January 3, 2024 — A federal court judge in Maine granted partial approval to a claim brought by New England Fishermen Stewardship Association (NEFSA) that certain authorities of regional management council members and the agency that implements their decisions into regulation, are unconstitutional. The authorities center on whether and how councils may override a decision made by the Secretary of Commerce in the process of putting council decisions into fisheries regulations.
Citing two other cases from last year — United Cook Inlet Drift Associaiton, et al v. National Marine Fisheries Service, et al and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo — Judge John Woodcock agreed with both and went one step further.
Woodcock’s decision ordered that the provisions referred to as unconstitutional be “…severed as unconstitutional from the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.”