Attorneys representing Northeastern fishermen will make their case at the Supreme Court on Wednesday that the 40-year-old precedent most commonly cited to support federal agency regulatory power should be cast into an oceanic abyss.
A group of fishermen from New Jersey will see the justices consider their lawsuit against a Commerce Department regulation through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which required their boats to pay roughly $700 per day to fund the salary of human “at-sea” monitors for each fishing venture. The heart of the case asks the court to overturn the 1984 precedent from a case called Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council.
The core of the Chevron doctrine states that if a federal rule is challenged in court, the court should defer to the agency and its “reasonable” interpretation of the congressional statute it says grants them permission to create the rule.
