August 21, 2025 — The current federal moratorium on whale rule regulations could be extended from 2028 to 2035, and local stakeholders are sharing their thoughts with the Islander on what the proposed extension could mean for the lobster industry and the endangered North Atlantic right whale.
Last month, U.S. Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) urged the House Natural Resources Committee to extend a moratorium on regulations aimed at the lobster industry and designed to help protect the North Atlantic right whale from gear entanglements.
Golden said that the initial moratorium listed in the Maine Mammal Protection Act, which lasts from 2023 to 2028, is not enough time for the Maine government to gather data that would inform new regulations.
Several conservationists and scientists, on the other hand, think that there is already enough data to support implementing the original regulations.
“The premise behind the original regulations has since been struck down by the courts. In 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the National Marine Fisheries Service had distorted the science and relied on egregiously wrong interpretations of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in crafting its proposed rules,” Golden told the Committee on July 22. “The Court admonished the agency for basing its edicts on arbitrary, worst-case scenarios that were ‘very likely wrong.’”
He argued that an extended moratorium would provide adequate time for the state of Maine to collect data to inform new regulations.