Overview

• U.S. District Judge Micah W. J. Smith granted an injunction on Friday stopping commercial fishing in waters 50 to 200 nautical miles around Johnston Atoll, Jarvis Island and Wake Island.
• The court found President Trump’s April executive order bypassed the Antiquities Act’s notice-and-comment rulemaking when it opened portions of the monument to commercial harvesting.
• The National Marine Fisheries Service must now follow a formal rulemaking procedure before issuing any new fishing permits within the protected area.
• Earthjustice and Native Hawaiian plaintiffs argued that longline fishing threatens turtles, marine mammals, seabirds and Indigenous cultural, spiritual and subsistence interests.
• The Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument spans about 500,000 square miles in the central Pacific and was designated in 2009 before its 2014 expansion.