Maine lobstermen score appeals court win in challenge to ‘crippling regulations’
Kaelan Deese
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A group of commercial lobstermen in Maine came out victorious in a federal appeals court ruling Friday against what the fishermen described as “crippling regulations” on their industry.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled Friday that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the lead agency overseeing fisheries, must vacate a previously released opinion that ruled Maine’s lobster fishers violated the Endangered Species Act. The court action puts a stop to proposed federal regulations meant to protect the North Atlantic right whale.
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The appeals court ruling means the federal government will likely need to revise or come up with new rules for the protection of whales. Plaintiffs argued the contested restrictions would limit where lobstermen can fish and dictate the type of gear they can use in an effort to prevent whales from being tangled in fishing ropes.
“In this case, we decide whether, in a biological opinion, [NOAA Fisheries] must, or even may, when faced with uncertainty, give the ‘benefit of the doubt’ to an endangered species by relying upon worst-case scenarios or pessimistic assumptions. We hold it may not,” Senior Circuit Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg wrote in the 33-page ruling.
The lawsuit accused the National Marine Fisheries Service, or NOAA Fisheries, of overlooking the effects on lobster fishing.
Lobsterman Dustin Delano, chief operating officer of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association and a former vice president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, lauded the decisions as a “rare and long-sought victory for lobstermen.”
“Regulators must confront the human cost of their skewed and unjustified approach. NMFS’ rules could have destroyed an iconic trade based on a distorted analysis of data that the law does not justify,” Delano said.
Delano’s group accused the federal government of “invoking hyperbolic, worst-case projections to justify crippling regulations on the beleaguered lobster fisheries.”
Meanwhile, conservation experts see the decision as a blow to years of efforts to mitigate risks to endangered species, as there are less than 340 right whales in the wild today.
“If they’ve been traumatized by ropes, and climate change, lack of food, they may wait for years to calve, maybe up to 12 years, and some never do,” Michael Moore, director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Marine Mammal Center in Massachusetts, told the Associated Press.
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But Ginsburg gave much credence to the side of the fishermen, saying “permanent fishery closures” could result in “great physical and human capital destroyed, and thousands of jobs lost.”
The appeals court heard MLA’s case after a district court judge previously granted a summary judgment to conservation groups in 2022.