May 12, 2020 — Around the same time last week that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released $300 million in coronavirus aid to the seafood industry, President Donald Trump issued an executive order “Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth.”
The major reasons given to issue the executive order were familiar objectives of the administration: reduce our dependence on imported seafood by decreasing the regulatory burden on fishermen and the aquaculture, while creating a level playing field with other countries.
“The Fisheries Survival Fund has long supported efforts to revise and streamline unnecessary regulations, an effort that is more important now than ever,” spokesman John Cooke wrote in a statement.
Trump ordered each of the country’s regional fishery management councils to submit a prioritized list of recommended actions to reduce regulatory burdens on fishermen and increase production within six months. But the Trump administration already asked NOAA and the New England Fishery Management Council three years ago to develop a list of unnecessary and duplicative regulations, which has already been submitted, and it may be much harder to find the regulatory fat this time around.