September 15, 2026 — NOAA Fisheries has awarded USD 103 million (EUR 89 million) to support fisheries habitat restoration projects throughout the United States.
The funding will be distributed across 16 projects selected by NOAA Fisheries. The agency said it selected projects that restore habitat – or access to habitat – necessary for the nation’s fisheries.
September 14, 2026 — NOAA Fisheries is directing $103 million toward habitat restoration projects across the country, with several of the largest awards aimed at improving habitat for commercially important salmon, shrimp, oysters, and other species.
The agency announced Sept. 10 that it selected 16 projects for funding, ranging from salmon habitat work in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest to salt marsh restoration along the Gulf and Southeast coasts.
The funding is intended to restore wetlands, rivers, coral reefs, and other habitats fish rely on for feeding, spawning, and growth. NOAA said healthy habitat is essential to sustaining both commercial and recreational fisheries and the communities and industries that depend on them.
Demand for funding far exceeded what was available. NOAA received nearly 350 proposals requesting a combined $1.5 billion, more than 17 times the amount ultimately awarded.
September 14, 2026 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:
The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council will meet Tuesday, October 6 – Thursday, October 8, 2026, at The Sanderling in Duck, North Carolina. The meeting is open to the public, with the exception of a closed Executive Committee session, and will also be accessible via webinar. Meeting materials, webinar information, and public comment instructions are available on the October 2026 Council Meeting Page.
Major agenda items include:
The Council welcomes public comment from in-person and remote participants. Instructions and deadlines for submitting comments are available on the meeting page.
September 11, 2026 — NOAA Fisheries has awarded $103 million in funding for 16 habitat restoration projects across the country. These projects will recover and sustain our nation’s fisheries by ensuring fish have access to high quality habitat.
By supporting America’s fisheries, these projects will “Make America Beautiful Again” through proactive, voluntary, on-the-ground collaborative conservation efforts. America’s abundant natural resources—including valuable commercial and recreational fisheries—are vital to our nation’s economy and culture, bolstering industries, jobs, recreation, and more.
Fisheries rely on healthy habitats like wetlands, rivers, and coral reefs as important areas to grow, eat, and reproduce. These projects will restore healthy habitat for fish across the country: from planting corals to rebuild reefs in the Caribbean, to reconnecting rivers for salmon, to restoring salt marsh for shrimp and oysters in the Gulf of America.
NOAA received many more applications than we could fund. The total demand from the nearly 350 proposals we received was $1.5 billion, more than 17 times the amount of funding available. The full list of funded projects can be found below.
September 11, 2026 — Scientists have discovered nine new species of sponges in the Gulf of Alaska and Aleutian Islands. The specimens were collected during the Alaska Fisheries Science Center’s long-standing annual bottom trawl surveys, which monitor the condition of groundfish and shellfish stocks in Alaskan waters. For these sponge studies, researchers analyzed samples gathered during surveys dating back to 2012.
The new species were described across two recent scientific publications: four in one paper and five in the other. These discoveries raise the total number of known sponge species in Alaska to 232. The findings add to a growing body of knowledge about the richness of marine life in Alaskan waters. They also highlight the Aleutian Islands as a global hotspot for sponge biodiversity.
The studies also mapped sponge genetic codes, which contributes to a marine genetic library. This continues to build a robust catalog that enhances NOAA’s ability to detect species and estimate population abundances using non-invasive environmental DNA sampling.
September 9, 2026 — Commercial fishermen from New England to the Southeast are seeing a mixed picture across Atlantic highly migratory species, with several major tuna and swordfish stocks remaining in relatively strong conditions while some shark stocks continue to face rebuilding challenges.
NOAA Fisheries released its 2024- 2025 Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation Report for Atlantic Highly Migratory Species on Sept. 4, providing an updated look at tunas, swordfish, billfish, and sharks managed along the East Coast, Gulf, and Caribbean.
For fishermen, the report offers more than a snapshot of stock health. It also shows where commercial landings and revenues are moving, including a notable decline in overall highly migratory species revenue in 2024.
Tuna stocks show some of the stronger signs
Among the major commercial species, North Atlantic albacore remained well above its biomass target and was not considered overfished or subject to overfishing. Atlantic yellowfin and western Atlantic skipjack were also classified as not overfished, with overfishing not occurring.
The picture is less straightforward for bluefin.
September 8, 2026 — NOAA Fisheries quietly issued several fishery disaster determinations in July, opening the door for federal funding to be allocated for those fisheries.
U.S. Representative Jared Huffman (D-California) welcomed the determinations for fisheries in his state, which include California’s red sea urchin fishery and the Hoopa Valley Tribe’s Klamath River fall Chinook salmon fishery.
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.
September 5, 2026 — Has El Niño reached the West Coast?
You might think it has. After all, the ocean off Southern and Central California is unusually warm. But that is from a recent marine heatwave predates the current El Niño. Much of the Pacific Coast is experiencing relatively normal conditions while still awaiting the impacts of what could be a very strong El Niño.
In June, NOAA’s National Weather Service declared that El Niño had developed. That finding, however, is based on ocean temperatures from the tropical Pacific Ocean, near the Equator, which warm ahead of El Niño’s impact on the Americas.
While eastern tropical Pacific temperatures have already risen more than 2°C (about 3.6°F) above normal, El Niño-related warming along the West Coast typically lags that increase by a few months. NOAA Fisheries scientists are tracking West Coast conditions as part of our Integrated Ecosystem Assessment. Here are some of the changes in ocean conditions and marine life that typically signal the arrival of El Niño’s influence along the West Coast.
September 3, 2026 — From Gulf Coast shrimpers’ lips to the Trump administration’s ear, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced an extensive set of priorities for reforming the nation’s fisheries on Wednesday, a so-called “operational roadmap” to unshackle what the administration views as a lucrative and essential but unnecessarily burdened industry.
An overture to the executive branch’s nascent America First Seafood Strategy, Wednesday’s announcement continues NOAA’s work under Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness, an April 2025 White House executive order that called seafood “one of the most heavily regulated sectors in the United States.” Since then, according to a news release, NOAA Fisheries has received input from more than 700 entities, including regional fishery councils, commercial producers, and members of the public.