Saving Seafood

US States Sue Trump Administration for Weakening Endangered Species Protections

September 9, 2026 — U.S. states filed two lawsuits on Wednesday accusing President Donald Trump’s ⁠administration ⁠of illegally weakening the federal Endangered Species Act, a landmark ⁠law that has shielded the bald eagle and other wildlife from dangers posed by development.

The lawsuits by the Democratic attorneys ​general of 20 states and Washington, D.C. were filed less than two months after the Department of the Interior and the Department of Commerce announced final rules that could make it easier for ‌developers, fossil fuel companies and others to disturb ‌lands that environmental advocates say need protection from business interests.

Enacted by Congress in 1973, the Endangered Species Act has been credited with saving animals including the California condor, grizzly bear and ⁠humpback whale.

In one lawsuit, ⁠the states challenged a rule that narrowed the Endangered Species Act’s definition of “harm,” which had long included encroachments on ​habitats where endangered animals live.

The new rule, which the states called “a reversal of staggering proportions,” allows oil drilling, mining and other activities in those habitats so long as those activities are not “directed immediately and intentionally” against particular animals, even if they cause injuries or death.

In the other lawsuit, the states challenged two rules. One rule eliminates broad protections for newly threatened species unless the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service creates ​species-specific protections. The second rule requires the government to consider objections by businesses, such as potential economic burdens, before declaring areas as “critical habitats.”

“The Trump administration is ⁠trying to ⁠undermine the law, the will of ⁠Congress and the will of the people ​who overwhelmingly support protections for endangered species,” Washington Attorney General Nick Brown said at a press conference. “Instead of stewardship, this administration’s approach to our land, to ​our water is one of exploitation.”

Read the full article at US News

Opinion on The Maine Lobstermen Decision and Recent Federal Fisheries Actions

September 8, 2026 — The following opinion was published by Samuel Blatchley:

Three years ago the D.C. Circuit told the National Marine Fisheries Service it could not build a biological opinion on worst-case assumptions. Last week the agency wrote that principle into its own priorities.

In Maine Lobstermen’s Ass’n v. National Marine Fisheries Service, 70 F.4th 582 (D.C. Cir. 2023), the court held that the Service may not, when faced with uncertainty, give the benefit of the doubt to an endangered species by relying on worst-case scenarios or pessimistic assumptions. The ESA calls for an empirical judgment about what is likely. The effects of an action are those reasonably certain to occur, found on clear and substantial information. Projections the agency itself concedes are very likely wrong do not meet that standard. The court reversed, directed judgment for the lobstermen, and ordered the biological opinion vacated as applied to the lobster and Jonah crab fisheries. I was on the case for the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, alongside the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, the State of Maine, and Lodge 207. Our clients were facing regulations that would have taken jobs and boats out of the water.

Two things happened last week that build on it.

On September 1 the House passed H.R. 9436, the Northeast Lobsterman Protection Act, 219 to 196, extending the current regulatory pause for the lobster and Jonah crab fisheries from 2028 to 2035. The Administration issued a statement strongly supporting passage. It now goes to the Senate.

On September 2 NOAA Fisheries issued its agency-level priorities. On the Northeast lobster fishery, the agency states it will not mandate ropeless gear, that any decision support tools or models used by the Take Reduction Team must be independently and empirically reviewed, and that any future Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan will rest on best available data rather than worst-case scenario modeling.

That last clause applies the principle the court enforced in 2023, and returns the agency to the position it had taken itself in 2019 before the biological opinion abandoned it.

Worth keeping the distinction clear. The bill would change a statute. The priorities document is a policy statement that amends nothing and can be withdrawn. What lasts is the record. The Take Reduction Team is building the file the next rule will stand on, and how its models get vetted will matter long after the announcement does.

Common sense science is not a slogan. It is what the statute already required, and what it took a court to enforce. The Senate should pass H.R. 9436, and the agency should be held to the standard it has now stated, so the next rule protects both the whale and the communities that fish alongside it.

#FisheriesLaw #Lobster #EndangeredSpeciesAct #RightWhale #AdministrativeLaw

Samuel P. Blatchley is a maritime, fisheries, and insurance attorney and Proctor in Admiralty at Eckland & Blando LLP, where he represents vessel owners, commercial fishermen, marine businesses, insurers, and industry organizations in complex litigation, regulatory matters, marine casualties, coverage disputes, and commercial disputes throughout the United States. His practice includes federal admiralty litigation, fisheries and environmental regulation, marine insurance, limitation of liability, vessel arrests and maritime liens, and matters involving NOAA Fisheries and other federal and state agencies. He has represented fishing-industry interests in significant state and federal litigation, including the D.C. Circuit challenge to NOAA Fisheries’ North Atlantic right whale regulations on behalf of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association. Blatchley is admitted to practice in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, and New York and is a graduate of Tulane University Law School, where he earned a Maritime Law Certificate and served on the Tulane Maritime Law Journal.

Environmental groups take steps to sue to compel new protections for gray whales

August 28, 2026 — Amid a decade of die-offs and a sharp decline in the population of gray whales that swim along the Pacific coast of North America, three environmental groups are preparing to sue the Trump administration over its failure to bring back Endangered Species Act protections for the animals.

The Center for Biological Diversity, the International Marine Mammal Project and Oasis Earth on Tuesday submitted a notice of intent to sue the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration over gray whale protections.

Oasis Earth submitted a petition a year ago to NOAA Fisheries for a threatened or endangered listing to be granted to the Eastern North Pacific gray whale population. But the agency neither issued a 90-day finding on the petition’s validity nor a 12-month finding on the population’s status, as required under the law, the groups’ notice said.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

Nonprofit sues over U.S. push to auction areas of water around American Samoa for potential mining

August 20, 2026 — A legal environmental group sued the U.S. government on Tuesday to halt the Trump administration’s plans announced last month to auction off sections of water surrounding American Samoa for potential deep-sea mining.

Earthjustice filed the lawsuit against the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on behalf of two groups: Fa‘asao Amerika Samoa and Conservation Council for Hawai‘i.

The legal nonprofit is requesting that a judge order the National Marine Fisheries Service to stop moving forward with its plans and to comply with the Endangered Species Act and other federal laws.

“The United States has never opened its waters to deep-sea mining. Until now,” the lawsuit stated.

It noted that the U.S. plans to sell leases with the intention of allowing mining across 33 million acres of seabed off American Samoa that is rich in minerals including nickel, cobalt and manganese that are used to build batteries, electronics and other products.

Read the full article at NBC News

Court order could threaten permits for surviving US wind projects

August 19, 2026 — A court decision remanding prior approvals for a wind energy project off New Jersey could pose a new threat to offshore turbine arrays under construction, as the Trump administration presses its relentless campaign against them.

The Aug. 10 decision by U.S. District Court Judge Jia Cobb in the District of Columbia granted a request by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to reconsider its permitting for  Atlantic Shores, planned as a 2.8 gigawatt project near Long Beach Island, N.J.

Local activist group Save Long Beach Island had sought a remand and reconsideration of the project’s construction and operations plan, approved in October 2024 in the waning days of the Biden administration.

Save LBI contended that BOEM failed to adequately consider the project’s likely effects under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act, among other federal laws.

Read the full article at WorkBoat

US Senate Democrats move to restore definition of “harm” in ESA in response to Trump order

August 5, 2026 — Democrats in the U.S. senate have introduced legislation that would restore the definition of “harm” in the Endangered Species Act (ESA), undoing the federal government’s attempt to rescind habitat protections for threatened species.

In July, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump decided to change the definition of harm, rescinding a 50-year-old policy of considering damage to the habitat of endangered species when regulating human activities and development. The U.S. Department of the Interior claimed the decades-old definition was too broad and blocked economic development.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

US representatives introduce bipartisan bill to undo Trump’s ESA rollback

July 29, 2026 — A pair of U.S. lawmakers has introduced a bill that would reverse the federal government’s decision to roll back the definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to exclude habitat destruction.

