Hahn

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

INSTITUTE FOR FISHERIES Case No. 16-cv-01574-VC RESOURCES, et al.,

Plaintiffs, ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND

DENYING IN PART DEFENDANTS’

v. MOTION FOR JUDGMENT ON THE

PLEADINGS; DENYING

STEPHEN HAHN, et al., PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR

SUMMARY JUDGMENT

Defendants. Re: Dkt. Nos. 145, 198

The Food and Drug Administration has concluded that its authority to regulate drugs includes the authority to regulate the material used to modify an animal’s genetic makeup. Pursuant to that asserted authority, the FDA approved a company’s application to create, through genetic manipulation, a type of salmon that grows to mature size more quickly than normal. As a condition of approval, the FDA imposed restrictions on how and where the salmon are grown, to reduce the risk that the engineered salmon will mix with normal salmon. The FDA’s approval of the salmon has drawn a lawsuit by a coalition of environmental and industry groups. The lawsuit is both a broadside attack on the FDA’s authority to regulate the genetic engineering of animals and a targeted attack on the particular…