Saving Seafood

Experts say ‘bare bones’ US laws are unfit to regulate nascent deep-sea mining industry

June 10, 2026 — The deep-sea mining industry could launch in the near future in U.S. federal waters. Yet legal experts and former government officials warn that the regulations that would govern this industry are outdated and lack important oversight provisions.

In April 2025, the Trump administration signaled its intention to enter the global race to mine the deep sea when it released an executive order calling for the development of the industry. Following the administration’s direction, in April 2026 the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) announced its plans to hold a series of seabed lease sales over the course of this year and into early next. The first one is slated for August in American Samoa, with subsequent lease sales planned for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and Alaska. If these go forward, they could mark the first commercial lease processes for deep-sea mining anywhere in the world.

Critics say deep-sea mining could cause large-scale and irreversible damage to the marine environment, and some governments in areas slated for leasing have even taken steps to ban deep-sea mining. In 2024, the governor of American Samoa enacted a moratorium on seabed mining from its territorial waters, which extend 3 nautical miles (5.6 kilometers) from its shorelines. And this month, the governor of Guam, a self-governing territory that shares its exclusive economic zone with the CNMI, signed a bill into law that banned deep-sea mining in its nearshore waters and prohibited the use of its port, a vital hub for the Western Pacific region, for seabed mining activities. Opponents also argue that the U.S. government is rushing the process to initiate these lease sales.

Supporters of the industry, including representatives from deep-sea mining companies, say it would be minimally invasive and procure critical minerals, and that development is proceeding at an appropriate pace.

Tony Romeo, the CEO of a newly formed deep-sea mining company based in South Carolina called Eco Minerals, pointed out that the U.S. has been developing its interest in the deep-sea mining industry since the 1980s. “From an industry perspective, this has been such a slow process,” he told Mongabay.

Read the full article at Mongabay

Proposed NOAA cuts could hit Pacific weather forecasts, fisheries and coral programs

June 8, 2026 — The Trump administration’s proposed 2027 budget for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would slash more than $1 billion from the agency and eliminate dozens of programs, raising concerns across the Pacific islands where communities rely heavily on weather forecasting, fisheries management and coastal conservation.

NOAA’s fiscal year 2027 budget request seeks $4.54 billion, a decrease of about $1.09 billion from the 2026 enacted level. The proposal includes more than $1.3 billion in program terminations and another $523 million in reductions, partially offset by investments in weather radar modernization, satellite systems and selected fisheries initiatives.

For Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the proposed cuts touch areas closely tied to daily life, from typhoon forecasting and marine observations to coral reef protection and coastal resilience.

The budget documents call for terminating the Coral Reef Conservation Program, ending Integrated Ocean Acidification efforts, eliminating regional Integrated Ocean Observing System programs and terminating Coastal Zone Management Grants. The proposal would also eliminate NOAA’s National Coastal Resilience Fund and reduce funding for ocean observations and monitoring.

Read the full article at the Marianas Variety

Trump administration continuing to resist issuing tariff refunds

June 5, 2026 — The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has continued to file oppositions to tariff refunds in court.

The Trump administration has moved to prevent the testimony of Rodney S. Scott, a top customs official, from being required to testify at a court hearing related to the tariff refund process. A federal court ruled on 4 June that the administration’s motion for a stay on Scott’s testimony was warranted.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

US bill would authorize commercial fishing in marine national monuments

June 4, 2026 — A bill being considered in U.S. Congress would prohibit presidents from prohibiting commercial fishing in marine national monuments, codifying that fishing activities in those areas must be regulated under the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA).

Successive presidents’ administrations have used the Antiquities Act to unilaterally establish national marine monuments or to change the protections granted within them, and commercial fishing groups have long bemoaned the use of that power to ban fishing within their boundaries. Former U.S. President Barack Obama prohibited commercial fishing within the nearly 5,000-square-mile Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument when he established it in 2016, and later presidents have alternated between reallowing commercial fishing or banning it again; most recently, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order reauthorizing commercial fishing in the marine national monument.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Ocean observatories go dark off Pacific Northwest coast

June 4, 2026 — The Trump administration has quietly removed an array of floating ocean observatories from waters off the Washington coast, KUOW has learned.

