U.S. Supreme Court Agrees to Hear NCLA Relentless Case Challenging Chevron Deferencehttps://nclalegal.org/2023/10/u-s-supreme-court-agrees-to-hear-ncla-relentless-case-challenging-chevron-deference/Washington, DC (October 13, 2023) – Today, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the New Civil Liberties Alliance’s Relentless Inc., et al. v. Dept. of Commerce, et al. lawsuit challenging the Chevron precedent and an unconstitutional federal rule requiring fishing companies to pay for at-sea government monitoring of their herring catch. The case will be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court during the January 2024 argument session in tandem with the case of Loper Bright Enterprises, et al. v. Gina Raimondo, which challenges the same at-sea monitor rule. NCLA thanks the Court for granting a writ of certiorari in Relentless, which presents an important opportunity to sweep away the fatally flawed Chevron doctrine and vindicate fishermen’s fundamental rights.
The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries) implemented a Final Rule in 2020 to force fishing companies like Relentless Inc., Huntress Inc., and Seafreeze Fleet LLC, to pay for human monitors aboard their vessels. This would be like forcing motorists to pay for ride-along state troopers to monitor their speed. Not surprisingly, Congress never gave the agency authority to launch such a program. NCLA’s clients are small businesses that commercially fish for Atlantic herring (as well as mackerel, Loligo and Illex squids, and butterfish). Paying for monitors would cost them more than $700 per day, substantially cutting into—or even exceeding—their daily fishing profits for herring. The Magnuson-Stevens Act (“MSA”), which governs U.S. fisheries, does not support such a rule.
In Relentless and Loper Bright, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to overrule Chevron. It might instead take the lesser step of saying that statutory silence does not create an ambiguity to which Chevron deference may be applied.
"Chevron Deference", which refers to a past USSC case, is a doctrine by which Federal Courts bow to decisions made by bureaucrats. Hypothetically, it makes sense for legal beagles to defer to scientific specialists' knowledge. IRL, bureaucrats, especially envirocrats, have long and increasingly, been misapplying and pretzellating laws to accomplish political and enviro agendas far outside of law.
