CASE
SUMMARY
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration implemented a Final Rule in 2020 to force fishing companies like Relentless Inc., Huntress Inc., and Seafreeze Fleet LLC, to pay for human at-sea monitors aboard their vessels. Congress never gave the agency authority to launch such a program. This at-sea monitor mandate violates the Constitution’s Article I, and the agencies have exceeded the bounds of their statutory authority. NCLA’s clients are small businesses that commercially fish for Atlantic herring (as well as mackerel, Loligo and Illex squids, and butterfish). Paying for monitors would cost them more than $700 per day, substantially cutting into—or even exceeding—their daily fishing profits for herring.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld the Final Rule, deciding that broad “necessary and appropriate” language in the Magnuson-Stevens Act (“MSA”), which governs U.S. fisheries, augmented the agency’s regulatory power. It then relied heavily on Chevron deference to uphold the agency’s ostensibly reasonable interpretation of a supposedly ambiguous federal statute. However, the Fifth Circuit rejected similar government arguments in NCLA’s Mexican Gulf Fishing Company, et al. v. NOAA, et al. case. That court eschewed Chevron and set aside a different NOAA Fisheries rule in February that required constant GPS tracking of recreational charter fishing vessels.
When a federal judge defers to an agency’s interpretation of law, doing so denies due process of law to the entity opposed to the government in that litigation. Employing such a deference also abandons a judge’s Article III duty of judicial independence. The Chevron doctrine could not be allowed to stand.
In June 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Chevron doctrine and vacated the First Circuit’s decision, a monumental victory for NCLA and the country as a whole.