Saving Seafood

Management & Regulation

Invitation: SBA Listening Session on Fishing & Canning Industry – Sept. 23, Portland, ME

September 22, 2025 — The Office of Rural Affairs and the National Ombudsman’s Office are having hearing/listening sessions across various states to hear firsthand from small businesses, fisherman, etc. about the regulatory burdens and challenges they face, particularly in the fishing & canning industry. This is in response to the growing concerns within this sector. Through these hearings, our teams will identify effective solutions.

Please see the attached invitation for the next session taking place tomorrow, in Portland, Maine on Sep 23rd from 9:30am-11:30am
Please encourage your members and stakeholders with these interests to attend.

WPRFMC votes to reopen fishing in parts of marine monuments after Trump order

September 19, 2025 — The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WPRFMC) has decided to move forward with allowing commercial fishing within marine national monuments in the Pacific Ocean.

In a press release, the council said it is reopening the four marine national monuments in its management area – the Pacific Islands Heritage, Rose Atoll, Mariana Trench, and Papahānaumokuākea Marine national monuments. U.S. President Donald Trump directed much of those areas to reopen to fishing in a sweeping proclamation issued in April 2025 designed to benefit the U.S. seafood industry.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource 

Aquaculture Opportunity Areas bolster America-First seafood production

September 19, 2025 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

As part of NOAA’s commitment to prioritizing American seafood competitiveness, the agency has identified 13 Aquaculture Opportunity Areas totaling more than 21,000 acres in U.S. federal waters of the Gulf of America and off the coast of Southern California. These areas will strengthen the nation’s seafood industry, reduce reliance on foreign imports, and create high-quality American jobs.

Today’s release of two final programmatic environmental impact statements for the Gulf of America and Southern California identifies prime locations that may be suitable for developing multiple commercial aquaculture projects, fulfilling President Trump’s 2020 Executive Order “Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth” and supporting the 2025 Executive Order “Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness”. These orders champion a robust, America-first seafood industry that puts U.S. workers and consumers first.

Each year, Americans eat roughly $15 billion in seafood farmed and imported from foreign countries, where labor and environmental standards often fall short of America’s rigorous standards. By expanding domestic aquaculture to complement wild-harvest fisheries, NOAA is driving an America-first approach that creates jobs, supports coastal communities, and ensures  high-quality, homegrown seafood for American families.

“The U.S. leads the world in aquaculture science and technology, yet we rank 20th globally in marine aquaculture production,” said Eugenio Piñeiro Soler, acting assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA Fisheries assistant administrator. “By growing our domestic aquaculture industry, we will strengthen American health, create good-paying jobs, and drive sustainable, long-term economic growth for our nation.”

The final documents released today are grounded in 19 scientific support products and incorporate robust public input, building on draft documents released last year. These efforts reflect NOAA’s commitment to transparency and American-driven decision-making.

In Southern California, NOAA experts identified 10 prime locations for potential aquaculture development –  eight in the Santa Barbara Channel and two in Santa Monica Bay – ranging from 500 to 2,000 acres, totaling 16,500 acres. NOAA found these areas may be suitable for seaweed, shellfish, and finfish aquaculture.

In the Gulf of America, three locations off the coast of Texas were identified, each ranging in size from 500 to 2,000 acres, totaling 4,500 acres. NOAA found these areas may be suitable for seaweed, shellfish, and finfish aquaculture. NOAA is also investing in baseline environmental surveys in the Gulf to provide valuable data to prospective farm applicants.

The Aquaculture Opportunity Areas will be finalized with two decision documents following this announcement. The selected areas are just the beginning of unlocking the vast potential for aquaculture in U.S. waters, paving the way for more jobs, thriving coastal economies, and an increased abundance of high-quality American-raised seafood on Americans’ plates.

More information on the final PEISs for Southern California and the Gulf of America is available on the NOAA Fisheries website. 

Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission holds a series of public hearings

September 19, 2025 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is hosting a series of public hearings on the East Coast. This aims to rebuild the striped bass stock by 2029.

This comes after projections indicated the numbers wouldn’t meet the deadline in that year.

The proposed action is to increase the probability of rebuilding the stock. They will do this by reducing fishery removals by 12% through management measures.

