Saving Seafood

Spanish-owned group part of lawsuit against Trump over U.S. wind energy decision

June 5, 2025 — A new lawsuit filed this week pits a group of fishing businesses and environmental activists against the Trump administration after federal officials reversed course and allowed construction on the Empire Wind offshore project to resume. One of the plaintiffs is owned by a Spanish company.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New Jersey, opposes the Interior Department’s decision to lift a stop-work order on Equinor’s Empire Wind farm – an offshore project expected to power roughly 500,000 homes by 2027. The administration had paused work in April, citing concerns about environmental impacts and political opposition. However, it reversed course in May.

The plaintiffs include a mix of longtime offshore wind critics: Protect Our Coast New Jersey, Clean Ocean Action, and ACK for Whales. A dozen commercial fishing companies have joined the offshore wind opponents in the lawsuit.

One of the more notable players is Seafreeze Shoreside Inc., a Rhode Island-based seafood company that’s been a fixture in anti-wind coalitions.

Read the full article at The Center Square

Lawmakers and experts question Trump’s plan to make American seafood competitive during hearing

June 5, 2025 — During a Republican-led hearing touting U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order on restoring American seafood competitiveness, Democrats and assembled witnesses questioned whether the administration’s actions align with its stated purpose.

“I hope to work with the administration and my colleagues and the majority to achieve that goal, but I don’t see how the administration is going to succeed when it spent the last four months haphazardly cutting the funding and workers that our fisheries rely on,” U.S. Representative Val Hoyle (D-Oregon) said during a House Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee hearing title “Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

WPRFMC clarifies impacts of Trump’s decision to reintroduce fishing in Pacific national monument

June 5, 2025 — In April, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order allowing commercial fishing from 50 to 200 nautical miles off the shore within the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument.

The national monument was founded as the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument in 2009 under President George W. Bush and then expanded in 2016 under President Barack Obama.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Trump administration proposes cutting off funding for Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund

June 4, 2025 — U.S. President Donald Trump has proposed eliminating funding for the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund – a program that directs tens of millions of dollars annually toward supporting salmon populations along the West Coast.

The cut is part of the Trump administration’s planned cuts to NOAA; preliminary fiscal year 2026 budget documents outlined a USD 1.3 billion (EUR 1.1 billion) reduction to NOAA’s overall budget. Now, additional budget documentation released by the federal government shows which programs will be impacted by that cut, and salmon recovery efforts are one of the major government programs on the chopping block.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Empire Wind opponents sue Trump administration, Equinor to stop work again

June 3, 2025 — Two weeks after the Trump administration abruptly allowed the Empire Wind project to resume, a coalition of project opponents and commercial fishermen filed a new federal lawsuit June 3 calling for the Department of Interior to block the project again.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum – who imposed a stop-work order on Equinor’s project off New York April 16, then lifted it in mid-May – is named among as a defendant along with Equinor and the government of Norway, as a majority shareholder of the energy company.

Read the full article at WorkBoat

Can a bipartisan offshore wind caucus survive Trump?

June 3, 2025 — Republican support for offshore wind has flatlined across the federal government, but Capitol Hill’s only bipartisan caucus dedicated to the energy source is hoping to reverse that trend.

The House Offshore Wind Caucus, created in 2022, was pitched as a way to find bipartisan solutions to address the industry’s challenges and create policies to spur further growth of the renewable energy source.

It’s main leader, Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.), said in a recent interview that the caucus will remain active in the coming year to achieve those goals.

Read the full article at E&E News

USTR extends Section 301 tariff exclusions on certain seafood for another three months

June 3, 2025 — The United States Trade Representative (USTR) has granted certain Section 301 tariff exclusions on some seafood items, giving the products another three months to avoid a higher 25 percent tariff rate.

The Section 301 tariffs stem from the first term of U.S. President Donald Trump, who first hit Chinese products with a 10 percent tariff in 2018. That move started Trump’s first trade war with China, which resulted in 25 percent tariffs being placed on a wide array of goods from China related to the Section 301 Investigation of China’s Acts, Policies, and Practices Related to Technology Transfer, Intellectual Property, and Innovation.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Panel seeks to align fisheries policy with Trump order

June 2, 2025 — A House hearing this week will scrutinize federal regulations of commercial and recreational fishing.

The hearing Wednesday before the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries will feature testimony from industry stakeholders and fishing community leaders from Alaska to New England.

Among those scheduled to appear are Rick Bellavance, chair of the coordinating committee for NOAA’s eight regional fishery management councils and owner of a Rhode Island charter fishing company.

Read the full article at E&E News

US trade court invalidates Trump’s tariffs; appeals court stays order

May 30, 2025 — The U.S. Court of International Trade has ruled that U.S. President Donald Trump’s attempts to unilaterally raise tariffs are “invalid and cannot be implemented,” throwing the president’s ongoing trade negotiations into uncertainty.

However, the U.S. Department of Justice quickly appealed the ruling, and on 29 May, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit temporarily stayed the trade court’s ruling while it considers motions from both sides.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Shipping sector faces continued uncertainty as Trump appeals US court challenge to tariffs

May 30, 2025 — A 28 May decision by the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT), which challenged the legal basis of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, as well as the Trump administration’s appeal of that decision, has major implications for U.S. importers and shipping sector stakeholders, Clark Hill Senior Attorney Kelsey Christensen told SeafoodSource. 

The immediate consideration for shippers, Christensen said, is whether they need to be rushing imports into the U.S. at the moment.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource