## Facts

- Commercial fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico red snapper fishery challenged three NMFS regulations governing the recreational red snapper fishery.
- The Magnuson–Stevens Act (MSA) requires fishery management measures to prevent overfishing, use the best scientific information available, and ensure fair and equitable allocations when fishing privileges are divided among groups.
- The Gulf red snapper stock had long been designated overfished and managed through annual catch limits (ACLs) and rebuilding measures.
- The overall red snapper ACL was allocated between commercial and recreational sectors (approximately 51% commercial and 49% recreational).
- Commercial harvest was closely controlled through monitoring and closures when quotas were reached; recreational harvest was managed largely through fixed seasons with landings estimated after the fact.
- Recreational landings repeatedly exceeded the recreational quota in prior years, creating recurring overages that threatened rebuilding efforts and the fishery’s long-term stability.
- In 2013, NMFS shortened the recreational season but later reopened it in the fall despite information indicating the recreational sector had already exceeded its annual quota.
- Plaintiffs asserted that the recreational management regime predictably permitted ACL exceedances, harming conservation goals and undermining the commercial sector’s interests in a rebuilt stock and stable management.
- The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment under the MSA, the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), and NEPA.

## Issues

1. Whether NMFS’s recreational red snapper regulations complied with the MSA’s requirement to prevent overfishing and achieve optimum yield (National Standard 1), given repeated recreational ACL overages and a reopening after an overage.
2. Whether NMFS based its decisions on the best scientific information available (National Standard 2) when relying on updated recreational catch data while maintaining and reopening a season under an already-exceeded ACL.
3. Whether NMFS’s sector allocation and disparate enforcement—tight commercial controls versus recurring recreational overages—was “fair and equitable” under National Standard 4.
4. Whether the challenged regulations were arbitrary and capricious under the APA for failing to connect the record evidence to the decision to permit additional recreational harvest.

## Decision

- The court granted plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment and denied defendants’ and the intervenor’s cross-motions.
- The court set aside the challenged recreational red snapper regulations as inconsistent with the MSA and arbitrary and capricious under the APA.
- The court concluded that ACLs function as binding constraints, and NMFS could not justify reopening a recreational season after the quota had been exceeded.
- The judgment effectively invalidated the challenged regulations and required NMFS to bring recreational management into conformity with statutory conservation and allocation requirements.

## Legal Principles

- Under the MSA, ACLs and accountability measures operate as enforceable limits intended to prevent overfishing and support rebuilding of overfished stocks.
- National Standard 1 imposes a substantive obligation to prevent overfishing; agency action that predictably permits continued overages in an overfished fishery conflicts with that obligation.
- National Standard 2 requires reliance on the best scientific information available, but improved or revised data does not authorize ignoring an existing ACL or treating it as optional within a season.
- National Standard 4’s fairness requirement is undermined where one sector is effectively held to its quota while another sector is managed in a manner that routinely allows exceedances of its allocation.
- Under the APA, agency action is unlawful if the agency fails to examine relevant data and provide a reasoned explanation linking the facts found to the choice made, particularly when statutory constraints are central to the decision.

## Conclusion

The court held that NMFS acted unlawfully by implementing recreational red snapper measures that tolerated recurring quota overages and by reopening a season after the recreational ACL had been exceeded, concluding the regulations violated the MSA’s conservation and allocation standards and were arbitrary and capricious under the APA.


Guindon v. Pritzker, 31 F. Supp. 3d 169 (D.D.C. 2014)