Maine lobstermen triumph in appeals court against ‘burdensome rules’.

A Victory for Maine Lobstermen: Federal Appeals Court Rules Against “Crippling Regulations”

A group of commercial lobstermen in Maine achieved a significant victory on Friday in a federal appeals court ruling. The fishermen had been fighting against what they described as “crippling regulations” imposed on their industry.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the agency responsible for overseeing fisheries, must vacate a previous opinion that found Maine’s lobster fishers in violation of the Endangered Species Act. This ruling effectively halts proposed federal regulations aimed at protecting the North Atlantic right whale.

Protecting Whales: Revising Federal Regulations

The appeals court’s decision means that the federal government will likely need to revise or create new rules to safeguard whales. The contested restrictions, which the plaintiffs argued would limit fishing areas and dictate gear usage, were intended to prevent whales from becoming entangled in fishing ropes.

“In this case, we decide whether, in a biological opinion, [NOAA Fisheries] must, or even may, when faced with uncertainty, give the ‘benefit of the doubt’ to an endangered species by relying upon worst-case scenarios or pessimistic assumptions. We hold it may not,” wrote Senior Circuit Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg in the 33-page ruling.

The lawsuit accused the National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries) of disregarding the impact on lobster fishing.

Lobsterman Dustin Delano, the chief operating officer of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association and a former vice president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, hailed the decision as 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.

Delano’s group accused the federal government of “invoking hyperbolic, worst-case projections to justify crippling regulations on the beleaguered lobster fisheries.”

Meanwhile, conservation experts view the court’s decision as a setback to years of efforts to mitigate risks to endangered species, as there are currently fewer than 340 right whales in the wild.

“If they’ve been traumatized by ropes, and climate change, lack of food, they may wait for years to calve, maybe up to 12 years, and some never do,” said Michael Moore, director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Marine Mammal Center in Massachusetts.

Ginsburg, however, gave considerable weight to the fishermen’s arguments, stating that “permanent fishery closures” could result in “great physical and human capital destroyed, and thousands of jobs lost.”

The appeals court heard the Maine Lobstermen’s Association’s case after a district court judge had previously ruled in favor of conservation groups in 2022.