Saving Seafood

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

Fishermen Land Major Supreme Court Victory Overruling Chevron Doctrine

June 28, 2024 — Today, attorneys for a group of New Jersey herring fishermen landed a significant victory at the Supreme Court.  With its ruling in Loper Bright v. Raimondo, the Court has overruled the Chevron doctrine and restored the balance of power between Congress and the Administration. The Loper Bright decision was issued alongside Relentless v Department of Commerce.

The fishermen in the Loper Bright case face an unlawful requirement imposed on them by an executive branch agency that could force them to surrender 20 percent of their earnings to pay at-sea monitors. Because that fee resulted from unlawful overreach and threatened their ability to make a living, the fishermen decided to challenge the requirement in court four years ago. After a split decision in the D.C. Circuit, the Supreme Court decided to review the Chevron doctrine, which is the legal theory the government cited to justify its controversial monitoring rule. For 40 years, Chevron has required federal courts to abdicate their constitutional role to interpret the law by deferring to agency interpretations of statutes whenever those same agencies deem the law “silent” or “ambiguous.” In practice, such deference permitted agencies to engage in egregious overreach, often at the expense of ordinary citizens.

James Valvo, Executive Director of Cause of Action Institute. “We’re gratified that the Court recognized Chevron’s perverse consequences and ruled in favor of our clients and all citizens whose livelihoods are threatened by an unaccountable bureaucracy. We look forward to any further steps that will be needed to ensure the unlawful industry-funded monitoring regime imposed on herring fishermen is finally taken off the books.”

Read the full article at LoperBrightCase.com

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

The President Shouldn’t Be Able to Seize Land Unilaterally

March 20, 2024 — On March 22, the Supreme Court will consider acting on a constitutional challenge to what is among the most misunderstood and abused federal land statutes: the Antiquities Act of 1906. If the Supreme Court does not act on American Forest Resource Council v. United States of America, it will green-light a vast expansion of executive power over all federal lands, waters, and natural resources, ultimately putting their fate in the hands of one person: the president.

Passed during President Theodore Roosevelt’s second term, the Antiquities Act gave presidents authority to declare “historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to be national monuments . . . which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected.”

The original purpose of the Antiquities Act was to protect archaeological sites, or “antiquities,” and other specific, definable objects and landscapes in federal ownership at risk of theft or desecration. Four months after the passage of the Antiquities Act, President Roosevelt declared Wyoming’s Devils Tower our first national monument. The designated area covered 1,304 acres.

Yet, over the last century, presidents have expanded the use of the Antiquities Act to make its original purpose and intent unrecognizable. For example, President Obama issued 34 monument proclamations directing the management of over 550 million acres of federal lands, waters, and resources.

Read the article at The National Review

 

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)

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

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 

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