Opinion ID: 793415
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: turtle island's challenge to the reopening of the fishery

Text: 36 The plain language of § 1855(f)(1) leaves no room for discussion: the thirty-day time limit applies whenever a party challenges [r]egulations promulgated by the Secretary under the [Magnuson Act]. See Norbird Fisheries, Inc. v. National Marine Fisheries Serv., 112 F.3d 414, 416 (9th Cir.1997) ([Section] 1855(f)(1), deprives the district court of jurisdiction to hear an attack on the regulations if review is not sought within 30 days. . . .). The question then is whether Turtle Island's claims are properly cast as challenges to the regulations. 37 The essence of Turtle Island's complaint is not in dispute — it challenges the reopening of the swordfish fishery. That opening came about as a result of the regulations published on April 2, 2004, yet Turtle Island did not file suit until almost five months later, well beyond the thirty-day limit. Turtle Island attempts to gloss over its statute of limitations problem by assiduously avoiding citation to the Magnuson Act and instead alleging claims under various other environmental statutes. This effort to circumvent the strict time limits under the Magnuson Act is to no avail. 38 To be sure, invocation of the magic words, the Magnuson Act, 8 is not a predicate to application of § 1855(f) if the substance of the challenge is to the regulations themselves. Notably, § 1855(f) does not state that challenges under the Magnuson Act must be brought within thirty days, but instead that judicial review of  [r]egulations promulgated by the Secretary under the [Magnuson Act] must be brought within the stated time limit. (emphasis added). 39 To allow parties to avoid this limitation through manipulation of form — avoiding mention of the Magnuson Act in the complaint — while in substance challenging the regulations, would permit parties through careful pleading . . . [to] avoid the strict jurisdictional limits imposed by Congress. Cal. Save Our Streams Council, Inc. v. Yeutter, 887 F.2d 908, 911 (9th Cir.1989); see Block v. North Dakota, 461 U.S. 273, 285, 103 S.Ct. 1811, 75 L.Ed.2d 840 (1983) (It would require the suspension of disbelief to ascribe to Congress the design to allow its careful and thorough remedial scheme to be circumvented by artful pleading. (quoting Brown v. GSA, 425 U.S. 820, 833, 96 S.Ct. 1961, 48 L.Ed.2d 402 (1976))). Thus, the decisive question is whether the regulations are being attacked, not whether the complaint specifically asserts a violation of the Magnuson Act. 40 Turtle Island's insistence that it is not challenging the regulations is not convincing, particularly in light of its motion for preliminary injunctive relief, which seeks to requir[e] defendants to withdraw their authorization of swordfish longlining in the Pelagic fisheries of the Western Pacific, and enjoin[ ] . . . all longline swordfish fishing activities. . . . As the 2004 Regulations are the source of authorization of swordfish longlining, Turtle Island's challenge cannot credibly be viewed as anything other than an attack on the regulations. 41 Similarly, an examination of the complaint reveals that the NEPA and MBTA claims are directed at the regulations implementing the Fishery Management Plan amendment; the claims rest on NMFS's issuance of an amended Fishery Management Plan . . . reopening the swordfish fishery . . . a Record of Decision on or about March 30, 2004 to do so, and . . . regulations implementing those regulations effective April 2, 2004. (emphasis added). Although an agency's issuance of a Record of Decision under NEPA can constitute a final agency action reviewable under the APA, see Or. Natural Res. Council v. Harrell, 52 F.3d 1499, 1503 (9th Cir.1995), to the extent that Turtle Island challenges the Record of Decision here, it does so as a stepping stone to NMFS's promulgation of regulations reopening the swordfish fishery. Turtle Island asks us to view its inclusion of the Record of Decision language as a stand alone challenge to agency action, distinct from the issuance of regulations, but to do so makes little sense. Turtle Island is really trying to attack and undo the regulations implementing the Fishery Management Plan amendment, which reopens the swordfish fishery. The Record of Decision is the foundation for those regulations and all of the claims flow from the reopening of the fishery. 42 Turtle Island's ESA claim is more convoluted but similarly transparent. The gist of the claim is that because reopening the swordfish fishery violated NEPA and MBTA, NMFS violated § 7 of the ESA by permitting the taking of sea turtles in the course of an otherwise unlawful activity. Turtle Island asserts that this claim, too, is directed at an agency action — the issuance of an Incidental Take Statement — separate and apart from the regulations. But the text of Turtle Island's complaint tells a different story: the ESA claim is premised on the issuance of regulations reopening the fishery. 43 Turtle Island's real objective is belied by the chronology of events. NMFS issued the Incidental Take Statement in February 2004, and the fishery was reopened in April 2004. Standing alone, the Incidental Take Statement did nothing. It became operational, and allegedly unlawful, only upon the promulgation of regulations reopening the fishery. 