Well, Dementia Joe lost his war on Main lobster fishermen. He tried to cripple their business by enacting a half-sentence in the legislative history, not actual legislation.
Judge Douglas Ginsburg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, who was part of the three-judge panel that decided the case, lambasted the government's theory in an opinion issued Friday.
Dustin Delano, former vice president of the MLA and now chief operating officer of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA), said Friday's court decision is a welcomed moral boost to the fishing industry that he says has been drowning in overreaching regulations.
"Today’s decision is a rare and long-sought victory for lobstermen. Regulators must confront the human cost of their skewed and unjustified approach. NMFS’ rules could have destroyed an iconic trade based on a distorted analysis of data that the law does not justify," Delano said.
"Lobstermen, like all New England fishermen, are formed in an ethic of conservation that long predated federal regulations and the environmental movement. We are deeply sensitive to the marine environment," he added.
The North Atlantic right whale is an endangered species, with fewer than 400 left in the ocean. They are vulnerable to vessel strikes or entanglement with fishing gear.
But the MLA says that right whales do not inhabit the coast of Maine, and there has not been a documented right whale entanglement associated with Maine lobstermen since 2004. There has also never been a documented instance of Maine lobstermen seriously injuring or killing a right whale.
Delano says that for decades, the NMFS has been imposing rules based on assumptions and bad data, because it has been "caving" to the environmental groups without input from the fishing community.
"Enough's enough," Delano said.
"The Service’s legal reasoning was not just wrong; it was egregiously wrong. The Service’s argument rested entirely upon a half-sentence in the legislative history. This ‘approach is a relic from a bygone era of statutory construction,'" Ginsburg said.
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Judge Douglas Ginsburg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, who was part of the three-judge panel that decided the case, lambasted the government's theory in an opinion issued Friday.
Dustin Delano, former vice president of the MLA and now chief operating officer of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA), said Friday's court decision is a welcomed moral boost to the fishing industry that he says has been drowning in overreaching regulations.
"Today’s decision is a rare and long-sought victory for lobstermen. Regulators must confront the human cost of their skewed and unjustified approach. NMFS’ rules could have destroyed an iconic trade based on a distorted analysis of data that the law does not justify," Delano said.
"Lobstermen, like all New England fishermen, are formed in an ethic of conservation that long predated federal regulations and the environmental movement. We are deeply sensitive to the marine environment," he added.
The North Atlantic right whale is an endangered species, with fewer than 400 left in the ocean. They are vulnerable to vessel strikes or entanglement with fishing gear.
But the MLA says that right whales do not inhabit the coast of Maine, and there has not been a documented right whale entanglement associated with Maine lobstermen since 2004. There has also never been a documented instance of Maine lobstermen seriously injuring or killing a right whale.
Delano says that for decades, the NMFS has been imposing rules based on assumptions and bad data, because it has been "caving" to the environmental groups without input from the fishing community.
"Enough's enough," Delano said.
"The Service’s legal reasoning was not just wrong; it was egregiously wrong. The Service’s argument rested entirely upon a half-sentence in the legislative history. This ‘approach is a relic from a bygone era of statutory construction,'" Ginsburg said.
Maine lobstermen catch big court victory against Biden administration's 'egregious' regulations
The Maine Lobstermen's Association won its case against the Biden administration over regulations that threatened to put its members out of business.
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