A win for the state of New Hampshire/A defeat for government overreach.
A federal court of appeals ruled that a federal agency went too far in imposing restrictions meant to protect an endangered whale species.
NH Governor Chris Sununu is celebrating the decision as a win for the state’s lobster industry, which reportedly has hundreds of commercial and recreational trappers.
The Governor, promising that his office would not sit back and allow the federal government to choke the lobster industry to its death, stated:
New Hampshire backs its fishermen, and today’s victory helps keep them in business.
Given that it is hard to know exactly why the North Atlantic Right whales are dying or where they have died, the decision found that the National Marine Fisheries Service cannot give the benefit of the doubt to an endangered species by relying on worst-case scenarios or pessimistic assumptions, according to the New Hampshire Morning Report (the Boston Globe).
The opinion reads:
It is not the province of a scientific consultant to pick whales over people.
If, as the lobstermen claim, the federal lobster fishery is not the problem (to Right whales), then the phase one rule is not the solution.
Read more in Maine Lobstermen, a Dying Breed.
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