Easy for You to Say

The Doomsday Clock

US Fisheries

The Fisheries Service is empowered by a statute known as the Magnuson-Stevens Act, an old statute enacted by Congress, of course. This empowers the agency to regulate the nation’s fisheries, which are divided by region.

What the Marine Fishery Service has lately discovered the power to do, supposedly in the Magnuson-Stevens Act, is to require fishermen to pay the salaries of federal monitors who have to ride aboard their boats and make sure that the fishermen comply with restrictions on fishing methods, on catch requirements, things like that.

Now, the Magnuson-Stevens Act is quite clear that these federal monitors are allowed aboard, that’s not in dispute, but the question of who pays for them is very much in dispute. The statute does not directly speak to the subject, all parties to the case agree about that fact, but they draw two very different conclusions from it.

The fishermen say that since Congress didn’t put that authority in the statute, the National Marine Fisheries Service doesn’t have it. The fishery service says, “Well, Congress was quiet about it, so that gives us discretion to decide when we’re going to invoke this power.” And that’s sort of the core controversy in this case.

The reason that may sound absurd to anyone who’s not familiar with a doctrine known as the Chevron deference—the Chevron deference stems from a 1984 Supreme Court decision by Justice [John Paul] Stevens. The basic premise of that decision is that courts owe deference to agencies when they’re interpreting a statute that they administer, the statute is either silent or ambiguous on a particular subject, and the agency’s interpretation is “reasonable.”

And so that’s why you can actually have this controversy where an agency looks at a statute, sees nothing there, and yet can hallucinate this power that is enormously consequential and enormously burdensome.

The matter will be heard before the Supreme Court.

Bucket List Trip

The Great Loop is a continuous waterway that mariners can travel that includes part of the Atlantic, Gulf Intracoastal Waterways, the Great Lakes, Canadian Heritage Canals, and the inland rivers of America’s heartland.

Recognition

Crow’s Breast (first chief) and Lean Wolf (second chief), Gros Ventres. ca. 1870. Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, North Dakota. Photo by Stanley J. Morrow. Source – Yale Collection of Western Americana

These men are Hidatsa, sometimes called the Gros Ventre of the village. There was another Nation called the Gros Ventre of the plains, they were the Atsina. The two Tribes were not related. One spoke a Siouian dialect (Hidatsa) and the other spoke an Algonquin dialect (Atsina). The Hidatsa are closely related to the Crow, and the Atsina are related to the Arapaho.

In the Old West, it was critically important to understand who showed up, quickly. Then again, General Phil Sheridan said that the only good Indian was a dead one and it became USGOV policy. So maybe it mattered less to them than I think.

Identify the Tank

Identify the Aircraft

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