Saving Seafood

Coastal economies rely on NOAA, from Maine to Florida, Texas and Alaska – even if they don’t realize it

March 3, 2025 — Healthy coastal ecosystems play crucial roles in the U.S. economy, from supporting multibillion-dollar fisheries and tourism industries to protecting coastlines from storms.

They’re also difficult to manage, requiring specialized knowledge and technology.

That’s why the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – the federal agency best known for collecting and analyzing the data that make weather forecasts and warnings possible – leads most of the government’s work on ocean and coastal health, as well as research into the growing risks posed by climate change.

The government estimates that NOAA’s projects and services support more than one-third of the nation’s gross domestic product. Yet, this is one of the agencies that the Trump administration has targeted, with discussions of trying to privatize NOAA’s forecasting operations and disband its crucial climate change research.

As a marine environmental historian who studies relationships among scientists, fishermen and environmentalists, I have seen how NOAA’s work affects American livelihoods, coastal health and the U.S. economy.

Here are a few examples from just NOAA’s coastal work, and what it means to fishing industries and coastal states.

Read the full article at The Conversation

Democrats concerned DOGE is targeting NOAA, sources say

February 6, 2025 — Democrats on Capitol Hill, and sources familiar with the situation, said the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has been inside the offices of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The White House DOGE team is a cost-cutting initiative created by President Trump to find ways to trim federal spending. Billionaire Elon Musk is in charge of it, categorized as a “special government employee.”

Former NOAA officials told CBS News that current employees have been told to expect a 50% reduction in staff and budget cuts of 30%.

Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who represents the state where NOAA is headquartered, said his office is investigating DOGE’s work on NOAA, which includes such agencies as the National Weather Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Read the full article at CBS News

Foreign fisheries support in jeopardy after Trump admin freezes USAID

February 5, 2025 — U.S. support for sustainable foreign fisheries is among the humanitarian government programs thrown into jeopardy by the Trump administrations attempt to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

“Our programs are at risk,” Byron Bay, Australia-based conservation group Positive Change for Marine Life said in a social media post. “The Trump administration’s freeze on all USAID-funded programs has left us facing a major funding gap.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Biden administration withdraws rules to save endangered whales from collisions

January 15, 2025 — The federal government is withdrawing a proposal that would require more ships to slow down in East Coast waters to try to save a vanishing species of whale, officials said Wednesday.

The move in the waning days of the Biden administration will leave the endangered North Atlantic right whale vulnerable to extinction as the Trump administration is signaling a shift from environmental conservation to support for marine industries, conservation groups said. But federal authorities said there’s no way to implement the rules before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Monday.

The new vessel speed rules proposed by the National Marine Fisheries Service more than two years ago have been the topic of much debate among shippers, commercial fishermen and wildlife conservationists, who all have a stake in the whale’s fate. The whale, which is vulnerable to collisions with ships, numbers less than 380 and its population has plummeted in recent years.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

The winds of change: Offshore wind’s role in a future Trump administration

December 30, 2024 — While offshore wind has faced the ire of Donald Trump for years, culminating with expected rollbacks of federal support in just a few weeks’ time, the industry remains surprisingly optimistic that the renewable power source will play a key role in the president-elect’s energy strategy.

Trump has repeatedly vowed to target offshore wind, blocking new projects and federal funding for the industry in his new administration. During a May campaign rally in New Jersey, the Republican promised to take action on this during his first day in office through an executive order.

Read the full article at the The Washington Examiner

Wind developers bid $93M for mid-Atlantic — blowing off Trump 2.0 threat

August 19, 2024 — The Biden administration notched a much-needed win on Wednesday in its bid to bolster the offshore wind power industry, despite the industry’s recent setbacks and the threat of former President Donald Trump’s return.

An Interior Department auction to lease federal waters for wind projects off the coasts of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia drew nearly $93 million in bids — an amount that appeared to quell nerves about the industry’s ability to withstand its political and economic headwinds.

The U.S. offshore wind industry plays a central role in President Joe Biden’s targets to cut carbon emissions from the power sector and stave off the worst effects of climate change. But the nascent industry has been plagued by rising costs, supply chain constraints, worrisome accidents and the risk that Trump, who has spent years attacking wind power, could undermine its progress.

“Despite the electoral uncertainty in the future, these are strong signals of confidence and continued interest in this market,” said Sam Salustro, senior vice president of policy for the Oceantic Network, an offshore wind industry group.

Read the full article at Politico

HAWAII: Proponents Look To Create A New Hawaii Marine Sanctuary ASAP In Case Of A Trump Return

April 14, 2024 —  A proposed national marine sanctuary is on pace to take shape in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands by early 2025, and supporters hope that timeline will make it harder to roll back the environmental protections there if former President Donald Trump retakes office next year.

Federal fisheries officials are gathering public comment at meetings across Hawaii for the proposed Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Sanctuary, which would have the same boundaries as the existing national monument that covers a vast ocean area. Unlike the monument, the sanctuary would not include the islands, only the water.

Once the public comment period ends, in early May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will prepare the final documents to designate the new sanctuary. NOAA expects to have those documents completed this winter, according to the agency’s timeline.

The monument is already one of the largest so-called marine protected areas on the planet, prohibiting commercial fishing, oil drilling and other impacts within a more than 582,000-square-mile area.

However, in 2017 Papahanaumokuakea was among the more than two dozen national monuments that came under review during the Trump administration to be potentially shrunk, changed or even eliminated altogether.

Ultimately, Papahanaumokuakea did not see any changes under Trump.

Read the full article at the Civil Beat

Biden administration moves to restore endangered species protections dropped by Trump

June 21, 2o23 — The Biden administration proposed bringing back rules to protect imperiled plants and animals on Wednesday as officials moved to reverse changes under former President Donald Trump that weakened the Endangered Species Act.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it would reinstate a decades-old regulation that mandates blanket protections for species newly classified as threatened.

The blanket protections regulation was dropped in 2019 as part of a suite of changes to the application of the species law that were encouraged by industry, even as extinctions accelerate globally due to habitat loss and other pressures.

Officials also would no longer consider economic impacts when deciding if animals and plants need protection. And the rules make it easier to designate areas as critical for a species’ survival, even if it is no longer found in those locations.

That could help with the recovery of imperiled fish and freshwater mussels in the Southeast, where the aquatic animals in many cases are absent from portions of their historical range, said Fish and Wildlife Service Assistant Director Gary Frazer.

Read the full article at ABC News

Biden administration wins reprieve in fixing Endangered Species Act flaws

November 17, 2022 — The Biden administration can reevaluate changes made by the previous administration to the Endangered Species Act without at the same time fighting a trio of lawsuits by environmentalists and state and local governments that challenged the 2019 overhaul of the law.

U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in Oakland on Wednesday granted the requests by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service to send the 2019 changes back to them for further reconsideration. The judge left the changes to the ESA intact, saying he couldn’t vacate them without having first ruled on the merits of the environmentalists’ claims.

The Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental organization sued in 2019 after the Trump administration weakened several provision of the ESA such as not automatically extending protections against killing, harassing, harming or collecting threatened species as well as endangered species.

Read the full article at Courthouse News