Evans

This appeal requires us to decide whether the Secretary of Commerce, acting through the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), must provide notice and the opportunity for public comment before issuing specifications and management measures for the Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. (NRDC) and The Center for Marine Conservation, Inc., challenged NMFS’s specifications and management measures for 2001 on the footing that they are subject to the notice and comment requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Mag-nuson Act), 16 U.S.C. §§ 1801-1883 , and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. § 553 (b)-(c), but that no such opportunity was given. The district court ruled that notice and comment was required by the Magnuson Act, and prospectively by the APA because NMFS had not properly invoked the statutory exception allowing agencies to forgo this requirement upon a showing of good cause. The Secretary of Commerce, NMFS, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration appeal.

We conclude that NMFS’s recitation of good cause in 2001 was inadequate to excuse compliance with the APA’s notice…