken aim at the power of federal agencies, including one on Thursday involving in-house Securities and Exchange Commission adjudications. The ruling was 6-3, with the conservative justices in the majority and liberal justices dissenting.

“Chevron is overruled,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority.”

He said that the ruling does not cast into doubt prior cases that relied on the precedent, but going forward lower courts “may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous.”

Read the full article at NBC News

Supreme Court Set to Decide Case That Could Curb Power of Government Agencies

June 27, 2024 — The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision this week that could have broad implications for the authority of federal regulatory agencies including the Securities and Exchange Commission and Environmental Protection Agency.

At issue is a four-decade-old precedent known as Chevron deference, which gives agencies wide latitude in crafting regulations. During oral arguments in January, some conservative justices expressed skepticism about it, suggesting the court could overturn or curtail it.

The precedent directs courts to defer to federal agencies’ reasonable interpretations of federal law when statutes are deemed ambiguous. Conservatives and business groups say that it has handed too much power to unelected government regulators.

Chevron deference lies at the heart of two cases the court heard this term: Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless v. Department of Commerce. Both cases involve fishing boat operators who challenged the constitutionality of federal government regulations intended to protect Atlantic herring fisheries. The plaintiffs took issue with a 2020 National Marine Fisheries Service rule requiring boat operators to pay for federal monitors on their ships. This can cost as much as $710 a day, according to the plaintiffs.

Chevron has been a “disaster,” lawyers for one of the fishing companies, Loper Bright Enterprises, wrote in a November court filing. “Lower courts see ambiguity everywhere and have abdicated the core judicial responsibility of statutory construction to executive-branch agencies,” they wrote. “The exponential growth of the Code of Federal Regulations and overregulation by unaccountable agencies has been the direct result.”

Read the full article at Market Watch

Additional coverage of last week’s historic Supreme Court actions in the Loper Bright and Relentless cases

January 23, 2024 — For more background on last week’s historic Supreme Court actions in the Loper Bright and Relentless cases, we are sharing three segments from Fox News.

– Lund’s Fisheries President and co-owner Wayne Reichle joined ‘America Reports’ to discuss the Supreme Court case.
– https://www.foxnews.com/video/6345131453112
– Fox News’ Douglas Kennedy visited Seafreeze and spoke with Fisheries Liaison Megan Lapp to discuss the lengthy legal battle over new fishing regulations.
– https://www.foxnews.com/video/6345054530112
– Fox News’ Martha MacCallum joins Seafreeze Fisheries Liaison Meghan Lapp and NCLA’s President and Chief Legal Officer Mark Chenoweth to discuss landmark case,
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=shared&v=klHR3ca6yT8 (https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=shared&v=klHR3ca6yT8)

Cape May fishermen at center of major U.S. Supreme Court case

January 21, 2024 — The U.S. Supreme Court is weighing what could be one of the most important decisions it makes this term: whether to uphold a 1984 legal precedent known as Chevron, which states that federal courts must defer to regulatory agencies when a law is ambiguous.

But a lawsuit filed by three commercial fishermen at the Jersey Shore could sink Chevron.

Environmentalists fear that would greatly curtail the power of federal regulators such as the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as a broader spectrum of agencies handling public health and safety.

In short, the fishermen are objecting to a regulation that requires them to pay observers to ensure their vessels comply with federal regulation while at sea. Cape May-based commercial fishing operations, run by Bill Bright, Wayne Reichle, and Stefan Axelsson, filed a suit, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which is backed by conservative groups seeking to overturn Chevron.

Read the full article at The Philadelphia Inquirer 

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 

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

‘How do we know where the line is?’ Supreme Court considers ‘chevron’ principle in major case

January 17 2024 — The Supreme Court on Wednesday wrestled over whether to fiddle with − or even overturn − a 40-year-old precedent that has guided how federal agencies protect the environment, workers, consumers and more.

“How do we know where the line is?” Justice Clarence Thomas asked in opening more than three and a half hours of debate over how much deference courts should give federal agencies when the law is unclear.

While the cases before the court on Wednesday were brought by herring fishermen who objected to being forced to pay for federal inspections of their catch, the court’s decision could undo decades of rules and procedures involving land use, the stock market, and on-the-job safety.

Read the full article at USA Today