A federal judge in Honolulu blocked a NOAA guidance Friday that permitted commercial fishing around protected Pacific islands and atolls.
The ruling from Judge Micah Smith of the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii said the Trump administration’s unilateral decision to open a large swath of the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument violated the Administrative Procedure Act by forgoing public comments or hearings.
That notice to fishermen came one week after President Donald Trump’s proclamation declaring 400,000 square miles of the monument would no longer be subject to commercial fishing prohibitions that had been in place between 50 and 200 nautical miles of Wake and Jarvis islands and the Johnston Atoll. The areas, which have ecological, cultural and historical value, became subject to fishing bans when President Barack Obama expanded the monument in 2014 under the Antiquities Act of 1906.
Under his April 17 proclamation, Trump ordered the Commerce Department to “expeditiously publish new proposed rules in the Federal Register to amend or repeal all burdensome regulations that restrict commercial fishing” in that 400,000-square-mile area covering 80 percent of the monument’s boundaries.
