## Facts

- The Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA), as amended by the Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act of 2006, requires fishery conservation and management measures to be based on the “best scientific information available.”
- The central subpopulation of northern anchovy on the U.S. West Coast is managed under the Coastal Pelagic Species Fishery Management Plan, developed through the Pacific Fishery Management Council and implemented by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).
- In 2016, NMFS issued a final rule setting an overfishing limit (OFL), acceptable biological catch (ABC), and annual catch limit (ACL) for the central anchovy stock (the “2016 Catch Rule”).
- The catch limits were derived largely from older data and analyses, while Oceana identified more recent survey information and other scientific material suggesting anchovy biomass was substantially lower than the assumptions used to set the 2016 limits.
- NMFS defended the rule by arguing that the newer information was uncertain or unreliable, that anchovy abundance fluctuates widely, and that the adopted limits were consistent with the fishery management plan’s control rules and precautionary buffers.
- Oceana, Inc., a nonprofit environmental organization, sued the Secretary of Commerce, NOAA, and NMFS, alleging that the 2016 Catch Rule violated the MSA and was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
- The case was decided on the administrative record on cross-motions for summary judgment, with Oceana seeking vacatur and a time-limited remand for a replacement rule.

## Issues

1. Whether NMFS violated the MSA’s National Standard 2 by failing to base the 2016 Catch Rule’s OFL/ABC/ACL on the best scientific information available when the record contained more recent information indicating lower anchovy biomass.
2. Whether the 2016 Catch Rule was arbitrary and capricious under APA § 706(2)(A) because NMFS did not provide a reasoned explanation for discounting the newer scientific information and retaining catch limits derived from older assumptions.
3. If the rule was unlawful, whether the proper remedy was vacatur and remand (and whether the court should set a deadline for a new rule), rather than remand without vacatur.

## Decision

- The court granted Oceana’s motion for summary judgment and denied defendants’ cross-motion to the extent it sought to uphold the 2016 Catch Rule.
- The court held that NMFS did not reasonably rely on and respond to the best scientific information available concerning anchovy biomass, as required by the MSA.
- The court held the 2016 Catch Rule was arbitrary and capricious under the APA because NMFS’s treatment of the more recent scientific material was not adequately explained and did not show a rational connection between the record and the selected OFL/ABC/ACL levels.
- Applying the usual remedy factors for APA rule challenges, the court found the deficiencies were serious and that leaving the rule in place posed unacceptable risk given the function of anchovy as a forage species and the possibility of low biomass conditions reflected in the record.
- The court vacated the 2016 Catch Rule and remanded to NMFS to issue a replacement rule consistent with the MSA and APA, with a court-ordered timeline for completion.

## Legal Principles

- Under MSA National Standard 2, conservation and management measures must be based on the “best scientific information available,” which requires the agency to grapple with materially relevant scientific evidence in the record and to explain how it evaluated competing information.
- Under the APA, an agency acts unlawfully if it fails to consider important aspects of the problem, fails to examine relevant data, or fails to provide a satisfactory explanation that connects the facts found to the choice made.
- Courts generally defer to an agency’s technical judgments only when the agency’s reasoning is coherent and supported by the record; labeling newer information “uncertain” does not, by itself, justify ignoring it.
- When deciding between vacatur and remand without vacatur, courts weigh (1) the seriousness of the rule’s deficiencies and (2) the disruptive consequences of vacatur; vacatur is appropriate where the legal and analytical errors go to the core of the rule and ongoing implementation risks harm.

## Conclusion

The Northern District of California set aside NMFS’s 2016 northern anchovy catch limits because NMFS did not adequately justify using older biomass assumptions while discounting more recent scientific information suggesting substantially lower anchovy abundance, violating the MSA’s best-available-science requirement and rendering the rule arbitrary and capricious under the APA; the court vacated the rule and remanded on a deadline for NMFS to issue a new rule.


Oceana, Inc. v. Ross, 2018 WL 1989575 (2018)