The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled Friday that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) had no legal basis to rely on pessimistic statistical models to justify imposing costly federal regulations onto lobster fisheries and lobstermen.
The court held in its decision that the NMFS “was egregiously wrong” in its interpretation of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) which would have enabled the agency to impose costly regulations on lobstermen in order to protect endangered whales. The challenged regulations were set to require lobstermen and their equipment to meet new standards in order for the lobstermen to receive re-authorization from the federal government to access the lobster fishery, according to the court’s decision.