September 21, 2026 — The New England Fishery Management Council won’t make a controversial scallop permit-stacking proposal a priority in 2027. That’s despite federal officials directing the regulators to do just that.
The council voted overwhelmingly last week to respond to the federal government’s early July request by saying that it “lacks the operational capacity” to take action on the permitting change next year.
Federal officials handed down six requests for the council to discuss, a byproduct of a 2025 Trump Administration executive order aimed at ending “overregulation” and the “erosion of American seafood competitiveness at the hands of unfair foreign trade practices.”
Only one of them, the permit-stacking request, had this caveat: If the council can’t take up the permit stacking issue, federal officials are prepared to consider doing it themselves.