Edited by Skandha Gopinath and Rohith Raman
Abstract
As human activity continues to push the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale towards a dire existential crisis, its primary legal protections have fragmented under significant economic and political pressure. Spurred by the commercial interests of local lobster and crab fisheries and evolving administrative law jurisprudence, recent developments by the federal government in response to the North Atlantic right whale’s conservation have weakened the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act through legislative intervention, agency inaction, and judicial setbacks. While the ecological and demographic threats the North Atlantic right whale faces are well-documented, the corresponding shift in the legal landscape's role in the decline of both the species and its statutory protections remains unexplored. To ensure the whale's continued survival and preserve the doctrinal integrity of two of the nation's most comprehensive environmental statutes, this article proposes stricter judicial review of agency delays using TRAC v. FCC’s six-factor standard and the pursuit of Skidmore Deference in executive agency decision-making to prevent the erosion of statutory mandates.
