Oceana, Inc. v. National Marine Fisheries Service

Oceana filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the District of Alaska challenging the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS’s) approval of amendments to fishery management plans for fisheries in the North Pacific. The complaint alleged that the amendments’ revisions of the plans’ descriptions of essential fish habitat (EFH) failed to adequately evaluate and identify fishing effects on EFH and also failed to describe and identify EFH, minimize adverse effects on EFH, and identify actions to promote conservation and enhancement of EFH in violation of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. In addition, the plaintiffs asserted violations of the National Environmental Policy Act, including because NMFS relied on a “severely outdated” 2005 environmental impact statement even though there had been “significant changes in the North Pacific ecosystem since 2005 bearing on the decision to adopt the EFH amendments,” including “loss of sea ice, changes in food web dynamics, and shifts in the abundance and distribution of various species.”