NOT FOR PUBLICATION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-DefendantAppellee.

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 APPEALS
2 

United Cook Inlet Drift Association and Cook Inlet 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 DefendantsAppellees, 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. 

The 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 promulgation 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 Association v. National Marine Fisheries 
3 

Service, 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 of 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 have 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 nor 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.