Stand Together profiles how New Jersey Fishermen Helped reshape Government Power
By
| July 9, 2026
In June 2024, a landmark Supreme Court decision — Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo — changed how federal laws are interpreted. While government agencies possess the constitutional authority to create regulations that explain how to implement a statute on a daily basis, they do not have the authority to interpret unclear laws.
In the Loper Bright case, a federal agency sought to force fishermen to pay out of their own pockets for at-sea monitors — biological technicians who are onboard to prevent overfishing — when the law was ambiguous about who should pay the fee. By overturning decades of precedent, the Supreme Court limited agencies’ ability to interpret unclear statutes and reaffirmed the roles of Congress and the courts in making and interpreting laws.