Read the full article at WMDT

Fishing council recommends rolling back fishing prohibitions in Pacific Ocean

September 18, 2025 — The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council wants to undo fishing protections in the Pacific Ocean, which opponents say will hurt ocean ecosystems.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in April to review regulations in U.S. marine monuments in an effort to promote domestic fishing.

As part of that review, WESPAC was asked to make recommendations to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce on what to do within Pacific monuments.

On Tuesday the council voted to endorse a July letter it drafted recommending the allowance of commercial fishing in three Pacific monuments — the Mariana Trench, Rose Atoll and Pāpahānaumokuākea marine national monuments.

The council also voted separately to repeal fishing prohibitions in the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument, formerly known as the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument.

Read the full article at Hawaii Public Radio

ASMFC to hold public hearing on controversial striped bass management plan

September 18, 2025 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission plans to hold a public hearing on Thursday to gather input on controversial new striped bass regulations.

Draft Addendum III to Amendment 7 of the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan includes updated quotas and regulations designed to protect Atlantic striped bass, or rockfish, numbers in the Chesapeake Bay. Some watermen on Delmarva have criticized the latest proposed policies on striped bass fishing as overregulation that threatens their livelihoods.

Read the full article at WBOC 

Federal regulators vote in favor of President Trump’s push for commercial fishing in marine monuments

September 17, 2025 — On Tuesday, the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council voted to advance President Donald Trump’s executive order to allow commercial fishing inside the Papahanaumokuakea and Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monuments.

The decision came after dozens of Native Hawaiians, fishers, and scientists voiced opposition, including former Department of Hawaiian Home Lands director William Aila Jr.

“Great disappointment. It just means that extractive, industrial fishing takes precedent over the sacredness of Papahanaumokuakea,” Aila said. “This area has been pristine for many, many years, and the fisheries have regained their vitality. So, we would prefer to keep those areas closed off to fishing because that is our insurance policy for future generations.”

The council also voted to set limits on fishing in the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument, which encompasses 490,000 square miles southwest of Hawaii.

Read the full article at Hawaii News Now

Trump admin tries to sink Maryland’s first offshore wind project

September 17, 2025 — Maryland’s first offshore wind farm could have broken ground next year. But now the 114-turbine renewable energy project is all but doomed following the Trump administration’s most recent move in a long line of attacks on the industry.

In a motion filed Friday with the U.S. District Court in Maryland, the Interior Department asked a judge to cancel approval of the Maryland Offshore Wind Project, which was authorized in the final weeks of the Biden administration. The wind farm was expected to power over 718,000 homes in a Democrat-led state facing rocketing energy demands.

Officials claim that the agency’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management made an ​“error” when assessing the turbines’ potential impact on other activities — like search-and-rescue operations and fishing — within the 80,000-acre swath of ocean where the wind farm would be located.

The project is over a decade in the making, with developer US Wind purchasing the lease in 2014. But after President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July and greatly shortened the duration of the wind energy tax credit, Maryland’s first offshore wind farm already seemed impossible to pull off — at least economically.

Harrison Sholler, an offshore wind analyst with BloombergNEF, told Canary Media in July that with the tax credits sunsetting at a much earlier date, the Maryland project would likely no longer be able to offset 30% of its costs. The original rule for receiving the incentives required construction to start by 2033 or potentially even later, but the new law stipulates that wind farms must be ​“placed in service” by the end of 2027 or begin construction by July 4, 2026, to qualify.

Read the full article at Canary Media

New England shrimp fishery likely to see continued moratorium

September 17, 2025 — The shrimp fishery off the coast of the northeast U.S. region of New England is likely to face continued shutdowns as the stock continues to struggle.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) first voted to close the shrimp fishery in the Gulf of Maine in 2013 after the harvest that winter was the smallest since 1978. Despite the closures, the stock has not shown signs of recovery, and the fishery was closed for three more years in 2018, kept closed three years later, and in December 2024, the moratorium was extended further.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

New England’s shrimp industry is struggling, with fishermen catching few in 2025

September 15, 2025 — There’s an effort underway to bring New England shrimp back to seafood customers — but fishermen have found few of the crustaceans, and the fishing industry that harvests them may face an even longer shutdown.

Fishermen have been under a moratorium on catching shrimp for more than a decade because of low population levels that scientists have attributed to climate change and warming oceans. The harvesters were allowed to catch a small number of shrimp this past winter as part of an industry-funded sampling and data collection program.

Read the full article at News Center Maine