The Supreme Court just sided with my New Jersey-based, family-owned fishing business — and may have even saved it.
That’s the reality of the court’s June 28 decision in a case called Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which overturned the “Chevron doctrine” that gave unchecked power to federal bureaucrats.
Yet the media reaction hasn’t focused on what the ruling means for regular people and job creators like me.
The pundits say that Washington, DC, will descend into chaos because the justices stopped unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats from deciding for themselves what’s “reasonable” under federal law.
But as I can attest, that power quickly leads to abuse.
The Supreme Court has protected the American people from regulators run amok, and from a Congress that won’t do its job.
I was one of the small business owners who sued the federal government in this case.
I didn’t know my lawsuit would go all the way to the Supreme Court, or that the justices would tackle a huge question like bureaucratic accountability and how our laws should be read.
I just wanted to stop a federal agency that threatened my ability to keep my family business afloat.
In early 2020, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration decided that herring boats like mine had to start paying for the federal monitors who sometimes ride along during fishing trips.
These monitors check to make sure we’re not catching more fish than we’re allowed to, and observe our fishing methods to confirm we’re following the rules.
I’m glad we have a federal law that empowered NOAA to create a monitoring program: That law helps keep fishing sustainable.
But nowhere in the law does it say that fishermen like me have to pay for the monitors.
It was long understood that the government should pay for them, since the government requires them.
Only the government can afford them, too: The monitors cost about $700 a day.
For our two fishing boats, this mandate could have forced us to pay for over 100 days of monitoring a year, totaling more than $70,000 — a huge expense for a small fishing business and the fishermen we work with.
What gives federal bureaucrats the right to rewrite federal law?
They say the law is “unclear,” which gives them authority to interpret it.
But common sense says that if the law doesn’t say it, the government can’t do it.
Silence doesn’t equal authority.
And there’s a good reason Congress didn’t say that I had to pay for monitors: It’s plainly unaffordable and ignores how fishing works.
Some days, my boats don’t even set their nets, because they don’t see fish.
If there’s a monitor on board, we’re paying $700 while the crew earns nothing.
Even on days when the fishing’s good, having to pay for an onboard monitor means our fishermen earn less — and if we can’t keep our crews, our company goes out of business.
I’m far from the only one who faced a crisis because of government overreach.
There are hundreds of federal departments, commissions and bureaus in America.
They’ve all been able to issue regulations and rules based on their own interpretation of the law, massively expanding the government’s power over everyday life and entire industries.
The bureaucrats say they’re being reasonable — but there’s nothing reasonable about letting unelected people rewrite the laws that govern Americans.
Once they start, they never stop: Today, they’re trying to force me to pay $700 — tomorrow, they could hit me with some other bogus demand that doesn’t exist in federal law.
But now they can’t, thanks to the Supreme Court.
In my case, another court will now have to decide if the monitor mandate is defensible under the clear wording of the law.
More broadly, federal agencies now will have to stay in their lane, while Congress will have to write clearer laws and do its job.
This isn’t just about federal power: It’s about the people who suffer when that power is abused.
The federal government nearly sank my family’s fishing business.
Thank God the Supreme Court has taken the first step to bail us out.
Wayne Reichle is president and owner of Lund’s Fisheries in Cape May, NJ.