February 9, 2026 — President Donald Trump has reopened a long-running fight over ocean conservation and fishing rights, ordering commercial fleets back into federally protected waters off New England and setting up another legal showdown.
Trump on Friday revoked Biden-era restrictions and again opened the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument — about 150 miles off Cape Cod — to commercial fishing. The move drew criticism from environmental advocates and prompted the Conservation Law Foundation to say it is prepared to sue once again.
The decision reignited a decade-old conflict between the fishing industry and conservation groups over the fate of nearly 5,000 square miles of deep-sea canyons and underwater mountains that scientists say shelter rare corals, endangered whales and fish.
In his proclamation, Trump said the ban on commercial fishing was unnecessary, writing that “appropriately managed commercial fishing would not put the objects of historic and scientific interest that the monument protects at risk.” He argued that many fish in the area “are highly migratory and not unique to the monument,” and that “a host of other laws enacted after the Antiquities Act provide specific protection for other plant and animal resources both within and outside the monument.”
The move marks the fourth time in less than a decade that a president has flipped federal policy on the monument, underscoring how sharply divided elected officials, advocates and coastal communities remain.
The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument was created in 2016 by President Barack Obama under the Antiquities Act, protecting 4,913 square miles of ocean where the Atlantic meets the continental shelf. Recreational fishing was allowed, but commercial fishing was banned. The area includes three underwater canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon and four seamounts — extinct underwater volcanoes — that rise thousands of feet from the ocean floor.