Saving Seafood

In court filing, Trump administration hints at a lifeline for embattled Pebble project

July 14, 2025 — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took a rare step under former President Joe Biden to block development of the Pebble mine, Alaska’s largest known copper and gold deposit, which for years has fueled controversy over its potential impacts on one of the world’s largest salmon runs.

Now, under President Donald Trump, the agency is giving its past Pebble decisions another look and negotiating a deal that could end a lawsuit filed by Pebble’s developer — an announcement that’s boosted the company’s stock price this week.

Administration officials “have been actively considering the agency decisions” and are “open to reconsideration,” according to a recent court filing submitted by U.S. Department of Justice lawyers. The three-page document does not elaborate, though it references the past decision by the EPA and a separate decision by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deny Pebble a key permit.

Read the full article at the Northern Journal

MASSACHSUETTS: Immigration raids have spread anxiety for some in New Bedford fishing industry: ‘We don’t know what’s gonna happen’

July 9, 2025 — Hector Grave has worked in the seafood business since he came to this historic fishing city from a small town in Guatemala in the late 1990s.

He worked at fish houses, cutting scallops and shrimp, cleaning fish that came in from nearby waters. Later, a friend introduced him to net making, and he felt it was like solving a puzzle.

He found a job making fishing nets for local companies, typically stitching and braiding the nets together and adding floats, and then founded his own net company in 2012, which now includes a buoy business.

Grave is part of a long line of immigrants who help sustain the fishing industry in New Bedford, the most valuable fishing port in the country. But immigration crackdowns by the Trump administration across New England and in New Bedford, where about a fifth of the city’s residents are foreign born, have spread anxiety in recent months. Some workers are limiting their time outside of their homes and work to avoid potential ICE activity. Many industry leaders said they work hard to ensure they are hiring documented immigrants, but they also hope the Trump administration will take steps to give foreign-born workers pathways to continue earning a living in the sector.

Read the full article at the Boston Globe

Dealing with Trump’s megabill remains a work in progress

July 9, 2025 — On July 3, the U.S. House narrowly passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, sweeping federal legislation that extends tax cuts and reduces social safety net programs. President Trump signed the bill into law during a ceremony held the following day.

For coastal fishing communities endeavoring to protect access to their fisheries and fisheries habitats, efforts to deal with the legislation remain a work in progress.

One possible saving grace was that before it went to the House, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, dropped from the H.R. 1 package in the Senate a contentious plan to sell between 2.2 million and 3.3 million acres of public lands in 11 western states for the construction of housing.

“Public land sales or privatization could cut off lifelines to water, or at the very least, create disruptive and unnecessary uncertainty,” said Michelle Stratton, a fisheries scientist and executive director of the Alaska Marine Conservation Council in Anchorage. “Without reliable public access to harbors, fish camps, and boat ramps, especially on or near federal lands, Alaska’s small boat fishermen can’t operate or know how to prepare for their season.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Trump moves to restrict wind power tax credits

July 8, 2025 — Days after the Republican majority in Congress sharply reduced incentives for wind and solar energy projects, President Trump issued a new executive order to set new timeline limits for developers to qualify for tax credits.

“For too long, the Federal Government has forced American taxpayers to subsidize expensive and unreliable energy sources like wind and solar,” states the order issued late Monday. “Reliance on so-called ‘green’ subsidies threatens national security by making the United States dependent on supply chains controlled by foreign adversaries.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Senate budget vote set mixed prospects for offshore wind

July 3, 2025 — The U.S. Senate’s squeaker 51-50 vote to approve the Trump administration’s program agenda appeared to strike a huge blow against offshore wind energy and other renewable energy development.

But opponents of offshore wind insist the legislation does not go far enough. The final version pulled back a proposed excise tax that would have penalized wind energy developers, after Iowa Sens. Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley, both R-Iowa, opposed it for their state’s wind energy generation and manufacturing industry.

“The Senate bill looks like it has a 2027 ‘placed in service’ cutoff for new solar/wind subsidies,” wrote Alex Epstein, a prominent activist and fossil fuels advocate, in a fiery July 1 social media post widely shared among offshore wind opponents. “But one last-minute paragraph makes it worthless – because projects making a recoverable 5% investment in the next 12 months are exempt!”

President Trump pledged to stop all projects in U.S. waters “on day one” of his second presidency and issued an order hours after his Jan. 20 inauguration to implement that ban. In mid-April, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum ordered a halt to work on Equinor’s Empire Wind 814-megawatt project off New York, thrilling project opponents.

But a month later, the Trump administration relented, after making a deal with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul for permitting new natural gas pipelines from the Marcellus gas fields in Pennsylvania through New York State.

With the July 1 Senate vote, offshore oil and gas interests appeared to be clear winners. With final passage still required in the House – and continued criticism by the hardline Republican conservatives’ caucus – industry advocates pushed for support.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Salmon, tribal sovereignty, and energy collide as US abandons Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement

June 30, 2025 — Earlier this month, the Trump administration pulled the federal government out of the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement — a deal struck in 2023 by the Biden administration between two states and four Indigenous nations aimed at restoring salmon populations and paving a way to remove four hydroelectric dams along the river system. The move is likely to revive decades-old lawsuits and further endanger already struggling salmon populations.

