Saving Seafood

VIRGINIA: Pause on Virginia offshore wind farm cost Dominion more than $200M — but turbines will power up soon

February 25, 2026 — The Trump administration’s attempt to stop Dominion Energy from building its wind farm off the Virginia Beach coast cost the utility $228 million, company executives told shareholders this week.

Shortly before Christmas, the U.S. Interior Department issued a stop-work order for the project and four others along the East Coast. Government officials claimed the wind farms would harm national security, but declined to provide more details.

Dominion sued and last month, a federal judge in Norfolk ruled in favor of the company, saying the administration did not sufficiently explain purported security threats. The case is still pending, but Dominion was allowed to restart construction.

During the nearly month-long stoppage, Dominion racked up expenses from equipment storage, contractual penalties, an idle workforce and delays in using time-sensitive vessels.

Read the full article at WMRA

ALASKA: NOAA Fisheries identifies 77 potential aquaculture opportunity areas in Gulf of Alaska

February 24, 2026 — NOAA Fisheries has identified 77 locations in the Gulf of Alaska that could be suitable for aquaculture operations, following up on an order issued by U.S. President Donald Trump in 2020.

“Alaska has more coastline than the rest of the nation combined, and we should be using that resource to its full potential,” Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy said in a release. “This atlas helps identify where aquaculture makes sense in our state waters. It will support creating new job opportunities, strengthen food security for Alaskans, and add to Alaska’s already tremendous seafood industry.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Trump vows to enact 15 percent global tariff following Supreme Court rebuke

February 23, 2026 — U.S. President Donald Trump said he plans to impose a new 15 percent tariff on all trade following a U.S. Supreme Court decision that invalidated his previous tariffs.

In a press conference following the Supreme Court decision on 20 February – and in a post on his social media site Truth Social that mirrored what he said at the conference – Trump said he plans to use Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose a 10 percent tariff “over and above our normal tariffs already being charged.” Section 122 was established to allow the U.S. president to impose duties on other countries related to “large and serious” balance of payments issues.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Peter Navarro: Trump lifts Biden’s fish ban to lower your grocery bill

February 23, 2026 — Inflation isn’t an abstraction. It’s the monthly bills piling up — and whether a family can pay the mortgage, fuel the car, and put food on the table. That is why President Donald Trump is attacking Joe Biden’s legacy inflation sector by sector, product by product — and, as his latest executive action shows, fish by fish.

With this action, President Trump is reopening 5,000 square miles of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument to commercial fishing. These productive waters were first fenced off by Barack Obama in 2016 and, after Trump reopened them in 2020, Biden shut them right back down in 2021.

Obama’s 2016 commercial fishing ban came wrapped in lofty rhetoric about preservation. But for working waterfronts, it was a gut punch and a shutdown.

When President Trump lifted that ban, I was at the signing ceremony in Bangor, Maine. That Trump signature meant boats would once again sail, crews could fish and earn, processors could buy American catch, and — yes — American consumers could eat some of the freshest fish on the market.

Then came the Biden reversal in October 2021. My heart broke when I read the news — because policy whiplash is not an academic exercise. Fishermen live by the tides, not a think-tank memo. And it’s not just the fishermen that get hurt. It’s welders, dockhands, icehouses, bait dealers, truckers and an entire waterfront ecosystem.

When federal policy strangles opportunity, there is no backup plan, no second labor market to absorb the shock. The boats stop sailing, the paychecks stop coming, the damage is immediate.

Read the full article at Peter Navarro

Menhaden Research Gets Federal Boost

February 20, 2026 — President Donald Trump signed a federal spending package in January that includes two-point-five million dollars for menhaden research, ending a two-year wait for state funding. Businesses, scientists, and anglers support the study, saying solid data is needed before imposing limits. Some environmental advocates however, argue reductions should happen now, but regulators are holding off pending the research. We reached out to Omega Protein for comment, and they told us that “Ocean Harvesters, headquartered locally in Reedville, has a long track record of supporting rigorous, independent science to better understand Atlantic menhaden and the broader Bay ecosystem. The Company believes that any funding for menhaden projects at NOAA-Fisheries is in good hands.”

Read the full article at Middle Neck News

Feds appeal ruling that voided Trump’s Day One anti-wind memo

February 19, 2026 — The Trump administration has appealed a December ruling that struck down a presidential memorandum barring offshore wind leasing and permitting.

Judge Patti B. Saris had declared the wind memo, issued by President Donald Trump on his first day back in office, unlawful. But on Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a notice of appeal.

It comes one week after Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the administration would “absolutely” appeal other court rulings issued in January and February that lifted the federal suspension orders on five under-construction offshore wind projects, including Vineyard Wind.

Those suspensions were issued shortly after Saris’ ruling on the wind memo. At this time, the federal government has not appealed those project-specific lawsuits.

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

Legal tug-of-war over wind energy in Mass. continues with Trump admin challenge

February 19, 2026 — Lawyers for the Trump administration are challenging — in a Massachusetts court — a federal judge’s December ruling that struck down a freeze on all permitting for wind energy projects nationwide.

Issued in January 2025, the original presidential order temporarily halted all federal permitting while agencies reviewed wind energy leasing and permitting practices, according to court documents.

The December ruling overturning the order came after a coalition of 17 states — including Massachusetts — successfully argued that the administration’s permit pause violated federal law. U.S. District Court Judge Patti Saris ruled that the policy was “arbitrary and capricious.”

Read the full article at the Cape Cod Times

How EPA challenged Maryland offshore wind project

February 18, 2026 — EPA officials paid close attention to offshore wind opponents before the Trump administration questioned a state-issued permit for a planned Maryland offshore wind farm last summer, federal documents show.

The records, released by EPA following a public records request from POLITICO’s E&E News, outline how employees in the agency’s mid-Atlantic region met with national officials and rushed to respond to concerns from Maryland Republican Rep. Andy Harris, a prominent opponent of offshore wind.

The Maryland Offshore Wind Project has been in the spotlight since it slipped through the Trump administration’s blockade of offshore wind permits. State regulators issued the developer a final permit in June, leading the Interior Department to say in August that it planned to revoke the project’s federal permit.

Read the full article at E&E News

US lawmakers ask government to provide financial aid for shellfish sector

February 19, 2026 — A group of U.S. lawmakers has asked the federal government to provide financial support to the nation’s struggling shellfish sector, which they claimed has been hit hard by increased tariffs.

“Tariffs and retaliatory tariffs have led to higher consumer prices, altered supply chains, reduced availability, higher equipment costs, and market instability for farmers of all kinds, including shellfish growers,” the lawmakers said in the joint letter dated 6 February. “In the last year, our strongest trade partners have launched retaliatory tariffs against the United States, causing uncertainty and hurting geoduck, oyster, and other shellfish industries many of our communities rely on as lifelines.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource