Saving Seafood

Iran war brings higher fuel prices for struggling Gulf shrimpers

March 26, 2026 — U.S. shrimpers are facing higher fuel prices due to the Iran war, leading to higher operating costs for an industry that is already struggling.

“For a recent 30-day trip, I spent USD 47,000 (EUR 40,740) on diesel before I even left the dock. That is USD 20,000 (EUR 17,337) more for a single trip than the previous year,” Coden, Alabama, U.S.A.-based Zirlott Trawlers owner Jeremy Zirlott said in a release. “U.S. shrimpers operate on razor-thin margins, and right now, the increased cost of diesel makes it nearly impossible to turn a profit in the wholesale shrimp market.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NORTH CAROLINA: Wind farm deal off Wilmington coast canceled. Here’s why.

March 26, 2026 — With the political climate, at least in Washington, working against it, a French energy giant has cut a deal with the Trump administration to cancel its offshore wind lease off Southeastern North Carolina for investing an equal amount in fossil fuels.

The agreement by TotalEnergies is another move that brings into stark question the chance of any wind farms rising in the waters off the Cape Fear coast − at least in the short term.

It also is another front opened by the White House on the future of offshore wind, an energy source that President Trump, a Republican, has vocally criticized since his first term in office.

“The Trump Administration is spending nearly $1 billion in taxpayer money to pay off a company to stop investments in the clean energy we need,” N.C. Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, said on a social media post. “This is a terrible deal for the people of North Carolina and our country.”

Read the full article at Star News Online

 

Trump administration’s $1B deal to stop offshore wind shows an evolution in its anti-wind strategy

March 25, 2026 — The Trump administration’s $1 billion payout to a French energy company to walk away from U.S. offshore wind development is a novel tactic against the industry that supporters see as creative — but opponents see as foolish and extreme.

The Interior Department announced Monday that TotalEnergies agreed to what is essentially a refund of its leases for projects off the coasts of North Carolina and New York, and will invest the money in a liquefied natural gas export terminal in Texas and other fossil fuel projects instead. The department hailed it as an “innovative agreement” with the French energy giant so that the “American people will no longer pay for ideological subsidies that benefited only the unreliable and costly offshore wind industry.”

The tactical shift comes after federal courts have thwarted President Donald Trump’s efforts to stop offshore wind through executive action.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the payment “sets a dangerous precedent and is a shortsighted misuse of taxpayer dollars.”

Robin Shaffer, president of the anti-offshore wind group Protect Our Coast New Jersey, applauded what he called “out of the box” thinking. Shaffer said after losing in the courts, the administration needed a way to take back leases that never should have been issued because of the harm offshore wind development causes to the marine environment.

Read the full article at The Associated Press

Trump administration to pay French company $1B to walk away from US offshore wind leases

March 24, 2026 — The Trump administration will pay $1 billion to a French company to walk away from two U.S. offshore wind leases as the administration ramps up its campaign against offshore wind and other renewable energy.

TotalEnergies has agreed to what’s essentially a refund of its leases for projects off the coasts of North Carolina and New York, and will invest the money in fossil fuel projects instead, the Department of Interior announced Monday.

President Donald Trump’s administration has tried to halt offshore wind construction, but federal judges repeatedly overturned those orders.

The Interior Department hailed the “innovative agreement” with the French energy giant and said, “the American people will no longer pay for ideological subsidies that benefited only the unreliable and costly offshore wind industry.″

Environmental groups denounced the deal as an alternate way to block wind projects, with one group calling it a “billion-dollar bribe” to kill clean energy.

Read the full article at The Associated Press

Some tariffs may be gone, but wholesale seafood industry is still reeling

March 19, 2026 — Walking into the Thomas M. Menino Convention & Exhibition Center in Boston, you can smell the seafood. Which makes sense given that it’s hosting the country’s largest wholesale seafood expo. Suppliers from around the world dole out samples of fresh sashimi, crispy fish sticks, and seaweed salad.

“It’s sweet, and it’s a little bit spicy, and it’s a compliment to meat or heavier stuff,” said Camille Zhu, who runs a seaweed company on the coast of Shandong province in Northern China.

She began selling to the U.S. just last year and said it’s been hard with all the trade tensions and tariffs. But she’s confident in her product.

“People are starting to accept seaweed as a source of nutrition, and they’re looking for a healthy diet,” she said. “And with the popularity of Japanese cuisine, yeah, it’s getting pretty big for us.”

