Saving Seafood

  • Home
  • News
    • Alerts
    • Conservation & Environment
    • Council Actions
    • Economic Impact
    • Enforcement
    • International & Trade
    • Law
    • Management & Regulation
    • Regulations
    • Nutrition
    • Opinion
    • Other News
    • Safety
    • Science
    • State and Local
  • News by Region
    • New England
    • Mid-Atlantic
    • South Atlantic
    • Gulf of Mexico
    • Pacific
    • North Pacific
    • Western Pacific
  • About
    • Contact Us
    • Fishing Terms Glossary

Supreme Court declines to hear challenges to Vineyard Wind

May 7, 2025 — The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear two cases challenging the federal approval of Vineyard Wind. The court denied the petitions Monday.

Commercial fishing interests sued the federal agencies involved in approving the wind farm, which is under construction 15 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.

The lawsuits were originally filed in 2021 and 2022.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Supreme Court rejects 2 challenges to Vineyard Wind

May 6, 2025 — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied petitions from the fishing industry and a conservative think tank challenging the Vineyard Wind project, rejecting their March requests that the country’s highest court hear their cases.

A fishing industry lobbying group, Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA), sued the lead government regulator of offshore wind in early 2022, alleging that by approving Vineyard Wind, the agency had violated several acts, including those protecting existing ocean users and endangered species. The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), which represents fishermen and a fishing company in Rhode Island in another lawsuit, had also petitioned the Supreme Court.

RODA had already lost its case in two other courts: first, in 2023 in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts, where a judge sided with the project and regulators; and second, in 2024 in the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, where the judge upheld the lower court’s decision. TPPF also had its case dismissed by the lower courts.

“We are disappointed that the Supreme Court denied our petition,” said Lane Johnston, executive director of RODA, in an email Monday. “This issue is of such importance to members of the commercial fishing industry. RODA will continue our efforts to combat the destructive industrialization of the nation’s marine resources.”

Read the full story at The New Bedford Light

Supreme Court declines Vineyard Wind challenge

May 5, 2025 — The Supreme Court has declined to reconsider the Biden administration’s approval of a major offshore wind project off the Massachusetts coast, in a reprieve for an industry facing rising political headwinds.

On Monday morning, the justices denied the parallel petitions led by the fishing company Seafreeze Shoreside and the fishing industry trade group Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) challenging agencies’ approvals for the Vineyard Wind 1 project.

The 62-turbine wind farm is under construction 15 miles off the coast of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard and is expected to be completed this year. Vineyard Wind’s joint developers Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners declined through their attorney to comment on the Supreme Court’s decision.

Read the full story at E&E News

Offshore opponents urge Supreme Court to grant Vineyard Wind challenge

April 22, 2025 — Advocacy groups opposed to offshore wind development are calling for the Supreme Court to consider how federal approval of a project off the coast of Massachusetts could be violating recent high court decisions curbing agency authority.

The America First Policy Institute and others recently filed “friend of the court” briefs backing a pair of petitions led by the fishing company Seafreeze Shoreside and the fishing industry trade group Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) seeking to block completion of the Vineyard Wind 1 project.

The briefs are backing the parallel claims before the court: that the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management overstepped its authority and that lower courts failed to properly review the agency’s decision after a Supreme Court decision limited courts’ deference to agency decision-making.

Read the full story at E&E News

Supreme Court won’t hear Vineyard Wind case; ACK for Whales files new suits

January 15, 2025 — The U.S. Supreme Court will not hear ACK for Whales‘ case against Vineyard Wind, which claimed the permitting process that allowed the 64-turbine wind farm to be built was flawed.

But the local opposition group isn’t being deterred by the latest legal setback, announcing Monday it is filing new litigation against the Department of the Interior and other federal agencies for the permitting of New England Wind, a separate proposed wind farm project 24 miles southwest of Nantucket.

ACK for Whales board member Veronica Bonnet said it was disappointing the highest court in the land did not hear the case, but that it was a long shot. Only 1% of the roughly 8,000 cases that are petitioned to the Supreme Court each year are chosen to be heard, according to the court’s website.

Read the full article at Mass Live

Nantucket group appeals to Supreme Court to end offshore wind projects and protect endangered whales

September 30, 2024 — A group of Nantucket, Massachusetts, residents are appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court in their challenge to the industrialization of parts of the Atlantic Ocean, where they say offshore wind farms – developed with the blessing of the federal government – are putting an endangered whale species at risk.

The group, Nantucket Residents Against Turbines, argues in its petition to the high court that “the federal government has lost sight of its statutory obligations to conserve endangered species that will be directly affected by the construction of thousands of wind turbines in the Atlantic Ocean.”

They argue that the federal agencies that authorized the leasing of the water area to wind turbine companies excluded certain data in their analysis to the benefit of offshore wind development.

“Despite the agencies’ explicit statutory duty to consider all ‘best information available,’ regarding the impacts its actions might have on an endangered or threatened species and those habitats, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), did not consider the cumulative impacts of other planned projects when they authorized and issued permits to construct the Vineyard Wind 1 Project.”

Read the full article at Fox News

DOJ argues federal law allows NOAA to charge fishermen for monitors

September 19, 2024 — Out-of-pocket payments made by fishermen to federal monitors who accompany them at sea is comparable to the costs fishermen incur when they purchase new gear or equipment to comply with any other other regulations, government lawyers argue in a legal brief filed Wednesday in federal appeals court.

