Saving Seafood

Trump’s offshore drilling revival survives early court challenge

August 25, 2026 — A federal judge in Alaska has blocked environmental groups’ challenge against the Trump administration’s decision to reopen millions of acres of offshore waters in the Arctic and elsewhere to oil and gas development.

Chief Judge Sharon Gleason of the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska on Monday ruled the environmental coalition led by the Northern Alaska Environmental Center lacked standing to bring their suit.

The groups failed to show they faced imminent harm from President Donald Trump’s 2025 decision to reverse his predecessors’ orders to permanently close off broad swaths of the outer continental shelf (OCS) from fossil fuel development, she said.

Read the full article at E&E News

Fishermen suing feds over legality of at-sea monitoring

December 10, 2015 — A New Hampshire fisherman has filed a lawsuit in federal court against the U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration challenging the legality of mandated at-sea monitoring for the Northeast groundfish fleet.

David Goethel, owner of the 44-foot fishing trawler Ellen Diane out of Hampton, and Northeast Fishing Sector 13, are the named plaintiffs in the suit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Concord, New Hampshire. The suit also has the backing of Cause of Action, a non-profit governmental watchdog organization.

The suit also names as defendants Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, NOAA Administrator Kathryn Sullivan, NOAA Assistant Administrator Eileen Sobeck and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Last week, NOAA said it only has enough money left to fund at-sea monitoring until the end of 2015 and will shift the cost of the monitoring, estimated at $710 per vessel per monitoring day, to the fishermen sometime early in 2016.

The suit comes about a week after the New England Fishery Management Council voted to ease the level of monitoring on groundfish vessels from the current 24 percent of all trips to about 13 percent as a means of alleviating the economic impact of absorbing the at-sea monitoring costs.

Read the full story from the Gloucester Daily Times