NCLA Pushes Court to Reel in Unlawful Fishery Monitoring Rule After Supreme Court Sinks Chevron Deference
27 Septiembre 2024 - 4:37PM
The New Civil Liberties Alliance has filed a Supplemental Brief
urging the court to vacate the Industry-Funded Monitoring (IFM)
Omnibus Amendment, issued by the New England Fishery Management
Council (NEFMC) and applied to nearly all fisheries in the region.
Implemented by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration’s (NOAA) February 2020 Final Rule, the Herring Rule
is just the first of many industry-funded monitoring programs. To
enforce the Amendment, NOAA must issue separate rules for each
fishery. NCLA has consistently sought to vacate both the Rule and
the Amendment.
This request follows the Supreme Court’s recent
decision in Loper Bright Enterprises, Inc. v. Raimondo and
Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce, where the Court
overturned Chevron deference, eliminating judicial deference to
agency interpretations of allegedly ambiguous or silent
statutes.
The key issue now before the court is whether
the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA)
actually authorizes the agency’s controversial amendment. NCLA
argues that Congress never authorized the Secretary of Commerce,
under the MSA, to force New England fishermen into contracts with
onboard observers. The costly Industry-Funded Monitoring program
was imposed without proper statutory authorization, and without
Chevron deference, this unlawful rule and amendment must be struck
down.
Now that Chevron deference has been overruled,
courts are required to evaluate agency actions based on the
statute’s language, without substituting the agency’s
interpretations for what Congress wrote. This legal shift
rightfully restores judicial authority to determine the meaning of
the law to the courts, rather than relying on agency’s often
self-aggrandizing interpretations.
NCLA believes Americans’ liberty interests are
better protected when regulators are no longer able to substitute
their own views for those that Congress actually set down in law.
The Omnibus Amendment goes beyond its statutory limits, and NCLA
calls on the court to declare it unlawful and vacate the Final
Rule.
NCLA released the following statements:
“With the death of Chevron deference
in Loper Bright and Relentless this unlawful rule should die with
it.”— John Vecchione, Senior Litigation Counsel,
NCLA
For more information visit the case page here.
ABOUT NCLA
NCLA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights
group founded by prominent legal scholar Philip Hamburger to
protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the
Administrative State. NCLA’s public-interest litigation and other
pro bono advocacy strive to tame the unlawful power of state and
federal agencies and to foster a new civil liberties movement that
will help restore Americans’ fundamental rights.
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Joe Martyak
New Civil Liberties Alliance
202-869-5208
joe.martyak@ncla.legal