All Gulf coast states except Texas (who has never been compliant) were compliant with federal red snapper regulations until 2013. The states started going non compliant due to an ever shortening Federal red snapper season in spite of real data and science showing that the red snapper stocks are and were recovering fine and in many parts of the Gulf are over the historical virgin stock level (due to increased habitat). NMFS took this extreme attitude not because of the state of the red snapper stocks, but due to the ruling of a federal court judge in Washington DC. The judge ruled in a lawsuit brought upon NOAA and NMFS by both the Restraunt and Commercial fishing industry's charging them with letting the Recreational sector over fish there quota in previous years including the year of the BP oil spill when the summer season was a less than two weeks.
Y'all don't kid yourselves, This is all about the financial control of a public resource. Nothing else.