⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit hears oral argument in Louisiana Shrimp Association versus Lutnick, a challenge to a twenty nineteen rule issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service. The Lutnick in the case name is Howard Lutnick, the Secretary of Commerce. He is named as a defendant only in that official capacity, because the National Marine Fisheries Service sits inside his department. He took office years after this rule was written, and the case is not about him personally. The rule requires skimmer trawl vessels forty feet and longer to install turtle excluder devices, or TEDs, in their nets, to protect endangered and threatened sea turtles from capture and drowning. It applies across the southeastern shrimp fisheries, from North Carolina to Texas, and it reaches boats working inshore, which the older TED rules had left alone. The shrimpers who brought this challenge fish Louisiana's inshore waters. The case reaches the Fifth Circuit on appeal. The shrimpers sued in federal district court in New Orleans, and they lost. In June of twenty twenty-five, the district court denied their motion for summary judgment, granted the government's, and dismissed their claims. So the shrimpers are the appellants here, and the government is asking the Fifth Circuit to affirm. Because the district court decided the case on the agency's administrative record, the Fifth Circuit takes a fresh look at that same record for itself, without deferring to the district judge. The legal question is whether the agency satisfied the Administrative Procedure Act — whether it adequately explained the mortality estimates the rule rests on, and whether the record supports them. The shrimpers argue that the rule rests on arbitrary percentages—ten percent, fifty percent, eighty percent—for post-release turtle deaths that were never grounded in field studies. The government counters that the agency synthesized observer data, scientific reports, and expert workshops to craft a narrowly tailored regulation balancing turtle conservation with economic impact on the shrimping industry. Notably, the same rule was upheld by the D.C. Circuit in a separate challenge brought by conservation groups who argued it was not protective enough of turtles.

LA Shrimp Association v. Lutnick (No. 25-30408) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, argued August 4, 2026.