Saving Seafood

Trump reinstating commercial fishing in northeast marine monument

May 12, 2025 — President Trump is reinstating commercial fishing in a national marine monument after the practice was blocked by his Democratic predecessors.

Trump is expected to issue a proclamation Friday reinstating commercial fishing access in all 4,913 square miles of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, which is located off the coast of Massachusetts.

The proclamation was first reported by the NH Journal.

The national monument was established by former President Obama to protect deep-sea canyons with unique ecosystems. The administration said at the time that these ecosystems are significantly impacted by climate change.

Read the full article at The Hill

Trump administration strikes hard at offshore wind

May 12, 2025 — The U.S. offshore wind industry was rocked less than 100 days into the new Trump administration, with aggressive moves by the White House to shut down Equinor’s Empire Wind project off New York and ongoing political pressure on Trump officials to do even more.

“Approval for the project was rushed through by the prior administration without sufficient analysis or consultation among the relevant agencies as relates to the potential effects from the project,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum wrote in an April 16 memo directing the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to halt construction activity.

Citing President Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order calling for a broad review of all offshore wind power projects in federal waters, Burgum wrote that the construction halt will remain pending review to “address these serious deficiencies.”

Read the full article at Workboat

OREGON: Oregon lawmakers urge Trump administration to declare fishery disaster

April 16, 2025 — A group of Oregon Democratic lawmakers are urging the Trump administration to declare a fishery disaster in the state after a drop in the salmon population.

In an April 11 letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, the lawmakers asked the administration to approve Governor Tina Kotek’s disaster declaration request after Oregon’s troll salmon fishery struggled from the worsening effects of climate change in 2024 — from increased drought to shifting ocean conditions and to other impacts leading to poor salmon returns.

Struggling fisheries pose an economic and cultural threat to Oregon, the lawmakers said, noting the state’s commercial fishing industry garners more than $640 million in economic activity every year.

Read the full article at KOIN

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