Court Dismisses Halibut Lawsuit

All --
Attached is the court's order dismissing the lawsuit against the one fish rule because the Secretary's recision of the rule in September mooted the case. The case was dismissed without prejudice.
The government sought dismissal with prejudice, which would have meant that they could use the dismissal to block a future suit against the a new one fish rule. However, we argued successfully that the case should be dismissed without prejudice, which is what the court did.
NMFS is still hoping to issue a notice of proposed rulemaking on a new one halibut daily bag limit for Area 2C by the end of November. We will notify everyone as soon as the proposed rule appears in the Federal Register. There will likely be a 30 day comment period, so everyone should be prepared to submit comments over the holidays.
CHTF will be preparing legal arguments to be submitted with our comments in order to help with a possible legal challenge of the new rule. As with the last case, funds will be needed to prepare arguments and file the lawsuit. Donations can be sent to CHTF via our website at
http://www.charterhalibut.org/id2.html