A yearslong battle between a group of New Jersey fishermen and the federal government landed at the US Supreme Court today four commercial fishing companies who catch Herring off the Waters of Cape May are fighting a 2020 Federal rule requiring them to pay the salaries of federal monitors who watch over their operations and at times hop on board to collect data and make sure rules are followed the Court's decision could spill over into other Industries weakening the ability of the federal government to regulate everything from the environment to food safety and even the workplace as senior correspondent Brenda Flanagan reports it's among the most consequential cases the justices will decide this year a Cape May fishing company's making legal waves before the US Supreme Court over being ordered to pay up to 700 bucks a day for federal monitors these officials go out with fishing boats to make sure they follow rules and quotas the company claimed they can't afford it and sued backed by significant legal Firepower from a conservative group who told the justices commercial fishing is hard space on board vessels is tight and margins are tighter still therefore for my clients having to carry Federal observers on board is a burden but having to pay their salaries is a crippling blow attorney Paul Clemens with the cause of action Institute which argued Congress never intended Herring fishermen to pay big bucks from monitors when it passed laws to safeguard Fisheries it seeks not just relief for the fisherman but also to scrap a longstanding legal Doctrine called Chevron which advises courts to defer to federal agencies when arguments arise over how to best interpret ambiguities in the law Clement called it inherently political and more often what ambiguity is I don't have enough votes in Congress to make it clear so I'm going to leave it ambiguous and then we'll give it to my friends in the agent and they'll take it from here Clement claimed with new administrations pushing new rules every four years agencies can flip flop on regulations to suit political objectives but solicitor general Elizabeth Prelogar noted Congress can't always foresee every legal question that might arise that's where Chevron can offer Common Sense guidance Chevron recognizes is that when Congress hasn't decided it and some followon person is going to have to fill in the Gap and it's a question of whether it should be the courts or the agency there is a presumption here that Congress intended it to be the agency but always subject to those guard rails about making sure the agency's construction is reasonable the Supreme Court hasn't cited Chevron in its decision since 2016 and observers suspect the new conservative majority could seek a major overhaul if not overturning the doctrine according to Rutgers law professor Adam Crews I would be shocked to have Chevron overruled outright uh especially to the extent of the Court saying something like uh it's never appropriate to give difference to an agency I think even the Chevron Skeptics were acknowledging that it's impossible really to imagine a world where there's not at the very least some sort of special consideration or special weight that's given to what the government says overturning Chevron could open legal floodgates disrupting government regulations on everything from the environment to Health Care consumer safety and gun control it would shift power from federal agencies to the courts and launch thousands of appeals there are big Reliance interests at stake here because there are dozens in that case here thousands of decisions that could stand to be displaced and create chaos if Chevron is overruled but the fisherman's attorney argued properly settled cases would remain intact what's it all mean for the Herring fisherman at bright Enterprises in Cape May the Supreme Court's expected to rule by early summer I'm Brenda Flanagan NJ Spotlight news