Oceana is challenging the Trump Administration’s withdrawal of a proposed Obama-era rule that would have limited the number of protected marine animals that could be “incidentally captured” by drift gillnets. Oceana, a non-profit ocean conservation and advocacy organization, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on July 12 against the U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

In 2015, the Pacific Fishery Management Council introduced a proposal for hard caps, or limits, on the number of injuries or deaths of nine protected species allowed during a rolling two-year or four-year period.

The Obama Administration published a proposal of how to implement the caps in October 2016 that would temporarily close a thresher shark and swordfish drift gillnet fishery in California if that fishery reached the cap. According to NOAA, gillnets are walls of netting with holes that fish can fit their heads through, but not the rest of their bodies. When the animal tries to back out, their gills get caught on the net. The more the animal struggles to free itself, the more it becomes entangled in the netting.

In addition to the swordfish that are intentionally being fished off the coast of California, the nets also accidentally trap marine animals that are considered “protected species.” The regulation would have protected fin, humpback, and sperm whales; leatherback, loggerhead, olive ridley, and green sea turtles; short-fin pilot whales; and bottlenose dolphins. However, the Trump Administration withdrew the proposal in June after the NMFS decided that the proposed changes “are not warranted at this time.”

Oceana released a statement on July 13 regarding the lawsuit. It said the proposed rule would have been an opportunity for the fishery to reduce “bycatch,” or species being caught inadvertently, and adopt “cleaner fishing methods” such as deep-set buoy gear or harpoon gear. Oceana attorney Mariel Combs said in the statement that “the withdrawal of this important protection … is plainly illegal.”

“Drift gillnets are a dirty and unsustainable way to catch swordfish,” Combs said. “Incremental steps, like limits on bycatch, are important tools to help move toward cleaner fishing. The Fisheries Service has supported these measures in the past, and its change of course is both disappointing and illegal.”

This isn’t the first time the Trump Administration has reversed some of the Obama Administration’s environmental decisions. In June, six environmental conservation groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency for suspending Obama-era regulations that limited leaks of harmful toxins during oil and gas production.

Marcus Dieterle

Marcus is an editorial intern at Law Street. He is a rising senior at Towson University where he is double majoring in mass communication (with a concentration in journalism and new media) and political science. When he isn’t in the newsroom, you can probably find him reading on the train, practicing his Portuguese, or eating too much pasta. Contact Marcus at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Life in plastic isn’t always fantastic. So why do we continue to cover our world in it? In the United States alone, we generate about 33 million tons of plastic waste per year. But in 2013, only nine percent of that total plastic waste was recovered for recycling. So where does the remaining 91 percent of plastic waste end up? While a significant portion of our trash is piled high in landfills, eight million tons of plastic trash ended up in the ocean from coastal countries in 2010. At this rate, the ocean trash tonnage is on track to increase tenfold in the next decade unless we take substantial steps to decrease our waste and improve the ways that garbage is collected and managed. One company is taking that challenge head on–Adidas has figured out one unique way to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Fairly soon, you may be able to look down at your feet to see the company’s new earth-friendly sneakers.

It makes sense to try to monetize our ocean pollution, particularly for the most industry-heavy countries. While China claims the top spot on the list of countries generating the greatest amounts of ocean-bound trash, the United States is 20^th on the list. If the recyclable materials in the United States waste stream were recycled, we would generate over 7 billion dollars—that’s equivalent to Donald Trump’s purported net worth. More important than the monetary implications, non-recycled plastic waste in particular is responsible for the deaths of over a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals, including sea turtles, sea lions, and seals each year. The plastic that doesn’t end up in a sea turtle’s stomach pollutes our oceans, poisons our water, and stays there. The average time for a plastic bottle to degrade completely is at least 450 years but some take as long as 1000 years to biodegrade.

There is an obvious need to find ways to harmonize nature and the consumptive, wasteful system we now maintain. That’s one goal of the new partnership between Adidas and Parley for the Oceans, a New York-based ocean conservation organization. At the end of June, Adidas announced a prototype for a running shoe made completely of plastic trash, gillnet fishing, and deep sea trawling found in the ocean.

Today we showcased a shoe that six days ago was ocean plastic waste. Bring on tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/mjkxwOUih1

— adidas (@adidas) June 29, 2015

One of Parley’s goals is to “make environmental protection fiscally lucrative for pacesetting major companies,” and that’s exactly what this shoe will do. Adidas has plans to roll out more recycled, plastic-based products later this year, all in a larger effort to highlight ocean-based environmental issues and promote efforts to counteract marine pollution.

Collaboration and innovation creates progress. We present a concept shoe born from ocean plastic waste. pic.twitter.com/5gv4y5imNH

— adidas (@adidas) June 29, 2015

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a non-profit, marine conservation organization that uses direct action tactics to protect marine life, was responsible for retrieving the materials that make up the outer design of the Adidas shoe. Sea Shepherd conservationists went on a 110-day expedition where they collected plastic from the ocean floor and even confiscated gillnets after they tracked down an illegal fishing boat off the west coast of Africa. The plastic that was collected went into the upper shoe structure and the green gillnets were knitted into the top of the sneaker to create its colorful design.

Adidas should be applauded for taking the lead in environmentally-aware sportswear. The company is the world’s third most valuable brand in the sports industry, just after Nike and ESPN, with a net worth of $6.8 billion dollars. This new sneaker and the upcoming line of shoes made from recycled plastics prove that even the big companies can go green, and do it in style. After all, trash looks much better when it’s being recycled on a shoe than it does when it’s polluting the ocean.

Emily Dalgo

Emily Dalgo is a member of the American University Class of 2017 and a Law Street Media Fellow during the Summer of 2015. Contact Emily at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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