RI fishermen take fight with feds to Supreme Court

NORTH KINGSTOWN –A fishing line stretches from the town docks into the U.S. Supreme Court on an issue that could pull the catch from consumers’ dinner plates.

It’s all connected to federal regulations coming under fire for their onerous provisions that could drive up the price of catch at the dock and later on restaurant bill of patrons.

“The impact to consumers is this – if U.S fishermen and fishing vessels can’t afford to operate due to these financially burdensome regulations, the U.S. commercial fishing industry will fade away,” said Meghan Lapp, spokeswoman for the company challenging U.S. government regulators.

“And all the fish available to U.S. consumers will be imports,” she added. Her company, Seafreeze Shoreside, with fishing boats in North Kingstown, in Relentless, Inc. v. the U.S. Department of Commerce is challenging what Lapp sees as excessive charges that could eventually spread to the entire industry.

A 1984 federal rule is giving federal regulators the authority to require trained, professional observers on regulated fishing vessels and that vessel operators must pay charges in excess of $700 per day.

“For a 10-day fishing trip, that’s a lot of money. The reality is that on a herring fishing trip, the vessel could be paying that at-sea monitor more per day than a crew member will make per day,” she said.

However, the fishing industry is so-called “small fish” in this contested issue. In that pond are larger organizations such as public health, workplace and consumer regulations that are also affected.

Seafreeze brought the case to the nation’s high court in a challenge to the U.S. Department of Commerce, which is now run by former RI Gov. Gina Raimondo.

These effects across a wide swath of federal regulations stem from a 1984 approach that says that if a federal law’s meaning is ambiguous, courts should defer to what federal regulators say it means.

It is known as the “Chevron deference” giving government agencies the power to interpret federal statutes if a question is not specifically addressed by Congress.

It has been a foundational framework in administrative law and those are the waters that Seafreeze and its boats, The Relentless and the Perseverance, are stirring up.

The Relentless was built in the mid-1980s as a freezer trawler, which means that the vessel freezes the harvest on board the vessel at sea. This makes for extremely high-quality seafood, which is sold both domestically and internationally, Lapp explained.

The Relentless and Seafreeze’s other freezer trawler, The Persistence, are subject to various existing monitoring requirements.

“What we are contesting is being required to pay for them. If the federal government doesn’t have the funds from Congress to expand its own programs, we as the fishing industry should not have to be forced to foot that bill right out of our paychecks,” Lapp said.

“The regulation also provided for the future expansion of this program to all other New England commercial fisheries,” she added.

She made the analogy of the government imposing random taxes for programs it should fund.

“The government’s own documents state that paying for the new regulation would cost 20% of the herring vessel’s annual returns. Imagine having 20% of your paycheck taken to pay for a government program,” she said.

Several Supreme Court justices last month voiced support for weakening the power of federal regulators, but it was not clear whether a majority would overturn a precedent that has guided American law for four decades.

Lapp said that a favorable decision will benefit both commercial fishermen and the public.

“Even now, it is very difficult for U.S. commercial fishermen to compete price-wise with product coming from places where operations are cheaper and regulations are less strict or non-existent,” she said.

“The overall impact of putting U.S. commercial fishermen out of business (because of increasing costs from federal requirements) is actually that the only available product to American consumers will be less sustainable and the country will lose a sustainable food source,” she said.

“Fishing is not easy, and it is not as simple as just driving a boat. It requires skill, ecological knowledge, marine biology knowledge, hydrographic knowledge, etc. Once that knowledge is lost, it is lost. So, hopefully, we never make U.S. commercial an fishermen extinct species,” Lapp said.