The brief in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Gina Raimondo, is the government’s latest volley in what has become a landmark case pitting NOAA Fisheries against a group of New Jersey herring fishermen after the Supreme Court in June rolled back a long-standing legal doctrine that gave deference to agencies like NOAA in disputes over a regulation’s interpretation.

The filing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit argues that all NOAA Fisheries regulations require industry compliance and that sometimes compliance “imposes economic costs on vessels.”

Read the full article at E&E News

Fishermen ask court to spike NOAA onboard observer program

September 18, 2024 — Two New Jersey fishermen who convinced the Supreme Court in June to toss out the Chevron doctrine, which had long buttressed federal regulatory muscle are asking an appeals court to effectively get industry-paid NOAA Fisheries monitors off their boats.

In arguments set for Nov. 4, plaintiffs in Loper Bright Enterprises Inc. v. Gina Raimondo will ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to make a final ruling on the industry-funded monitoring program that was adopted by NOAA in 2020 and ceased in April 2023.

“I think we’re all hopeful that the circuit court will get to the right answer,” Ryan Mulvey, an attorney with the Americans for Prosperity Foundation and plaintiffs’ counsel, said in an interview Monday. “This entire case has been about fighting for our fishermen and small family businesses to get rid of what we thought was a really onerous regulation.”

Read the full article at E&E News

Supreme Court to hear major case on limiting the power of federal government, a long-term goal of legal conservatives

May 2, 2023 — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to reconsider long held precedent and decide whether to significantly scale back on the power of federal agencies in a case that can impact how the government addresses everything from climate change to public health to immigration.

Conservative justices have long sought to rein in regulatory authority, arguing that Washington has too much control over American businesses and individual lives. The justices have been incrementally diminishing federal power but the new case would allow them to take a much broader stride.

The justices announced they would take up an appeal from herring fishermen in the Atlantic who say the National Marine Fisheries Service does not have the authority to require them to pay the salaries of government monitors who ride aboard the fishing vessels.

Their action means they will reconsider a 1984 case – Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council – that sets forward factors to determine when courts should defer to a government agency’s interpretation of the law.

Read the full story at CNN

Supreme Court to Hear Challenge to NOAA Requirement that Vessels Pay Monitoring Fees

May 1, 2023 — The following was released by Cause of Action Institute:

The Supreme Court announced today it will take up the case of New Jersey fishermen who are challenging the federal government’s attempt to unlawfully force them to pay monitoring fees without congressional approval—a case that gives the Court an opportunity to review and overrule the Chevron deference precedent. Critically, the Court granted only on Question Presented 2, which means it will directly address the future of Chevron.

The justices will review Loper Bright v. Raimondo. The fishermen, represented by former Solicitor General Paul Clement and lawyers from Cause of Action Institute, petitioned the Court in November to overrule a funding scheme that would force them to hand over 20 percent of their pay to third-party at-sea monitors they must bring on their boats—a mandate that Congress never approved by statute.

Amicus briefs in support of the fishermen’s case were filed by 38 organizations and individuals, including one signed by 18 state attorneys general.

“The Supreme Court has an opportunity to correct one of the most consequential judicial errors in a generation. Chevron deference has proven corrosive to the American system of checks and balances and directly contributed to an unaccountable executive branch, overbearing bureaucracy, and runaway regulation,” Cause of Action Institute counsel Ryan Mulvey said.

“These fishing families and all those seemingly living at the mercy of Washington deserve better,” he said. “Cause of Action Institute has always fought on behalf of vulnerable Americans, and we’re hopeful this case will provide the vehicle to end Chevron deference.”

“We are delighted that the Court took this case not only to potentially deliver justice to these fishermen, but also to reconsider a doctrine that has enabled the widespread expansion of unchecked executive authority. We look forward to our day in court,” Clement said.

“We are grateful to the Supreme Court for taking our case. Our way of life is in the hands of these justices, and we hope they will keep our families and our community in mind as they weigh their decision,” said Bill Bright, a New Jersey fisherman and plaintiff in the case.

Cause of Action Institute has compiled background information here, including links to filings, amicus briefs, and a short video featuring interviews with the NJ fishermen.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • Next Page »

Recent Headlines

  • Judge allows lawsuit challenging Trump’s wind energy ban to proceed
  • “Shrimp Fraud” Allegations Are Rocking the Restaurant World. We Talked to the Company Blowing the Whistle.
  • Scientists warn that the ocean is growing greener at poles
  • NOAA awards $95 million contract to upgrade fisheries survey vessel
  • Fishing council to ask Trump to lift fishing ban in Papahanaumokuakea
  • The ocean is changing colors, researchers say. Here’s what it means.
  • NORTH CAROLINA: New bill to protect waterways would ‘destroy’ shrimp industry in North Carolina, critics warn
  • NORTH CAROLINA: Restaurateur rips NC bill HB 442: ‘Slitting the throats of the commercial fishing industry

Most Popular Topics

Alaska Aquaculture ASMFC Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission BOEM California China Climate change Coronavirus COVID-19 Donald Trump groundfish Gulf of Maine Gulf of Mexico Hawaii Illegal fishing IUU fishing Lobster Maine Massachusetts Mid-Atlantic National Marine Fisheries Service National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NEFMC New Bedford New England New England Fishery Management Council New Jersey New York NMFS NOAA NOAA Fisheries North Atlantic right whales North Carolina North Pacific offshore energy Offshore wind Pacific right whales Salmon South Atlantic Western Pacific Whales wind energy Wind Farms

Daily Updates & Alerts

Enter your email address to receive daily updates and alerts:
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Tweets by @savingseafood

Copyright © 2025 Saving Seafood · WordPress Web Design by Jessee Productions