How the Supreme Court rescued my NJ fishing firm that bureaucrats almost sank

The Supreme Court just sided with my New Jersey-based, family-owned fishing business — and may have even saved it.That’s the reality of the court’s June 28 decision in a case called Loper Bright Enterprises v.Raimondo, which overturned the “Chevron doctrine” that gave unchecked power to federal bureaucrats.Yet the media reaction hasn’t focused on what the ruling means for regular people and job creators like me. The pundits say that Washington, DC, will descend into chaos because the justices stopped unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats from deciding for themselves what’s “reasonable” under federal law. But as I can attest, that power quickly leads to abuse.

The Supreme Court has protected the American people from regulators run amok, and from a Congress that won’t do its job.I was one of the small business owners who sued the federal government in this case. I didn’t know my lawsuit would go all the way to the Supreme Court, or that the justices would tackle a huge question like bureaucratic accountability and how our laws should be read. I just wanted to stop a federal agency that threatened my ability to keep my family business afloat.In early 2020, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration decided that herring boats like mine had to start paying for the federal monitors who sometimes ride along during fishing trips.These monitors check to make sure we’re not catching more fish than we’re allowed to, and observe our fishing methods to confirm we’re following the rules.I’m glad we have a federal law that empowered NOAA to create a monitoring program: That law helps keep fishing sustainable. But nowhere in the law does it say that fishermen like me have to pay for the monitors.It was long understood that the government should pay for them, since the government requires them.Only the government can afford them, too: The monitors cost about $700 a day.

For our two fishing boats, this mandate could have forced us to...