US federal appeals court orders NOAA to review Gulf of Mexico red grouper quota allocations

A U.S. federal appeals court is requiring NOAA to review red grouper reallocations the group made under its Amendment 53 decision issued in May 2022.U.S. Gulf of Mexico commercial fishermen sued NOAA’s NMFS the same month, alleging the reallocation of red grouper catch shares illegally favored the recreational-fishing sector via a flawed formula that did not comply with legal requirements. Amendment 53 reduced the commercial allocation of red grouper caught in the Gulf of Mexico to 59.3 percent – down from 76 percent – while increasing the recreational-fishing sector’s allocation from 24 percent to 40.7 percent.In January 2023, a U.S. district court judge ruled in favor of NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), allowing the federal agency to continue implementing Amendment 53, which went into effect in June 2022.However, on 1 March 2024, the Washington D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling, finding faults in aspects of Amendment 53 and calling on NMFS to ...