Their removal is part of a national dismantling of a network of sophisticated data buoys in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

The National Science Foundation, an independent federal agency created in 1950 to support scientific research, announced in May that it had started what it called a “descoping” of its Ocean Observatories Initiative.

Those observatories monitor surface and underwater conditions 24/7 in what the science foundation calls “the most technologically advanced observational networks in the oceans.”

The moored buoys keep the pulse of the oceans as their temperature and chemistry rapidly change and provide real-time updates to mariners heading out into possibly dangerous waves. Autonomous “gliders” also roam the ocean, gathering data on the go.

Read the full article at KUOW

“Americans are buying American freedom fish, not communist fish” – US Senator Dan Sullivan touts work on securing extension of Russian seafood ban

June 4, 2026 — U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) took credit for the recently extended ban on Russian seafood during a Congressional committee hearing 2 June, stating that “Americans are buying American freedom fish, not communist fish from Russia.”

The hearing, titled “The Blue Economy: Advancing American Fisheries, Maritime Strength, and Coastal Economies,” took place more than a month after U.S. President Donald Trump opted to extend the ban on Russian seafood imports into 2027.

Read the full article at Seafood Source

7 states sue Trump administration over nearly $1 billion deal to halt offshore wind farm

June 3, 2026 — Seven states are suing the Trump administration over a nearly $1 billion deal to end French energy company TotalEnergies’ offshore wind development off the East Coast, accusing the deal of being “unlawful.”

In March, the U.S. Department of the Interior reached a $928 million deal with TotalEnergies to halt construction of the wind farms and redirect the investment into domestic fossil fuel initiatives. The “landmark agreement” was described by the Interior Department as a way to lower energy costs and strengthen the nation’s energy security.

Attorneys general in seven states in the Northeast, including Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday, alleging the Trump administration illegally used nearly $1 billion in taxpayer dollars for the deal.

The coalition also accuses the deal of violating the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which restricts the Interior Department’s ability to cancel offshore wind leases.

Read the full article at ABC News

Blue States Sue Trump Administration Over Offshore Wind Deal

June 3, 2026 — Seven Democratic-controlled states sued the Trump administration on Tuesday over its move to block a planned wind farm off the coast of New York.

The lawsuit seeks to overturn an extraordinary deal that the Trump administration reached in March with the French energy giant TotalEnergies. That agreement saw the government pay TotalEnergies $928 million to abandon plans to build the wind project off New York and another one off North Carolina.

The New York attorney general, Letitia James, filed the suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Ms. James, a Democrat, said in a statement that the deal violated at least two federal laws and that it would harm New York’s economy and power grid.

“This administration cooked up a sham deal to pay a foreign energy company hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to abandon offshore wind and invest in oil and gas instead,” she said. “We are fighting back to stop this illegal agreement that threatens to erase over a thousand union jobs and cheat millions of New Yorkers out of clean, affordable energy.”

Read the full article at The New York Times

Trump administration announces new set of Section 301 tariffs against major seafood trade partners

June 3, 2026 — The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has announced plans for a new set of sweeping Section 301 tariffs against 60 separate economies.

The USTR said it will impose duties on 59 different countries and the entire European Union for what it calls a failure to enforce prohibitions on the importation of goods produced with forced labor. In its publication to the Federal Register, the USTR said it will propose a tariff rate of between 10 and 12.5 percent depending on the commitments the countries or blocs have made to opposing forced labor.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Trump administration planning to dismantle Ocean Observatories Initiative

June 3, 2026 — The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is dismantling a deep-ocean observation system put in place over a decade ago, leaving gaps in scientific data that assists in everything from storm forecasting to fishery health.

The Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) consists of six different underwater monitoring arrays that the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) said is the most advanced continuously-operated observing systems in the world. Using hundreds of different instruments, the arrays provide openly-accessible data to oceanographers, researchers, educators, and the public.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource