## Facts

- Federal fishery managers adopted an Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) program for Alaska-area halibut and sablefish fisheries to address overfishing, unsafe “derby” fishing, and excess fishing capacity.
- The Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act authorizes the Secretary of Commerce to implement fishery management plans developed by regional councils, including limited access systems, subject to statutory allocation standards.
- The IFQ regulations allocated quota shares largely using catch history during 1988–1990.
- Quota shares were issued to vessel owners and lessees with qualifying landings, not to individual crew members; some vessel owners who lacked qualifying-year catch history also received no quota.
- The agency justified allocating to owners/lessees based on administrative workability and the capital investment and risk borne by owners and lessees.
- Plaintiffs (including crew members excluded from initial quota and others disadvantaged by the qualifying years) challenged the regulations and also objected to designating Bellingham, Washington, as a “primary port” for landings.
- Plaintiffs further argued that aspects of the program improperly displaced Alaska’s regulatory authority in state waters.
- The district court granted summary judgment for the government; plaintiffs appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the IFQ allocation rules (including use of 1988–1990 catch history and allocation to vessel owners/lessees rather than crew) were arbitrary, capricious, or contrary to the Magnuson Act under the APA.
2. Whether the allocation satisfied the Magnuson Act’s “fair and equitable” requirement despite unequal distributive effects among fishermen.
3. Whether the primary-port designation (including Bellingham, Washington) exceeded the Secretary’s authority or conflicted with the governing management plan.
4. Whether private fishermen had standing to litigate claims framed as federal–state preemption or state-sovereignty disputes regarding regulation in Alaska waters.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the defendants, upholding the IFQ regulations.
- The court held the challenged allocations had a rational basis and were not arbitrary or capricious under the APA.
- The court concluded the Magnuson Act’s “fair and equitable” allocation standard does not require equal outcomes and permits differential treatment supported by conservation and management rationales.
- The court upheld the primary-port designation as within the Secretary’s implementation authority and supported by administrative/enforcement considerations.
- The court held plaintiffs lacked standing to press the preemption/state-sovereignty argument because such disputes are between the federal government and the state.

## Legal Principles

- Under APA arbitrary-and-capricious review, courts give substantial deference to agency fishery-management judgments made within statutory discretion.
- The Magnuson Act permits limited access systems that rely on historical participation data; a requirement to consider “present participation” does not bar using prior catch history to structure allocations.
- An allocation may satisfy the Act’s “fair and equitable” standard even if it disadvantages some participants, so long as the agency offers a rational, statutorily grounded explanation tied to management objectives (e.g., conservation, efficiency, safety, administrability).
- Implementation details reasonably related to monitoring and enforcement can fall within the Secretary’s regulatory authority when consistent with the management program’s aims.
- Private parties generally lack standing to litigate preemption/state-sovereignty allocation disputes that principally concern the federal government’s relationship with a state.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit sustained the Secretary of Commerce’s IFQ program for Alaska halibut and sablefish fisheries, holding that historically based quota allocations favoring vessel owners and lessees were rational and permissible under the Magnuson Act and the APA, that unequal impacts did not alone make the scheme unlawful, that the port-designation choice was within implementation authority, and that private fishermen could not litigate federal–state preemption disputes.


Alliance Against IFQs v. Brown, 84 F.3d 343 (9th Cir. 1996), cert. denied, 520 U.S. 1185 (1997)