Center for Biological Diversity v. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration

Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in the federal district court for the Central District of California seeking to compel the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to perform an adequate search for records concerning NOAA’s decision in 2017 to deny CBD’s petition to list the Pacific bluefin tuna as threatened or endangered. NOAA had issued a positive 90-day finding and announced the initiation of a status review of the tuna in October 2016. CBD also asked the court to compel the release of all records and portions of records that CBD alleged NOAA had improperly withheld. CBD alleged that the Pacific bluefin tuna was primarily threatened by commercial fishing but that it also was threatened by water and plastic pollution, oil and gas development, renewable energy projects, large-scale aquaculture, forage fish depletion, and climate change.