Description: Challenge by lobstering associations, a lobstering union, and Maine to the biological opinion for federal lobster fisheries as too restrictive.
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Maine Lobstermen’s Association v. National Marine Fisheries Service
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 06/16/2023 Opinion Download District court's grant of summary judgment to NMFS reversed and district court directed to enter summary judgment for the lobstermen on two counts and to vacate the biological opinion as applied to the lobster and Jonah crab fisheries and to remand the phase one rule to NMFS. D.C. Circuit Vacated Biological Opinion for Lobster Fishery’s Impacts on Right Whales. In an appeal by lobstermen and the State of Maine, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the federal district court for the District of Columbia and vacated a biological opinion as it applied to the lobster and Jonah crab fisheries. The appellate court also remanded a rule establishing a conservation framework intended to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale. The reversal was based on the D.C. Circuit’s holding that the Endangered Species Act did not permit the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to “give the ‘benefit of the doubt’ to an endangered species by relying upon worst-case scenarios or pessimistic assumptions” when faced with uncertainty. The appellate court did not address the issue raised in the district court of whether NMFS adequately considered evidence that right whales were increasingly spending more time in Canadian waters due to climate change. 01/24/2023 Motion to Dismiss Download Defendants filed motion to dismiss appeal as moot. -
Maine Lobstermen’s Association, Inc. v. National Marine Fisheries Service
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 10/30/2023 Memorandum Opinion Download Motion to stay executive of the mandate denied. Federal District Court Declined to Stay Mandate Requiring that Biological Opinion Regarding Fisheries’ Impacts on Right Whales Be Vacated. The federal district court for the District of Columbia denied a motion by intervenor conservation groups to stay execution of the D.C. Circuit’s mandate directing the court to enter summary judgment for the Maine Lobstermen’s Association and to vacate a biological opinion concerning lobster and Jonah crab fisheries and their impacts on the North Atlantic right whale. The district court concluded that it did not have discretion to stay execution of the mandate pending the resolution of all claims in a related case pending before the district court. The court found, moreover, that such a stay would not be warranted. 09/09/2022 Memorandum Opinion Download Defendants' and intervenor-defendants' motions for summary judgment granted. Federal Court Concluded that Biological Opinion for Lobster Fisheries Adequately Addressed Evidence of Right Whale’s Northward Migration. The federal district court for the District of Columbia rejected a challenge by two lobstering associations, a lobstermen’s union, and the State of Maine to the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS’s) biological opinion that concluded that operation of federal lobster fisheries would not jeopardize the North Atlantic right whale. The plaintiffs alleged that the biological opinion overstated risks posed to the right whale and overregulated the lobstering industry. The court found that the biological opinion and related actions were not arbitrary and capricious. Among the points addressed in the decision was the plaintiffs’ contention that NMFS did not take into account evidence that climate change was causing right whales to spend more time in Canadian waters. The court “acknowledge[d] that NMFS could have more comprehensively addressed” this evidence, also noting that “[i]f new data continue supporting this trend, the agency may in the future need to either update its modeling or say more about why it has not.” However, at this juncture, the court found that NMFS “considered the relevant data and offered a rational and peer-reviewed explanation for its approach.”