Saving Seafood

President-elect Donald Trump says Massachusetts wind farms are ‘driving whales crazy’

January 8, 2025 — President-elect Donald Trump says wind farms off the Massachusetts coast are “driving the whales crazy,” and his administration will look to enact a policy that halts the development of the “garbage” energy source.

“They are dangerous,” Trump said of wind farms during a lengthy news conference Tuesday, touching on his central priorities. “You see what’s happening up in the Massachusetts area with the whales … The windmills are driving the whales crazy, obviously.”

Throughout his campaign and since winning reelection in November, Trump vowed that his administration would cut down on wind farms. He doubled down on that stance Tuesday, saying no windmills will be built when he regains office on Jan. 20.

The comments came after President Biden’s announcement Monday of a ban on new offshore oil and gas drilling in most U.S. coastal waters, a move looked at as a last-minute effort to block a potential expansion under the incoming administration.

Read the full article at the Boston Herald

Biden issues ban on offshore oil and gas drilling in most federal waters. Trump vows to undo it

January 6, 2025 — President Joe Biden is moving to ban new offshore oil and gas drilling in most U.S. coastal waters, a last-minute effort to block possible action by the incoming Trump administration to expand offshore drilling.

Biden, whose term expires in two weeks, said he is using authority under the federal Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to protect offshore areas along the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and portions of Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea from future oil and natural gas leasing.

“My decision reflects what coastal communities, businesses and beachgoers have known for a long time: that drilling off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation’s energy needs,” Biden said in a statement Monday.

“As the climate crisis continues to threaten communities across the country and we are transitioning to a clean energy economy, now is the time to protect these coasts for our children and grandchildren,” he said.

Biden’s orders would not affect large swaths of the Gulf of Mexico, where most U.S. offshore drilling occurs, but it would protect coastlines along California, Florida and other states from future drilling.

Read the full story from the AP

The winds of change: Offshore wind’s role in a future Trump administration

December 30, 2024 — While offshore wind has faced the ire of Donald Trump for years, culminating with expected rollbacks of federal support in just a few weeks’ time, the industry remains surprisingly optimistic that the renewable power source will play a key role in the president-elect’s energy strategy.

Trump has repeatedly vowed to target offshore wind, blocking new projects and federal funding for the industry in his new administration. During a May campaign rally in New Jersey, the Republican promised to take action on this during his first day in office through an executive order.

Read the full article at the The Washington Examiner

MASSACHUSETTS: ‘It’s not going to be pretty’

December 26, 2024 — On a chilly November evening, the first after a string of 70-degree days, people made their way to a former storefront on Acushnet Avenue in New Bedford’s North End. Some of the 50 or so gathered made small talk with friends, mainly in Spanish and K’iche’, a language spoken by over a million people in rural Mayan communities of Guatemala.

Voters had elected Donald Trump to the presidency a second time just two weeks before, and this fact sat heavily in the air among those in attendance — primarily immigrants from Central America, many of them undocumented — at the Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores (CCT), or Worker’s Community Center.

During the campaign, Trump promised voters mass deportations, pledging at points to declare a national emergency and involve the military in rounding up immigrants. He has publicly mused about changing the Constitution to end birthright citizenship. In an appearance on “Meet the Press,” Trump said he’d consider deporting US citizen children of deportees to avoid separating families, and his pick for border czar, Tom Homan, said the largest deportation operation in history would start on January 21, the day after Trump’s inauguration.

The first speaker of the evening was New Bedford Police Chief Paul Oliveira, who was peppered with questions in Spanish about how Trump’s deportation plans might affect the work of the local police. If we suffer a hate crime, can we still report it? If Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issues a detainer, do police act on it?

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light

Congress scrambles to avoid government shutdown, punt funding decisions to March

December 20, 2024 — Lawmakers in the U.S. Congress are scrambling to pass a continuing resolution that will keep the government funded through March after President-elect Donald Trump pressured House leaders to scrap a carefully negotiated deal.

Congress has already missed its mandated 30 September deadline for fiscal year 2025 appropriations, punting any disagreements on the budget until after the November elections.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Trump backs longshoremen in standoff with port managers, paving way for January strike

December 19, 2024 — U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has taken a stand in favor of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) in the group’s contract dispute with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), which manages the ports along the U.S. East and Gulf coasts.

In mid-November, ILA leadership walked away from negotiations with USMX, refusing to compromise on automation, which USMX said must be integrated – in at least some ways – into port operations.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Federal hostility could delay offshore wind projects, derailing state climate goals

December 16, 2024 — Numerous East Coast states are counting on offshore wind projects to power tens of millions of homes and to help them transition to cleaner energy.

But putting wind turbines at sea requires the cooperation of a powerful landlord: the federal government. Soon, that government will be led by President-elect Donald Trump, who has frequently disparaged offshore wind and said he will “make sure that ends on Day 1.”

In the eight states that have passed legal mandates to reach certain amounts of offshore wind power, Trump’s second term threatens those timelines.

“This is absolutely going to create problems for how we’re going to meet our emissions goals and the energy needs for the state,” said Massachusetts state Sen. Jamie Eldridge, a Democrat who serves as vice chair on the legislative Joint Committee on Environment and Natural Resources.

Read the full article at Stateline

Some in seafood industry see Trump as fishermen’s friend, but tariffs could make for pricier fish

December 13, 2024 — The incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump is likely to bring big changes for one of the oldest sectors of the U.S. economy — seafood — and some in the industry believe the returning president will be more responsive to its needs.

Economic analysts paint a more complicated picture, as they fear Trump’s pending trade hostilities with major trading partners Canada and China could make an already pricy kind of protein more expensive to consumers. Conservationists also fear Trump’s emphasis on government deregulation could jeopardize fish stocks that are already in peril.

Read the full article at WNKY

Trump’s fish farm proposal for the Gulf sparks concerns

December 12, 2024 — The Trump administration is considering expanding floating fish farms in the Gulf of Mexico, a plan to boost domestic seafood production and reduce reliance on imports. However, this initiative faces significant opposition from environmental groups and fishing communities that worry about its potential impact on the Gulf’s delicate ecosystem.

The proposed aquaculture industry would establish floating farms for fish such as tuna and snapper, a concept already used in other countries like Norway and Japan. According to Verite News, proponents argue that offshore farms could provide a sustainable alternative to wild-caught fish, which are increasingly threatened by overfishing and habitat loss. They contend that by utilizing unused ocean space and reducing the carbon footprint of seafood transport, the fish farming industry could help meet growing global demand.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

US hunger, nutrition programs may lose funding under Trump, experts warn

December 9, 2024 — Based on actions taken by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s administration during his first term in office, some organizations are voicing concerns that he might try to alter and potentially weaken the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) after he takes office in January – which will in turn impact seafood consumption.

SNAP is the largest federal program aimed at combating hunger in the U.S. and supports around 42 million beneficiaries.

Read the full story at Seafood Source