February 3, 2017 — Several seafood and restaurant industry groups sued the National Marine Fisheries Service over its plan to more closely monitor where market-bound fish are coming from to thwart those who profit from illegal catches.
In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the plaintiff associations claim the new policy would increase the costs incurred by their members and that those costs would further hurt their businesses when they were, of necessity, passed on to consumers.
The fisheries service believes a large amount of the fish and other sea life consumed by Americans is being caught by illegal means or in ways that flout conservation and sustainable fishery management practices.
The rule at the center of the lawsuit establishes a new method of recordkeeping that federal regulators believe will allow them to better monitor where fish bound for America’s tables are coming from.
“The Rule would require seafood importers to trace the origin of the fish they import to either the specific boat that caught the fish or a ‘single collection point’ to the day the fish was caught and to the sector of the specific ocean where the fish was caught,” the complaint says.