May 29, 2025 — To help pull the struggling Alaska seafood industry out of its tailspin, state lawmakers passed some bills aimed at lightening the financial load on harvesters and advanced others that are intended to help businesses and fishery-dependent municipalities.
The bills stemmed from recommendations made by the Joint Legislative Task Force Evaluating Alaska’s Seafood Industry, which was created by lawmakers last year and which completed its work with a report at the start of this year’s session.
Lawmakers passed two task force-related bills, giving unanimous or near-unanimous support. One of them, House Bill 116, allows Alaska fishing organizations to establish their own insurance cooperatives. The other bill, Senate Bill 156, shores up the Alaska Commercial Fishing and Agriculture Bank with a long-term loan from the state to keep the cooperative organization in business.