Saving Seafood

Law

Conagra defends its MSC sustainability labeling as class-action lawsuit continues

October 22, 2023 — Conagra Brands has filed a new brief supporting its motion to dismiss a class-action lawsuit claiming the company’s use of Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification for sustainability claims are “deceptive.”

The lawsuit, filed earlier this year, seeks at least USD 5 million (EUR ) in damages and heavily criticizes both Conagra and the MSC, claiming the sustainability certification organization “blatantly violates its own standards and puts the very ecosystem MSC feigns to protect in serious danger.” Plaintiffs in the case, Abdallah Nasser and John Bohen, claim the sustainability promises made by Conagra on its packaging using MSC certification “deceives and misleads reasonable consumers.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NJ county, groups sue federal government over offshore wind

October 19, 2023 — Cape May County and several local groups have filed a lawsuit against the federal government, hoping to bury plans to erect a wind farm off of New Jersey’s southern coast.

At the same time, an ocean advocacy group is calling on leaders in New Jersey to quit green-lighting any offshore wind development for the future.

Plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday argue that federal regulators rushed approval of permits for Orsted’s Ocean Wind 1 project and are putting the environment and local marine life in harm’s way.

Read the full article at New Jersey 101.5

New Jersey faces lawsuit over offshore wind project

October 19, 2023 — A coalition of groups are suing to block New Jersey’s first offshore wind project, arguing that it will hurt marine life, the state’s fishing and tourism industries and the local economy.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, argues that the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management fast-tracked approval of the Ocean Wind 1 project without conducting a required federal review of the potential impact to the environment, historic properties along the coastline and the state’s commercial fishing industry.

In the 71-page complaint, lawyers for the plaintiffs claim that in the push to develop offshore wind, the Biden administration has “shortcut the statutory and regulatory requirements that were enacted to protect our nation’s environmental and natural resources, its industries, and its people.”

The coalition argues in the legal filing that developing offshore wind farms in New Jersey raises “significant concerns” about the impact on the fishing industry, whales and other marine life and tourism in coastal communities. They say it will negatively impact property values, tax revenues and the local economy.

Read the full article at the Center Square

Jersey Shore is at risk if feds keep rushing 1st offshore wind farm, lawsuit claims

October 18, 2023 — In its first federal lawsuit against agencies that have so far pushed ahead New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm, Cape May County in a coalition with others alleged Tuesday in a lawsuit that the development has been rushed at the peril of ocean life, the fishing industry and the local economy.

No offshore wind turbines currently spin along the Jersey Shore but that could change in the next two years.

The latest series of project approvals for Ocean Wind 1 — from Ørsted, a Danish wind developer — include Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s “Record of Decision” in July and the OK at the end of September to start onshore construction.

Plans for Ocean Wind 1, one of at least two Ørsted projects, call for as many as 98 offshore wind turbines reaching more than 850 feet about 15 miles from the coasts of Cape May and Atlantic Counties.

In its own September authorization, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, laid out rules to ensure Ørsted protects whales and dolphins while installing wind turbines.

Ørsted said last week, behind a $100 million guarantee, that Ocean Wind 1 is on schedule to reach commercial operation in stages in 2024 and with a 2025 deadline in mind.

Read the full article at NJ.com

 

Orsted offshore wind farm hit with lawsuit by New Jersey county

October 18, 2023 — A southern New Jersey county on Tuesday challenged federal approvals for a major wind farm in U.S. waters off the state’s coast, saying the project’s turbines and construction will harm endangered animals like whales, kill birds and impact local tourism.

The County of Cape May and several local tourism and fishing business groups sued the U.S. Department of the Interior in New Jersey federal court, seeking to stop construction on Danish developer Orsted’s multi-billion dollar Ocean Wind project.

The county said the government violated federal environmental review and endangered species protection laws when it finalized a host of environmental and construction permits for the project earlier this year.

Reviews for those permits failed to adequately account for potential environmental harms from the project and should be vacated, according to the lawsuit. The county said underwater noise and vessel strikes during construction will harm endangered North Atlantic right whales and sea turtles, and that rotating wind turbine blades would kill migrating birds.

Read the full article at Reuters

Cape May County, fishermen challenge approval of Ørsted wind project

October 18, 2023 — Led by Cape May County, N.J., elected officials, a coalition of fishermen, tourism businesses and environmental activists filed a lawsuit Tuesday in the Federal District Court for the District of New Jersey challenging federal government approvals for Ørsted’s Ocean Wind 1 project.

