Wall Street Journal: When the Bureaucrats Come for Therapy Dolphins
Americans expect the government to keep them safe from drug traffickers, human smugglers and violent criminals. Add “therapists who help patients through dolphin encounters” to the federal bureaucracy’s list of societal outlaws.
In Hawaii, Eliza Wille and Lisa Denning are part of a small community of professionals who had built their lives around spinner dolphins. Ms. Wille, a psychotherapist, used dolphin encounters as experiential therapy for people struggling with addiction and mental illness. Patients who found it difficult to talk about their problems in the office opened up once they got in the water with these empathetic mammals. But in 2021, a low-level National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration bureaucrat banned anyone from swimming within 50 yards of Hawaiian spinner dolphins. If you’re in the water and a dolphin swims up to you, you must immediately back away.
The penalties for getting too close to a spinner dolphin are severe. A violation can result in fines up to $20,000 and up to one year in prison.
The dolphins aren’t endangered. By the bureaucrat’s own admission, spinners are “common and abundant” throughout Hawaii. Federal law already prohibits the harassment or harming of dolphins. Still, the NOAA official decided that dolphins might expend too much energy socializing with humans instead of resting or hunting. It’s the nanny state for dolphins.
Ms. Wille and Ms. Denning are challenging more than the rule—they’re questioning how it came to be. It wasn’t passed by Congress or signed by the president. Instead, it was issued by a bureaucrat who had been delegated the authority to issue such rules by the Senate-confirmed NOAA administrator. That’s unconstitutional.
The Constitution’s Appointments Clause requires rule-makers to be politically appointed. That enables Americans to hold the president accountable when regulators overstep. Yet here, a single unaccountable administrator effectively outlawed an entire way of life for responsible therapists, guides and small businesses in Hawaii. When decision-makers are unaccountable, decision-making suffers.
When confronted by the 2022 lawsuit from Ms. Wille and Ms. Denning, NOAA dug in. Then-Administrator Rick Spinrad rubber-stamped the regulation and asked the courts to dismiss the case—but he didn’t revoke the delegation, and the same NOAA line employee still uses that delegation to issue regulations. The tactic, if successful, would stop the courts from ever examining the NOAA administrator’s unconstitutional delegations. No law permits this cynical manipulation of the courts. But a federal district judge in Maryland (the state where NOAA is headquartered) held that the move fell within the administrator’s general regulatory authority and ruled in favor of the government.
Ms. Wille and Ms. Denning have appealed to the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That court should issue a clear decision that only Senate-confirmed officials may issue rules.
For Ms. Wille and Ms. Denning, this isn’t an abstract regulation. It’s their lives. When the ban hit, Ms. Wille lost a vital part of her practice and was furloughed by her clinic. Ms. Denning, who made a living by showing members of the public how to have respectful encounters with spinner dolphins, lost 90% of her income.
These women are professionals who care about people, wildlife and the mutually beneficial relationship between the two. They taught their clients to wait for the dolphins to approach, made sure swimmers left the water by late morning so the animals could rest, and never received a citation for harassment or harm. Ms. Wille spent eight years researching dolphin cognition. The least accountable people in government destroyed her practice.
The problem goes beyond dolphins. Politically unaccountable low-level government employees clock in daily, get out a pen, and criminalize activity that harms nobody. Congress, or Senate-confirmed officers with rule-writing authority, should make these decisions. That way, Americans can punish or reward those decisions at the polls.
Ms. Wille and Ms. Denning aren’t asking for chaos in the seas. They’re asking for the freedom to practice their trades responsibly, help patients heal, and let dolphins be dolphins. Ultimately, their lawsuit isn’t about therapy or tourism—it’s about whether Washington decision-makers are accountable to the people. These women seek to provide tangible benefits to those who need help. The government should focus on stopping actual harm, not banning joy.
This op-ed was originally published in The Wall Street Journal on October 10, 2025.