June 28, 2024 — New Civil Liberties Alliance President Mark Chenoweth and Meghan Lapp, who is with Seafreeze Fisheries, joined ‘America’s Newsroom’ to discuss their reaction to the Supreme Court’s opinion.
US Supreme Court overturns Chevron in blow to NOAA’s regulatory authority
June 28, 2024 — A lawsuit filed by New Jersey herring fishermen has struck a massive blow to the authority of U.S. regulators.
On 28 June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiff fishermen in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, overturning the long-standing Chevron deference – a legal precedent that gave federal agencies wide latitude in interpreting congressional statutes – and limiting the authority of NOAA Fisheries to implement regulations without clear guidance from lawmakers.
The Supreme Court weakens federal regulators, overturning decades-old Chevron decision
June 28, 2024 — The Supreme Court on Friday upended a 40-year-old decision that made it easier for the federal government to regulate the environment, public health, workplace safety and consumer protections, delivering a far-reaching and potentially lucrative victory to business interests.
The court’s six conservative justices overturned the 1984 decision colloquially known as Chevron, long a target of conservatives who have been motivated as much by weakening the regulatory state as social issues including abortion. The liberal justices were in dissent.
The case was the conservative-dominated court’s clearest and boldest repudiation yet of what critics of regulation call the administrative state.
Bill Bright, a Cape May, New Jersey-based fisherman who was part of the lawsuit, said the decision to overturn Chevron would help fishing businesses make a living. “Nothing is more important than protecting the livelihoods of our families and crews,” Bright said in a statement.
Fishermen Land Major Supreme Court Victory Overruling Chevron Doctrine
June 28, 2024 — Today, attorneys for a group of New Jersey herring fishermen landed a significant victory at the Supreme Court. With its ruling in Loper Bright v. Raimondo, the Court has overruled the Chevron doctrine and restored the balance of power between Congress and the Administration. The Loper Bright decision was issued alongside Relentless v Department of Commerce.
The fishermen in the Loper Bright case face an unlawful requirement imposed on them by an executive branch agency that could force them to surrender 20 percent of their earnings to pay at-sea monitors. Because that fee resulted from unlawful overreach and threatened their ability to make a living, the fishermen decided to challenge the requirement in court four years ago. After a split decision in the D.C. Circuit, the Supreme Court decided to review the Chevron doctrine, which is the legal theory the government cited to justify its controversial monitoring rule. For 40 years, Chevron has required federal courts to abdicate their constitutional role to interpret the law by deferring to agency interpretations of statutes whenever those same agencies deem the law “silent” or “ambiguous.” In practice, such deference permitted agencies to engage in egregious overreach, often at the expense of ordinary citizens.
James Valvo, Executive Director of Cause of Action Institute. “We’re gratified that the Court recognized Chevron’s perverse consequences and ruled in favor of our clients and all citizens whose livelihoods are threatened by an unaccountable bureaucracy. We look forward to any further steps that will be needed to ensure the unlawful industry-funded monitoring regime imposed on herring fishermen is finally taken off the books.”
Supreme Court delivers blow to power of federal agencies, overturning 40-year-old precedent
June 28, 2024 — The Supreme Court on Friday overturned a 40-year-old precedent that has been a target of the right because it is seen as bolstering the power of “deep state” bureaucrats.
In a ruling involving a challenge to a fisheries regulation, the court consigned to history a 1984 ruling called Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. That decision had said judges should defer to federal agencies in interpreting the law when the language of a statute is ambiguous, thereby giving regulatory flexibility to bureaucrats.
It is the latest in a series of rulings in which the conservative justices have taken aim at the power of federal agencies, including one on Thursday involving in-house Securities and Exchange Commission adjudications. The ruling was 6-3, with the conservative justices in the majority and liberal justices dissenting.
“Chevron is overruled,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority.”
He said that the ruling does not cast into doubt prior cases that relied on the precedent, but going forward lower courts “may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous.”
Supreme Court Set to Decide Case That Could Curb Power of Government Agencies
June 27, 2024 — The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision this week that could have broad implications for the authority of federal regulatory agencies including the Securities and Exchange Commission and Environmental Protection Agency.
At issue is a four-decade-old precedent known as Chevron deference, which gives agencies wide latitude in crafting regulations. During oral arguments in January, some conservative justices expressed skepticism about it, suggesting the court could overturn or curtail it.
The precedent directs courts to defer to federal agencies’ reasonable interpretations of federal law when statutes are deemed ambiguous. Conservatives and business groups say that it has handed too much power to unelected government regulators.
Chevron deference lies at the heart of two cases the court heard this term: Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless v. Department of Commerce. Both cases involve fishing boat operators who challenged the constitutionality of federal government regulations intended to protect Atlantic herring fisheries. The plaintiffs took issue with a 2020 National Marine Fisheries Service rule requiring boat operators to pay for federal monitors on their ships. This can cost as much as $710 a day, according to the plaintiffs.
Chevron has been a “disaster,” lawyers for one of the fishing companies, Loper Bright Enterprises, wrote in a November court filing. “Lower courts see ambiguity everywhere and have abdicated the core judicial responsibility of statutory construction to executive-branch agencies,” they wrote. “The exponential growth of the Code of Federal Regulations and overregulation by unaccountable agencies has been the direct result.”
Conservationists sue feds over failure to protect West Coast tope sharks
June 27, 2024 — Conservation groups filed a lawsuit Tuesday morning against the National Marine Fisheries Service for missing its deadline to determine if the tope shark, also known as the soupfin shark, warrants protection under the Endangered Species Act.
The conservation groups hope that listing the tope shark under the act will trigger habitat protections and a review of fishing practices that could aid in the species’ recovery.
The service had initially announced in April 2022 that the tope shark might need protection, but the decision has yet to be made, despite a legal obligation to decide by February 2023.
The tope shark, which inhabits the waters off California, Oregon and Washington, is facing a critical threat due to specific targeting by commercial fishing for its liver oil — which had been historically used for cosmetics production and is now used in the biofuel industry — its meat and its fins, which are considered a delicacy.
It also faces threats from bycatch and entanglement in Mexico’s gillnets, particularly off the coast of Southern California. These gillnets — fishing traps that are hung vertically, trapping fish by their gills — have contributed to the decline of the tope shark populations, which, according to the center, has plummeted by nearly 90% over the past 80 years.
Alaska Native corporations challenge EPA veto authority
June 27, 2024 — Two Alaska Native Village corporations are suing the Biden administration and calling on a district court there to halt EPA’s Clean Water Act authority to stymie projects like the Pebble copper and gold mine in the pristine Bristol Bay.
Iliamna Natives Ltd. and Alaska Peninsula Corp. on Monday sued EPA in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska, arguing the agency overstepped its authority when it issued a rare veto under the Clean Water Act last year to block the Pebble mine from being built in a watershed that supports the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery.
The Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit known for arguing a precedent-setting Clean Water Act case before the Supreme Court last year that is representing the groups, asked the court to find Section 404 of the Clean Water Act to be unconstitutional.
Conservative groups cleared to continue legal fight to protect whales from Biden-backed offshore wind farm
June 17, 2024 — A coalition of conservative organizations has standing to continue fighting a Biden administration wind project in Virginia, a federal judge determined.
However, U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan of the District of Columbia, a Biden appointee, denied the plaintiff’s petition for a preliminary injunction to halt construction of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project from going forward.
On Thursday, the plaintiffs withdrew a petition for an expedited appeal to the D.C. Circuit Court for a narrow decision on the injunction but will continue the case to stop the construction, one attorney said.
The plaintiffs sued the Biden administration and Dominion Energy to protect the North Atlantic right whale under the Endangered Species Act.
DC Circuit to hear battle over Virginia offshore wind
June 8, 2024 — Critics of an offshore wind farm in Virginia are taking their fight against the project to a powerful federal appeals court.
In a Wednesday filing, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, Heartland Institute, and National Legal and Policy Center said they are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to reverse a May ruling that denied their bid to block a 176-turbine Dominion Energy wind project off the coast of Virginia Beach.
A lower court found that the challengers had failed to show that they would face irreparable harm if the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind commercial project moved forward.
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