About 80% of seafood consumed in the U.S. is imported. Some of the biggest suppliers —including China and India — have seen some of the highest tariffs from the Trump administration in the past year. All that has thrown the global seafood trade into chaos.

Read the full article at Marketplace

Administration to Convene ‘God Squad’ With Power to Override Environmental Law

March 18, 2026 — The Trump administration plans to convene the so-called God Squad, a high-level federal panel that has the power to override protections under the Endangered Species Act, for a meeting related to oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico.

The meeting, scheduled for March 31, will be the first time in three decades that the group, officially called the Endangered Species Committee, will gather.

Notice of the meeting was released on Friday and officially published in the Federal Register on Monday. The Gulf, which the administration calls the Gulf of America, is home to the critically endangered Rice’s whale, a species that exists nowhere else. According to the latest available federal estimates, around 50 of the animals remain on Earth.

Information in the notice announcing the meeting, called by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, is sparse.

“The Committee is meeting regarding an exemption under the Endangered Species Act with respect to oil and gas exploration, development, and production activities in the Gulf of America associated with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Program,” the notice states.

When emailed for additional information on what had prompted the move, the Interior Department declined to directly answer questions and repeated the published information. But President Trump has wanted the God Squad to convene since he returned to office last year.

Read the full article at The New York Times

At Seafood Expo North America, commercial fishers demand the same level of federal support as farmers

March 17, 2026 — U.S. commercial fishers have a simple request: to be treated the same as American farmers by the U.S. government.

The U.S. agriculture sector has long received substantial support from the federal government, whether that be crop insurance, equipment subsidies, financial services and low-interest loans, or direct injections of cash. In 2025, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump announced USD 12 billion (EUR 10.4 billion) in direct financial relief to farmers impacted by tariffs.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Construction finishes on a major offshore wind farm, the first during Trump’s tenure

March 16, 2026 — Construction is finished on a major Massachusetts offshore wind farm, the first project to reach this stage during President Donald Trump’s time in office.

Offshore construction was completed Friday night on Vineyard Wind with the installation of the final blades, Craig Gilvarg, a spokesperson for the project, said Saturday.

Trump, who often talks about his hatred of wind power, has said his goal is to not let any “windmills” be built. Vineyard Wind was one of five major East Coast offshore wind projects the Trump administration halted construction on days before Christmas, citing national security concerns. Developers and states sued, and federal judges allowed all five to resume construction, essentially concluding that the government did not show that the national security risk was so imminent that construction must halt.

Another one of the five, Revolution Wind, began sending power for the first time to New England’s electric grid on Friday and will scale up in the weeks ahead until it is fully operational.

Revolution Wind, a key offshore wind project and object of scorn for Trump admin, comes online

March 16, 2026 — A large offshore wind project off the coast of Connecticut and Rhode Island that was repeatedly stopped by the Trump administration came online Friday evening, sending clean energy to New England’s power grid.

The project, known as Revolution Wind, is nearing the end of construction and will ultimately generate up to 704 megawatts of electricity — the equivalent of powering 350,000 homes. That’s about 2.5% of New England’s electric supply. Construction on Revolution Wind is expected to be completed later this year.

“This project is key to diversifying our energy supply and lowering utility costs for families and businesses,” said Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont in a statement.

“Today’s milestone marks an important step forward for Rhode Island’s energy future,” Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee said in a statement.

Read the full article at nhpr

Trump Administration Approves Ultra-Deepwater Oil Drilling Plan

March 6, 2026 — The Trump administration on Friday approved a $5 billion oil drilling project in ultradeep waters of the Gulf of Mexico over protests from Democrats and environmental activists who said the venture posed significant risks to wildlife and communities.

The project by the British energy giant BP would be about 250 miles off the coast of Louisiana. The company projects it will produce 80,000 barrels of oil per day from six wells starting in 2029 in a section of the seafloor that is estimated to hold 10 billion barrels of crude.

Known as Kaskida, it would be the company’s second deepwater project in the Gulf since the Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010, which set off the worst oil spill disaster in U.S. history.

“Kaskida is a world-class project that reflects decades of technological innovation by BP and the offshore oil and gas industry,” Paul Takahashi, a BP spokesman, said in a statement. Approval “marks an important step forward for the project and is all the more important at a time of heightened global concerns about energy security and affordability,” he added.

Read the full article at The New York Times