44 This case is quite similar to Blue Water Fishermen's Association v. NMFS, 158 F.Supp.2d 118 (D.Mass.2001), in which plaintiffs sought to enjoin regulations that closed certain areas to longline fishing and claimed that the biological opinion, upon which the regulations were based, violated § 7 of the ESA. The court determined that the ESA claim was clearly an attempt to evade the jurisdictional limitation imposed by the Magnuson Act, and that couching the action in different statutory language is not a hook which can remove the prohibitions of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Id. at 121-22 (internal citations and quotations omitted). 45 Stymied by the true nature of its claims, Turtle Island offers up an alternate way to avoid § 1855(f), arguing that the thirty-day limitation applies only to purely substantive challenges to the regulations, not procedural challenges. Nothing in the statute purports to distinguish between procedural and substantive challenges to regulations under the Magnuson Act and we divine no basis for such a dichotomy. Section 1855(f)(1)(B) authorizes a reviewing court to set aside any regulation that is not in accordance with law, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A), or without observance of procedure required by law, § 706(2)(D) (emphasis added). The sections relating to Fishery Management Plans, plan amendments, and implementing regulations require compliance with other applicable law at each step of the process leading toward the promulgation of regulations. For example, the Councils are required to develop Fishery Management Plans and amendments which are consistent with the [Magnuson Act] . . . and any other applicable law. 16 U.S.C. § 1853(a). NMFS must review the Fishery Management Plan, plan amendment or implementing regulation to ensure consistency with any other applicable law. § 1854(a)(1)(A), (3)(A), (b)(1). Read together, we conclude that § 1855(f) is not limited to purely substantive challenges to the regulations, but encompasses claims that NMFS, in promulgating regulations, violated other applicable law, including procedural statutes. 46 The notion that jurisdiction under § 1855(f) is contingent on a substantive/procedural distinction can be traced to a misreading of our decision in Jones v. Gordon, 792 F.2d 821 (9th Cir.1986). The plaintiffs in that case alleged that NMFS violated NEPA by issuing a permit that authorized Sea World to capture killer whales without prior preparation of an EIS. We rejected Sea World's claim that the NEPA challenge, brought six months after the permit's issuance, was time barred by the sixty-day time limit found in the Marine Mammal Protection Act's judicial review provision. Id. at 824-25. That provision stated: 47 Any applicant for a permit, or any party opposed to such permit, may obtain judicial review of the terms and conditions of any permit issued by the Secretary under this section or of his refusal to issue such a permit. Such review, which shall be pursuant to chapter 7 of Title 5, may be initiated by filing a petition . . . within sixty days after the date on which such permit is issued or denied. 48 16 U.S.C. § 1374(d)(6) (emphasis added). 49 We determined that this provision did not purport to govern all challenges to section 104 permits but rather governed only judicial review of the terms and conditions of such permits. Jones, 792 F.2d at 824 (internal quotations omitted) (emphasis in original). Given the plain language, the section applie[d] only to review of the substantive elements of a section 104 permit. Id. (emphasis in original). Because Jones's action d[id] not seek review of the terms and conditions of the Service's permit . . . [but] instead alleged that the Service, by not preparing an environmental impact statement, ha[d] violated the procedural requirements of NEPA, the sixty-day statute of limitation did not apply and the APA established jurisdiction for the action. Id. (emphasis in original). 50 Turtle Island misreads Jones —a decision that interprets language specific to the Marine Mammal Protection Act—too broadly. Turtle Island attempts to boost its misunderstanding of Jones with extensive citation to an out of circuit case, Conservation Law Foundation v. Mineta, 131 F.Supp.2d 19, 24 (D.D.C.2001), which adopts a similar misreading of Jones. In that case, the court relied on Jones for the general proposition that plaintiffs raising NEPA-only challenges may always proceed pursuant to the APA rather than pursuant to a more limited substantive statute. Id. 9 The court considered whether a claim that NMFS failed to undertake the required NEPA analysis in enacting a final rule reopening previously closed areas to scallop-dredging was subject to the Magnuson Act's thirty-day time bar. Rather than interpreting the relevant statutory language, the court in Conservation Law Foundation cited Jones and determined that as a general rule, plaintiffs raising NEPA-only challenges may proceed pursuant to the APA, which has no time limitation, rather than pursuant to a more limited substantive statute. Id. (internal citations omitted). The analysis in Conservation Law Foundation is mistaken, as our conclusion in Jones flowed not from any general proposition about NEPA but from a plain reading of the MMPA's jurisdictional provision. Here, too, it is the language of the specific jurisdictional statute, the Magnuson Act, that controls. 