Patrice McCarron, Executive Director of MLA and Kevin Kelley, at a Press Conference  in Portland Last Year.

On Friday, June 16, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled overwhelmingly in favor of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association (MLA) in its appeal of a lower court ruling in Maine Lobstermen’s Association v. National Marine Fisheries Service

In its ruling, the Court wrote:  “In this case, we decide whether, in a biological opinion, the Service must, or even may, when faced with uncertainity, give the ‘benefit of the doubt’ to an endangered species by relying upon worst-case scenarios or pessimistic assumptions.  We hold it may not.  The ESA and the implementing regulations call for an empirical judgment about what is ‘likely’.  The Service’s role as an expert is underminded, not furthered, when it distorts that scientific judgment by indulging in worst-case scenarios and pessimistic assumptions to benefit a favored side”

Following is the initial reaction from Patrice McGarron policy director for the MLA:  “When the Maine Lobstermen’s Association (MLA) made the decision to sue the federal government, we knew it wouldn’t be easy, but we refused to go down without a fight.  Today’s decision by the US Court of Appeals is an overwhelming victory for lobstering families and the communities that rely on this industry and it reaffirms what the MLA has been saying all along.  The federal government does not have a blank check to use ‘worst case seenarios’ and disregard actual data in its regulation of the Maine lobstering fishery.”

“MLA is grateful for the panel’s thorough and unanimous opinion that exposes the flaws in the biological opinion that lobstermen have been emphasizing from the beginning – flaws thatd threatened to sink our entire fishery and devastate our livelihoods and our communities.”

(This blogger regrets that this blog has been off-line for technical problems until earlier this week – thus delaying the posting of this important court decision.)