“Congress enacted the Endangered Species Act to prevent extinction – not to document it after the damage has already been done,” U.S. Representative Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania) said in a release. “For more than 50 years, our nation’s protections have reflected a basic legal, scientific, and commonsense truth: When habitat destruction actually kills or injures protected wildlife, that destruction is harm. The administration’s rule would erase that longstanding safeguard through regulatory action and leave vulnerable species exposed at the precise moment the law is intended to protect them.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NOAA refuses petition for right whale migration corridor

July 27, 2026 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration turned down a petition to designate ocean waters along the U.S. East Coast as a “primary historic migration corridor of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.”

The petition filed in late March 2025 by Save Long Beach Island, a New Jersey community group, sought to have the waters from Maine to Georgia recognized as “critical habitat” under the federal Endangered Species Act, and exclude offshore wind energy projects.

NOAA rejected the petition July 2, with a lengthy explanation “that the petition does not present substantial scientific information indicating a revision to North Atlantic right whale critical habitat may be warranted.”

That outcome was anticipated by Save Long Beach Island with a lawsuit May 4 to compel action by the Department of Commerce.

Despite “multiple follow-up letters, NOAA has not acted on the request, despite the mandated 90-day deadline for doing so,” the group said in announcing its lawsuit May 4.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Can killing seals save salmon? Conservationists and Washington lawmakers disagree

July 23, 2026 — A marine wildlife hospital based in the Pacific Northwest is worried about an alarming trend: seals coming to them alive, but gravely injured.

Earlier this month, the organization treated its third seal in less than a year with a gunshot wound. That seal pup, named Waffles, was found over Fourth of July weekend. It had to be euthanized once it was determined its injuries were too severe.

“It’s not uncommon for us to see animals that have been shot,” said Casey Mclean, executive director and veterinary nurse at SR3 SeaLife Response + Rehab + Research. “Historically, we often found those animals dead. Now we’re starting to see more of them alive and suffering from gunshot injuries.”This trend, Mclean believes, is being fueled by misinformation about the role marine mammals play in Washington’s continually struggling salmon populations.

Her concern is amplified by a congressional bipartisan bill from two Washington lawmakers, U.S. Rep. Michael Baumgartner, a Republican, and U.S. Rep. Emily Randall, a Democrat. The Northwest Endangered Salmon Predation Prevention Act (H.R. 9621) would expand the ability of federal, state, and tribal authorities to remove seals and sea lions, known collectively as pinnipeds, from Washington waters in an effort to boost salmon recovery.

In statements to KING 5, both sponsors of the bill lambasted the shooting of the seal pup as illegal, but insisted it should not be confused with what they’re proposing.

“Joe Schmo or any person off the streets shouldn’t be shooting seals or sea lions,” Randall said. “What we have proposed is a robust process to figure out how we can have responsible management of a population that’s decimating our salmon.”

“No one should be illegally poaching sea lions,” Baumgartner said. “I hope the perpetrator is identified and brought to justice. This does not have anything to do with my bipartisan bill to try to save and restore our endangered salmon populations.”

Supporters of the proposal, like the representatives, argue reducing pinnipeds could help struggling salmon populations. However, critics like Mclean say the bill ignores more significant threats to salmon and risks repeating decades-old mistakes in wildlife management.

Read the full article at KUOW

NOAA Fisheries Announces a Negative 90-day Finding on A Petition Request to Revise the Critical Habitat Designation for the North Atlantic Right Whale

July 21, 2026 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries received a petition from Save Long Beach Island, Inc. to revise the critical habitat designation for North Atlantic right whales under the Endangered Species Act. The petition requests a revision to the current critical habitat designation to include a migratory habitat in waters between Maine and Georgia.

NOAA Fisheries reviewed the petition, references provided by the petition, and information readily available in our files, and found that the petition does not present substantial scientific information indicating a revision to North Atlantic right whale critical habitat may be warranted. Therefore, a negative 90-day finding was made.

Read the notice as filed in the Federal Register today.

Questions?

Industry: Jean Higgins, Protected Resources, 978-281-9345

Media: Contact GARFO Public Affairs