Herring Fishermen Must Pay for At-Sea Federal Monitoring Program

The National Marine Fisheries Service can interpret federal law to require industry-funded monitoring of the Atlantic herring fishery, a split D.C. Circuit ruled Friday in a loss for commercial fishing companies.

The Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act doesn’t explicitly say whether the service can require such monitoring, according to the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Absent such clarity, the court only needed to consider whether the agency’s interpretation was reasonable, Judge Judith W. Rogers wrote.

Loper Bright Enterprises, H&L Axelsson, and other companies acknowledged the agency could require at-sea monitoring. But it couldn’t require the industry …