ELR Citation: 54 ELR 20063
No(s). 21-cv-05407-VKD (N.D. Cal. Apr 22, 2024) (Demarchi, J.)

A district court granted in part and denied in part summary judgment for a conservation group in a challenge to NMFS' management of the Pacific sardine under the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) and NEPA. The group argued NMFS' plan to rebuild the sardine population after it was declared overfished in 2019 violated the MSA and NEPA. With respect to the MSA claims, the court found NMFS' rebuilding target did not fail to use the best available science and its determination that its 2023-2024 specifications required no essential fish habitat consultation was neither arbitrary nor capricious; but that the 2023-2024 specifications violated the MSA because they did not set catch limits that would rebuild the population within the statutory time frame, and that NMFS failed to demonstrate it relied on the best available science to set the overfishing limits or that the 2023-2024 specifications would prevent overfishing. With respect to the NEPA claims, the court found NMFS failed to take the requisite "hard look" because it relied on inconsistent assumptions and ignored important aspects of the proposed plans under consideration, and that it failed to take a hard look at the impact on the endangered humpback whale. It granted in part and denied in part summary judgment for the group.