Massachusetts Lobstermen v. Ross

Cases > Separation of Powers > Massachusetts Lobstermen v. Ross

Case Status: Active: Litigation is ongoing

The Antiquities Act of 1906 authorizes the President to declare monuments on “land owned or controlled by the Federal government” to protect their historic or scientific value. On his way out of office, President Obama used this power to declare a 5,000 square mile area of the ocean to be the Northeast Canyons and Seamount Marine National Monument. Because the ocean is not “land owned or controlled by the Federal government,” PLF represents a coalition of fishing industry associations in a lawsuit challenging this abuse of the statute, which renders off-limits areas long used for sustainable commercial fishing near New England and the East Coast.

Originally designed to protect pueblo ruins in the southwestern states, the Antiquities Act of 1906 gives the President authority to designate national monuments to protect areas of historical or scientific value so long as they are “situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States” and the designated area is “the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected.” In September, 2016, President Obama ignored these limitations and declared a 5,000 square mile area of the Atlantic Ocean – the Georges Bank, roughly the size of Connecticut – to be a national monument.

For centuries, the Georges Bank supported lucrative fisheries for a wide variety of fish and shellfish, resulting in the establishment of many fishing communities of New England and throughout the East Coast. These fisheries provide an important source of income and employment for fishermen throughout the northeast. Cooperative government-private sector councils worked together to regulate equipment and fishing methods, the areas available for fishing, and catch limits to ensure the environmental sustainability of the area. The monument designation strips the collaborative groups of any authority to manage the area, placing that power in the Commerce and Interior Secretaries, who are directed specifically to prohibit energy exploration or development, fishing, taking of any living or nonliving resources, and so forth.

As a result, coastal fishermen are suffering significantly reduced income, virtually eliminated commercial fishing opportunities, and depletion of their investment in their boats and permits. PLF represents these fishermen and sued to invalidate the monument designation because the Antiquities Act does not authorize the President to establish ocean monuments and, even if it did, the vast monument designated here does not comply with any of the statute’s limitations and conditions.

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What’s at stake?

The Antiquities Act contains important limitations to ensure that the power to establish monuments is limited to the minimum necessary to preserve historically or scientifically valuable sites on land owned or controlled by the federal government. President Obama complied with none of these limitations, an abusive use of executive power that cannot be countenanced.
The monument designation threatens to undermine years’ worth of effort and considerable costs absorbed by commercial fishermen to promote sustainable fishing in the region by forcing them to relocate to other areas that are less sustainable.