The court action is aimed “against multiple federal agencies and the leadership of those agencies, alleging that federal regulators have abandoned their obligations to protect the environment and Atlantic coastal marine life in favor of an inappropriate collusion with Big Wind interests,” according to a statement issued by county officials.

Plaintiffs on the complaint include the Cape May County Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Wildwood Hotel Motel Association, the environmental group Clean Ocean Action, the Garden State Seafood Association, LaMonica Fine Foods, Lund’s Fisheries, and Surfside Seafood Products.

Cape May officials and seaside communities like Ocean City, N.J., have opposed the planned 1,100-megawatt turbine array as a threat to their tourism economy, while Clean Ocean Action activists see New Jersey’s wind power ambitions as a threat to the marine environment.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Cape chamber, Board of Commissioners sue federal government over offshore wind approval

October 17, 2023 — A group of plaintiffs that includes the Cape May County Board of Commissioners and the county Chamber of Commerce is suing the federal government over claims it failed to factor in impacts to the county’s $7.4 billion tourism industry when it granted approvals for offshore wind development.

The suit names the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the Department of the Interior and the National Marine Fisheries Service, a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It was filed Tuesday in Camden federal court, records show.

BOEM declined to comment on pending litigation. NOAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit follows Ørsted, the Danish energy company building wind turbines off the coast, putting down a $100 million guarantee that the first windmills of its 161,000-acre Ocean Wind I project will begin generating power by December 2025.

Read the full article at The Press of Atlantic City

Supreme Court to Hear Another Broad Challenge to Agency Power

October 16, 2023 — The Supreme Court said on Friday that it would hear a second challenge to a foundational precedent on the power of executive agencies.

The new case is almost identical to one the court agreed to hear in May, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, No. 22-451. The court’s usual practice when asked to hear a follow-on case concerning the same issues is to hold the new case until the earlier one is resolved and then return it to the lower courts for reconsideration in light of the ruling in the first one.

The court’s unusual decision to grant review in the new case was almost surely because Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had recused herself from the earlier case, having served on the panel that heard it when she was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The new case comes from the First Circuit, in Boston, and so does not require Justice Jackson’s recusal.

Read the full article at The New York Times

 

Massachusetts wind farm dodges lawsuits over environmental, fishing concerns

October 16, 2023 — A U.S. judge has rejected challenges to federal environmental permits and construction approvals for a $4 billion offshore wind farm near Massachusetts, which commercial fishing groups have claimed will harm whales and impair their businesses.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston on Thursday tossed the final two federal district court lawsuits directly challenging the Vineyard Wind project roughly 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, which would be the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the country.

Commercial fishing groups including Seafreeze Shoreside Inc and the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance had challenged federal environment and construction permits for the project in two lawsuits filed in 2021 and 2022. They had claimed construction on the 62-turbine farm would cut fishermen off from valuable fishing areas and destroy the habitat of the North Atlantic right whale.

But Talwani said the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act gives regulators at the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) discretion to balance the economic concerns of fishermen with the need for the development of offshore renewable energy projects, which are key to federal plans to decarbonize the U.S. electric grid. She found the fishing groups had not adequately shown their fishing business interests could be seriously harmed if whales are injured or harassed during construction, and so cannot sue over those concerns.

Read the full article at Reuters

Supreme Court sets up doubleheader to scrutinize federal government authority

October 16, 2023 — The Supreme Court added a second layer to its examination of the inner workings of the federal government on Friday, agreeing to hear another challenge to a decades-old precedent governing agency power.

A Friday afternoon orders list from the court revealed the justices would be reviewing another challenge to Chevron USA v. Natural Resources Defense Council. The court already agreed to hear a challenge to the precedent, but Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was recused from the case.

The newly granted case is very similar to its predecessor, challenging the authority of the National Marine Fisheries Service to place federal observers on fishing vessels.

Citing the Declaration of Independence in their petition, the fisheries say they suffer similar grievances to those living under English rule.

“The people of New England famously rebelled against George III because he ‘erected’ ‘New Offices and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass’ them ‘and eat out their substance,’” John Vecchione, an attorney with the New Civil Liberties Alliance representing the fisheries, wrote. “Respondents have revived cause for similar grievance by promulgating a regulation that requires at-sea monitors (“ASMs”) to be paid for by the very fishing vessels forced to carry them.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource