ELR Citation: ELR 20144
No(s). 07-12903 (11th Cir. Jun 13, 2008)

The Eleventh Circuit reversed and remanded a lower court decision dismissing as untimely a fishermen association's challenge to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Fisheries' fishery management plan for the Reef Fish Resources of the Gulf of Mexico. The complaint was not time-barred under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. The Act permits a challenge to a regulation implementing a fishery management plan so long as it is filed within 30 days after the publication of the regulation or an action by the Secretary under that regulation. Because the association filed its challenge to the plan nine days after the Federal Register published a Secretarial action implementing the regulation at issue, the suit was timely.