Saving Seafood

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

The ESA is about to board the Trump roller coaster

December 4, 2024 — The incoming Trump administration and its emboldened congressional allies could soon reshape the Endangered Species Act without really touching the 1973 law.

The GOP-controlled Congress could rescind last-minute ESA-related actions. Appropriations bill riders and targeted legislation could block Biden-era moves.

Office budgets could be cut, if Congress goes along. By themselves, the Interior Department’s new political appointees could rewrite Biden administration regulations.

“I expect they will just have a knee-jerk reaction and pull back regs, shooting themselves in the foot on a policy that could be incredibly useful for infrastructure and agriculture,” said Timothy Male, executive director of the Environmental Policy Innovation Center.

Male cited as an example a Biden-era rule change that gives the Fish and Wildlife Service the power to require compensatory mitigation, also known as offsets, as part of the ESA consultations conducted with other federal agencies.

If history is any guide, a congressional rewrite of the law will remain a bridge too far.

The ESA regulations, by contrast, are a ripe target for every new administration.

The first Trump administration, starting in 2017, rewrote crucial ESA regulations that covered issues from how critical habitat is designated to how costs are taken into account when a species is proposed for listing as threatened or endangered.

This package of ESA revisions drew hundreds of thousands of mostly critical comments. Once implemented, they were entangled in litigation. Some, though not all, were subsequently withdrawn and rewritten in the Biden administration.

Read the full story at E&E News

Trump’s energy agenda in the next administration: A closer look

November 29, 2024 — With just over 50 days remaining until Donald Trump takes office once again, the president-elect has been beefing up his incoming administration with nominees and appointees that can advance the Republican’s oil and gas-focused energy agenda.

With a Republican majority in the House and Senate, Trump is not expected to face many hurdles from Congress in implementing his America-first energy goals. Though, that’s not to say he won’t face trouble from within the industry itself.

Amid a flurry of agency nominations, many environmentalists and climate activists have begun to question whether renewables can thrive under a new Trump administration. Though, at the same time, some clean advocates are confident there is space for clean energy to still grow.

As Trump’s transition team has begun to draft early Day One orders for his energy plan, many questions remain as to how it may be implemented. The Washington Examiner has taken a closer look at some of these queries, breaking down what exactly Trump’s energy agenda might look like in practice.

Read the full article at The Washington Examiner