But hydroelectric producers in Washington and Oregon have hailed the administration’s decision, citing an increased demand for energy driven primarily by data centers for AI and cryptocurrency operations.

USGS faces big cuts, endangering Chesapeake science

June 26, 2025 — Vital research into threats to the Chesapeake Bay from invasive blue catfish, PFAS contamination, climate change and land use is on the chopping block as the Trump administration aims to decimate if not eliminate ecological studies done by the U.S. Geological Survey.

In its proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 released May 30, the White House has called for a 90% cut in funding for ecological research, laboratories and personnel at the USGS, which is the science arm of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

“It’s the most important mission area in USGS that they’re cutting,” said Scott Phillips, who retired from the agency in 2023 after more than 25 years as its Chesapeake Bay science coordinator. Beyond water quality, he noted, fish and wildlife are “what people care about.”

Read the full article at the Bay Journal

Northwest tribes say Trump’s proposed salmon budget cuts violate treaty rights

June 9, 2025 — Northwest tribal officials say the Trump administration’s latest budget proposal would violate their treaty rights to catch salmon.

Among other cutbacks, the White House’s proposed 2026 budget for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would eliminate the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund, the leading source of money for restoring the Northwest’s struggling salmon runs.

The Trump administration is asking Congress, which controls federal spending, to reduce NOAA’s funding to nearly half of its 2024 levels. While the budget proposal lacks many details, it singles out the $100 million salmon recovery fund and the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which had a $638 million budget in 2024, for elimination.

“If the plug is pulled, the tribe will have to do something to protect our treaty rights,” said David Troutt, head of the Nisqually Tribe’s natural resources department. “And if we don’t have the ability to do it collaboratively, we’ll look to other means, and it may drive us more quickly and more regularly into the courts.”

Federal treaties signed in the 1850s guarantee Northwest tribes the right to fish and hunt in their traditional territories in exchange for giving up most of their land.

“It’s in case law. It’s in treaties, which are the supreme law of the land, so I don’t know what more obligation than that there could be,” Lummi Nation Councilmember Lisa Wilson said.

“The guarantees were made back in the 1850s to be sure that we will be able to catch salmon forever,” Troutt said. “Well, apparently, forever ends in 2026.”

The relationship between tribes and the federal government could switch from collaborating on watershed restoration to fighting in the courts.

Tribal and state officials say the federal salmon fund is critical to keep the region’s salmon and orcas from going extinct.

“It really anchors salmon recovery across the West Coast,” said Erik Neatherlin, head of the governor’s Salmon Recovery Office in Washington state.

West Coast states harbor 28 federally threatened and endangered salmon populations.

“What will suffer are the salmon,” Neatherlin said.

And the people who rely on them.

Read the full article at OPB

ALASKA: Alaska seafood industry ‘uniquely vulnerable’ to tariff impacts, trade groups say

June 5, 2025 — Alaska’s seafood industry could see an outsized impact from international tariffs, according to experts.

In April, President Donald Trump announced a major tariff hike on China, escalating up to 145%, and China retaliated with similar rates. Though both governments struck a deal in May delaying any increases by at least 90 days, they haven’t been canceled, and tariffs have stayed elevated since his last presidency. That makes Alaska seafood less competitive in China, one of the largest markets for it internationally.

Two trade groups representing some of Alaska’s largest seafood processors — the Pacific Seafood Processors Association and the At-Sea Processors Association — sent a letter to the U.S. Trade Representative March 11 urging caution on new tariffs worldwide.

“(Alaska is) heavily dependent on fair access to export markets, and also uniquely vulnerable to retaliatory tariffs that our trading partners may seek to impose in the event of heightened trade tensions,” they wrote. “Accordingly, care must be taken to remedy these issues in a manner that does not increase the harm to U.S. seafood producers.”

The letter points to an “existential and global threat” to Alaska’s seafood industry in recent years due to unfair trade practices by Russia, which has been overproducing and flooding world markets for years, especially for pollock. The U.S. currently has broad trade sanctions on Russia.

Read the full article at Alaska Journal of Commerce

Conservation groups sue Trump administration over opening of Pacific national monument to commercial fishing

May 27, 2025 — A trio of conservation groups have sued the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, challenging the president’s recent decision to allow commercial fishing within the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument.

“President Trump’s proclamation threatens to destroy one of the world’s last healthy and wild ocean ecosystems. Commercial fishing would remove large numbers of fish, sharks, turtles, and other marine life as both intended catch and unintended bycatch. This would completely disrupt the underwater ecosystem and wreak havoc on the food chain. Many of these creatures and areas are culturally important to the people of Oceania, for traditional and modern navigation and as a valuable food source,” Conservation Council for Hawai‘i Executive Director Jonee Peters said in a statement.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource