NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED COOK INLET DRIFT ASSOCIATION; COOK INLET FISHERMEN'S FUND,

Plaintiffs

- Appellants,

v. NATIONAL MARINE FISHERIES SERVICE; et al.,

Defendants

- Appellees, STATE OF ALASKA,
Intervenor

- Defendant

Appellee. No. 20

- 35029
D.C. No. 3:13

- cv - 00104

- TMB

MEMORANDUM *

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Alaska Timothy M. Burgess, Chief District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted May 12, 2020 San Francisco, California Before: WALLACE and R. NELSON, Circuit Judges, and GWIN, * * District Judge.

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36

- 3.

** The Honorable James S. Gwin, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Ohio, sitting by designation. 

# FILED

MAY 29 2020 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS2

United Cook Inlet Drift Association and Cook I nlet Fishermen’s Fund (collectively “UCIDA”) appeal the district court’s order denying in part and granting in part UCIDA’s motion to enforce judgment against Defendants

Appellees, National Marine Fisheries Service, et al. (collectively “NMFS”)

. We
affirm

. 1. The district court properly exercised its discretion when it imposed a deadline by which the Council must adopt a recommendation for referral to NMFS

. T he district court found there was no evidence of intentional delay and set a date
certain

— December 31, 2020

— for the Council to adopt a recommendation of the
final federal salmon fishery management plan (“FMP”) amendment , with “final agency action and/or pr omulgation of a final rule [ to] occur within one year
thereafter.” This is a reasonable requirement a court may impose on an agency while it is deliberating on remand. See Nat ’ l Wildlife Fed. v. NMFS , 524 F.3d 917, 937 (9th Cir. 2008). Accordingly, the district court struck the appropriate balance between imposing a permissible “procedural restriction” and refraining from imposing an impermissible “substantive restraint.” Id. at 937

- 38; see also Alaska
Ctr. For Env ’ t v. Browner , 20 F.3d 981, 986

- 87 (9th Cir. 1994)

. The district court also correctly concluded that the UCIDA’s argument that NMFS is considering only FMP alternatives that would violate the “letter and spirit
of the decision ” in United Cook Inlet Ass ociatio n v. Nat ional Marine Fish eries3

Serv ice , 837 F.3d 1055 (9th Cir. 2016 ) , is premature as there has been no final agency action to review. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is currently preparing a recommended proposal of the FMP and NMFS must ultimately decide whether to accept or reject the proposed FMP. Neither this
Court’s decision in United Cook , nor any relevant statute, required the district court to intervene in the administrative process , before the final agency action, to
set deadlines and mandate the contents o f the FMP amendment. See 16 U.S.C. § 1855(f)(1) ; 5 U.S.C. § 706(2); see also Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms , 561 U.S. 139, 164 (2010) (“Until such time as the agency decides whether and how to exercise its regulatory authority, however, the courts ha ve no cause to intervene.”)

. 2. The district court also did not abuse its discretion when it declined to
order interim relief for the commercial fishery. Neither United Cook n or the parties’ agreed

- upon district court judgment discussed or required interim relief or the special master appointment

. And even if the district court did have the authority to grant interim relief, it did not abuse its discretion by declining to do so before NMFS approved the final FMP.
AFFIRMED.