Saving Seafood

White House budget would slash NOAA climate, ocean programs

April 15, 2025 — The Trump administration’s proposed 2026 federal budget would slash Department of Commerce funding by more than 25%, eliminating the Oceanic and Atmospheric Research program and targeting other climate, ocean and fisheries programs within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The Oceanic and Atmospheric program funding would be reduced by $485 million to $171 million, according to news media reports on the Office of Management and Budget document that began circulating among NOAA staffers and leaked to news organizations April 11 in Washington.

Read the full article at WorkBoat

Proposed federal cuts jeopardize Pacific salmon habitat restoration, tribal rights

April 14, 2025 — The Trump administration wants to eliminate several programs that benefit Pacific salmon, the iconic but widely threatened species of the Pacific Northwest.

Much of the effort to keep Pacific salmon from disappearing is funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

An internal document from the Office of Management and Budget, reviewed by KUOW, calls for eliminating NOAA’s Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund, as well as national grant programs for species recovery, interjurisdictional fisheries, and habitat conservation and restoration.

Overall, NOAA would see a 27% cut in its $6 billion budget under the White House proposal, which has not been finalized and is subject to Congressional approval.

In 2023, the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund distributed $107 million to states and tribes, with Washington state receiving $26 million, more than any other recipient. Coastwide, the fund restored 3,624 acres of salmon habitat in 2023 and removed obstacles enabling salmon to reach an additional 202 miles of spawning streams, according to NOAA.

“It’s very troublesome because we just want to get the work done and get our salmon back,” Lummi Nation Councilmember Lisa Wilson said.

Read the full article at OPB

Shifting tariff policy wounding U.S. shipping industry, says expert

April 10, 2025 — Shifting tariff policy in the U.S. is harming the nation’s shipping and logistics industry, supply chain and logistics expert Sunderesh Heragu told SeafoodSource. 

Though the Trump administration paused its planned tariffs on most U.S. trading partners on 9 April, Heragu said that the “chaos and uncertainty caused by the imposition and partial rescinding of tariffs has already made a dent in the shipping industry.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Trump administration reverses course on proposed port fees for Chinese vessels

April 10, 2025 — United States Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer told the Senate Finance Committee on 8 April that the Trump administration was planning to reverse course on the port fees it had previously proposed for Chinese-owned and Chinese-built ships in U.S. ports. 

“[The port fees are] not all going to be implemented. They’re not all going to be stacked,” Greer told U.S. lawmakers, according to Reuters, adding that he wanted to “make sure that we have the right amount of time, the right incentives, to bring shipbuilding here without impacting our economy.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NOAA slowdowns and new science delay the usual ‘scramble’ to set fishing catch limits

March 26, 2025 — The start of this year’s commercial fishing season could be a bust for fishermen who catch groundfish species like cod, haddock and flounder.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has yet to approve new catch limits for the season slated to open May 1. People in the fishing industry said the annual process has been delayed by changes to the science used to measure cod populations, and the Trump administration’s cuts to the agency.

Scallop fishery regulations also won’t be finalized by the season’s start on April 1. But since there aren’t new regulatory strategies under consideration like with cod, there are default catch limits in place for scallops. Scallopers are facing just 10 fewer fishing days at the start of the season.

Drew Minkiewicz, an attorney representing the Sustainable Scalloping Fund, said this “doesn’t have much of an impact” on the fishery. He’s expecting new limits to be approved within a week of the start of the season.

Scalloper Eric Hansen of New Bedford said he’s cautiously optimistic about an approval coming soon. He remembers a similar slowdown when the Biden administration took over four years ago.

“ If history repeats itself, it won’t be catastrophic,” he said. “And that’s a big if.”

Read the full article at wbur

Fishery managers worry about effects of NOAA cuts

March 4, 2025 — The long term impacts of recent staff cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are still unknown, but fishery managers on the West Coast called the situation troubling.

On Thursday, NOAA laid off more than 800 workers as the Trump administration continues its push to reduce the federal workforce.

West Coast lawmakers have warned that the cuts — and the potential for more layoffs in the future — could endanger lives and threaten maritime commerce and the fishing industry. NOAA manages federal tribal, commercial and recreational fisheries and includes the National Weather Service, which provides weather forecast data.

For West Coast fisheries, the firings have created uncertainty for fishery management now.

This week, the Pacific Fishery Management Council, a quasi-governmental body that recommends management measures for a number of fisheries on the West Coast, will meet to begin — among other things — the process of setting summer and fall salmon fisheries.

Read the full article at KMUN

ALASKA: NOAA workers fired in Juneau as part of national purge

March 4, 2025 — More federal workers were fired in Alaska Thursday, this time at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA.

Agency staff could not confirm how many people were fired from NOAA offices in the Juneau area.

Aaron Lambert, a fisheries management specialist, says he was one of at least four people who cleared out their desks at NOAA’s Alaska Regional Office in the Federal Building downtown.

Lambert says he saw it coming – he was a ‘probationary employee’ who was with the agency for six months. But that didn’t buoy the “sinking feeling” when he received the email at 11:35 a.m. Thursday officially firing him because his “ability, knowledge and/or skills do not fit the agency’s current needs,” according to the email.

Read the full article at KTOO

Trump implements new tariffs on Canada, Mexico with both countries planning retaliation

March 4, 2025 — U.S. President Donald Trump followed through on his original order to institute 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, launching tariffs on goods from both countries on 4 March after a one-month pause.

In addition to the 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, Trump also instituted an additional 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods on top of the 10 percent he announced in February, meaning certain goods from China are now subject to a 45 percent import tariff.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NOAA terminates space, climate and marine life advisory committees

March 4, 2025 — The Trump administration is disbanding expert advisory committees focused on space, climate, coastal area management and marine fisheries after the agency they were designed to assist said they are no longer necessary.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is ending the committees because they “have served their purpose and should be terminated,” Nancy Hann, the agency’s deputy undersecretary for operations, said in a memorandum obtained by Government Executive.  The terminations follow an executive order from President Trump requiring agencies to do away with any federal advisory committees not required by law.

The impacted committees are the:

  • Advisory Committee on Excellence in Space
  • Climate Services Advisory Committee
  • Marine and Coastal Area-based Management Advisory Committee
  • Marine Fisheries Advisory Committee

The Commerce Department’s Office of Privacy and Open Government, which manages all of the federal advisory committees within Commerce, will work with the committees to ensure “an orderly termination,” Hann added.

Read the full article at Government Executive 

MAINE: Maine loses popular Sea Grant funding, 1 week after governor’s public confrontation with Trump

March 4, 2025 — Over the weekend, the Trump administration told the University of Maine that it is discontinuing a $4.5 million award to the Maine Sea Grant Program.

There are 33 other similar Sea Grant programs in coastal and Great Lakes states around the country. Yet only Maine appears to have had its funding revoked. And the announcement came one week after Gov. Janet Mills sparred publicly with President Donald Trump at the White House about his executive order on transgender athletes.

The four-year federal award from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration went into effect last February and would have awarded Maine Sea Grant roughly $4.5 million through January 2028, including about $1.5 million this year.

“It has been determined that the program activities proposed to be carried out in year 2 of the Maine Sea Grant Omnibus Award are no longer relevant to the focus of the administration’s priorities and program objectives,” NOAA wrote in a letter to the University of Maine.

The program now appears to be in jeopardy, though both the UMaine system and its partners were still determining the specific impacts on Monday.

Federal and matching funds support the salaries of 20 people at the university and around the state. A spokesperson said Monday that the University of Maine system is still assessing how the funding cuts will directly impact staff and research projects underway.

Read the full article at wbur