Fishermen from the U.S. states of New Jersey and Massachusetts have once again filed a lawsuit challenging the creation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.
The national monument was first established by former U.S. President Barack Obama in 2016, who created the nearly 5,000-square-mile monument in the Georges Bank area of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean via executive order. The monument effectively banned commercial fishing in the area, with only red crab and lobster fishermen allowed to use the area – with plans to phase out that fishing by 15 September, 2023.
Since its creation, the monument has been the subject of controversy, with fishermen launching an unsuccessful challenge of the monument’s creation. Their subsequent appeal of the decision was denied. Over a year later, the U.S. Supreme Court also opted against taking up the case.
However, in 2020, then-U.S. President Donald Trump issued his own proclamation reopening the monument to commercial fishing, a move which itself was the subject of lawsuits from conservation organizations. Then, matters were complicated even further when U.S. President Joe Biden announced, just hours after taking office in January 2020, he was planning a review of the Trump administration’s actions on a number of national monuments. Fishing advocates quickly mobilized to try and prevent the reestablishment of the marine monument, but didn’t succeed, as the monument’s boundaries and fishing limits were restored in October 2021.
Now, fishermen are taking the matter back to court, with the Pacific Legal Foundation once again taking the lead on the lawsuit. Its argument is much the same as it was in its previous suit: The creation of the monument counts as abuse of the Antiquities Act.