51 The structure of the Magnuson Act is consistent with this reading of the time limit. That such a limited window for judicial review exists specifically with respect to regulations makes sense in light of 16 U.S.C. §§ 1852-1854, which establish a highly detailed and public process leading up to the adoption of regulations. See Tutein v. Daley, 43 F.Supp.2d 113, 124 (D.Mass.1999) (The entire subchapter is an extremely well-drawn statute with interconnected sections and subsections setting forth a definite path leading to judicial review.). For example, each Council is required to conduct public hearings . . . so as to allow all interested persons an opportunity to be heard in the development of fishery management plans and amendments to such plans. . . . § 1852(h)(3). As soon as the Council transmits a Fishery Management Plan or plan amendment to NMFS, it must immediately publish in the Federal Register a notice stating that the plan or amendment is available and that written information, views, or comments of interested persons . . . may be submitted to the Secretary during the 60-day period. § 1854(a). Similarly, upon the Secretary's approval, the regulations must be published in the Federal Register for a public comment period of up to sixty days. § 1854(b). If the Council fails to develop a necessary Fishery Management Plan or plan amendment, or if the Secretary disapproves of the Council's plan, the Secretary is given authority to prepare such plan or amendment but must conduct public hearings . . . so as to allow interested persons an opportunity to be heard in the preparation and amendment of the plan and any regulations implementing the plan. § 1854(c). 52 In addition, the statute sets forth specific time periods for each step in this process, from the development of Fishery Management Plans, plan amendments and implementing regulations, to review and publication, and to the promulgation of final regulations. See 16 U.S.C. §§ 1854(a)-(c). Clearly, in crafting the thirty-day limitation for challenges to regulations, Congress intended to carve out . . . a specific exception for this particular type of claim. Cal. Save Our Streams, 887 F.2d at 911 (citation omitted). The Magnuson Act's high level of specificity does not evince congressional intent to allow other, more general statutes of limitation to be transplanted or imported, and thus spoil this fine-tuned scheme. It seems unlikely that Congress would have constructed this well-oiled machine, which anticipates compliance with other applicable environmental statutes, and yet intended its path to be so easily sidestepped. 53 Finally, three key aspects of § 1855(f)—the thirty-day time limitation, the bar on preliminary injunctive relief, and the provision for expedited review—demonstrate Congress's intent to ensure that regulations promulgated under the Magnuson Act are effectuated without interruption and that challenges are resolved swiftly. This concern for timely implementation of regulations comports with one of the primary purposes of the Magnuson Act: to provide for the preparation and implementation . . . of fishery management plans which will achieve and maintain, on a continuing basis, the optimum yield from each fishery. § 1801(b) (emphasis added). 54 The facts of this case provide a telling illustration of how the process should and does work. In developing a plan amendment, the Western Pacific Council conducted public hearings that were open to Turtle Island and other interested parties. NMFS published a proposed rule, which included information regarding the agency's efforts to comply with other applicable law, including drafting an EIS pursuant to NEPA and a biological opinion pursuant to § 7 of the ESA. In the months leading up to issuance of the 2004 Regulations, Turtle Island provided extensive comments, raising several of the arguments that later formed the basis of its complaint—i.e. that the proposed regulations substantively violated ESA and MBTA, and procedurally the EIS was inadequate under NEPA. When the regulations were promulgated at the end of the process, Turtle Island was in prime position to seek judicial review. 55 Turtle Island urges that applying § 1855(f) to the types of claims it raised would eliminate effective enforcement of environmental laws in commercial fisheries, virtually exempting them from judicial oversight. The sky, however, is not falling. Section 1855(f) applies only to a very specific class of claims—those that clearly challenge regulations promulgated under the Magnuson Act. This regime would not, as Turtle Island suggests, affect every claim that may arise later. For example, the regulatory challenge limitation would not encompass claims that NMFS failed to reinitiate consultation when the taking specified in the Incidental Take Statement is exceeded or a new species is listed or new information reveals effects of the action that may affect listed species . . . to an extent not previously considered in the biological opinion. 50 C.F.R. 402.16. Similarly, NEPA imposes a continuing duty to supplement an existing EIS in response to significant new circumstances or information relevant to environmental concerns bearing on the proposed action or its impacts. Marsh v. Or. Natural Res. Council, 490 U.S. 360, 372, 109 S.Ct. 1851, 104 L.Ed.2d 377 (1989) (quoting 40 C.F.R. § 1502.9(c)). We do not intend these examples to serve as an exhaustive list, but rather as illustrative of the many claims left untouched by § 1855(f). 56 We conclude that Turtle Island's claims are a challenge to the regulations reopening the swordfish fishery. Accordingly, the thirty-day time limitation of § 1855(f) applies and we affirm the district court's dismissal of Turtle Island's complaint. 57 AFFIRMED.