Saving Seafood

Administration to Convene ‘God Squad’ With Power to Override Environmental Law

March 18, 2026 — The Trump administration plans to convene the so-called God Squad, a high-level federal panel that has the power to override protections under the Endangered Species Act, for a meeting related to oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico.

The meeting, scheduled for March 31, will be the first time in three decades that the group, officially called the Endangered Species Committee, will gather.

Notice of the meeting was released on Friday and officially published in the Federal Register on Monday. The Gulf, which the administration calls the Gulf of America, is home to the critically endangered Rice’s whale, a species that exists nowhere else. According to the latest available federal estimates, around 50 of the animals remain on Earth.

Information in the notice announcing the meeting, called by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, is sparse.

“The Committee is meeting regarding an exemption under the Endangered Species Act with respect to oil and gas exploration, development, and production activities in the Gulf of America associated with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Program,” the notice states.

When emailed for additional information on what had prompted the move, the Interior Department declined to directly answer questions and repeated the published information. But President Trump has wanted the God Squad to convene since he returned to office last year.

Read the full article at The New York Times

At Seafood Expo North America, commercial fishers demand the same level of federal support as farmers

March 17, 2026 — U.S. commercial fishers have a simple request: to be treated the same as American farmers by the U.S. government.

The U.S. agriculture sector has long received substantial support from the federal government, whether that be crop insurance, equipment subsidies, financial services and low-interest loans, or direct injections of cash. In 2025, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump announced USD 12 billion (EUR 10.4 billion) in direct financial relief to farmers impacted by tariffs.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Construction finishes on a major offshore wind farm, the first during Trump’s tenure

March 16, 2026 — Construction is finished on a major Massachusetts offshore wind farm, the first project to reach this stage during President Donald Trump’s time in office.

Offshore construction was completed Friday night on Vineyard Wind with the installation of the final blades, Craig Gilvarg, a spokesperson for the project, said Saturday.

Trump, who often talks about his hatred of wind power, has said his goal is to not let any “windmills” be built. Vineyard Wind was one of five major East Coast offshore wind projects the Trump administration halted construction on days before Christmas, citing national security concerns. Developers and states sued, and federal judges allowed all five to resume construction, essentially concluding that the government did not show that the national security risk was so imminent that construction must halt.

Another one of the five, Revolution Wind, began sending power for the first time to New England’s electric grid on Friday and will scale up in the weeks ahead until it is fully operational.

Revolution Wind, a key offshore wind project and object of scorn for Trump admin, comes online

March 16, 2026 — A large offshore wind project off the coast of Connecticut and Rhode Island that was repeatedly stopped by the Trump administration came online Friday evening, sending clean energy to New England’s power grid.

The project, known as Revolution Wind, is nearing the end of construction and will ultimately generate up to 704 megawatts of electricity — the equivalent of powering 350,000 homes. That’s about 2.5% of New England’s electric supply. Construction on Revolution Wind is expected to be completed later this year.

“This project is key to diversifying our energy supply and lowering utility costs for families and businesses,” said Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont in a statement.

“Today’s milestone marks an important step forward for Rhode Island’s energy future,” Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee said in a statement.

Read the full article at nhpr

Trump Administration Approves Ultra-Deepwater Oil Drilling Plan

March 6, 2026 — The Trump administration on Friday approved a $5 billion oil drilling project in ultradeep waters of the Gulf of Mexico over protests from Democrats and environmental activists who said the venture posed significant risks to wildlife and communities.

The project by the British energy giant BP would be about 250 miles off the coast of Louisiana. The company projects it will produce 80,000 barrels of oil per day from six wells starting in 2029 in a section of the seafloor that is estimated to hold 10 billion barrels of crude.

Known as Kaskida, it would be the company’s second deepwater project in the Gulf since the Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010, which set off the worst oil spill disaster in U.S. history.

“Kaskida is a world-class project that reflects decades of technological innovation by BP and the offshore oil and gas industry,” Paul Takahashi, a BP spokesman, said in a statement. Approval “marks an important step forward for the project and is all the more important at a time of heightened global concerns about energy security and affordability,” he added.

Read the full article at The New York Times

ALASKA: Trump’s High-Profile Oil and Gas Lease Sale in Alaska Has No Takers

March 9 2026 — The Trump administration did not receive a single bid for its offer of new offshore oil and gas exploration opportunities in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, dealing a blow to President Trump’s ‘drill, baby drill,’ agenda.

The attempted sale of rights to drill in more than 1 million acres was the first of six offshore oil and gas auctions in Alaska that Republicans mandated last year when they passed Mr. Trump’s sweeping tax law.

It was seen as a key test of the industry’s appetite for investment in a state that Mr. Trump has called a “natural resource warehouse,” and essential for his “energy dominance” agenda of maximizing domestic production of oil, natural gas and coal. On Wednesday, though, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management acknowledged that no drilling companies submitted bids.

“This is a huge embarrassment for Trump’s Alaska fossil fuel fantasy,” said Cooper Freeman, the Alaska director of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group.

Read the full article at The New York Times

ALASKA: Trump administration defends Biden-era rejection of Pebble mine by EPA

March 9, 2026 — The U.S. Department of Justice is defending a Biden-era veto of the Pebble copper and gold project, saying the Environmental Protection Agency properly exercised its authority to prevent adverse impacts to a “globally significant” fishery in Bristol Bay.

The Feb. 17 court filing by the Department of Justice continues the Trump administration’s opposition to the proposed mine, a departure from the president’s aggressive pro-development agenda that includes support of U.S. mineral production in Alaska.

The Pebble project sits on state land about 200 miles southwest of Anchorage, near the headwaters of Bristol Bay, home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery.

Mine developer Pebble Limited Partnership brought the case in 2024, suing EPA over its decision to block the mine under a little-used provision in the Clean Water Act. The agency had said the mine would cause “unacceptable, adverse” harm to the valuable Bristol Bay salmon fishery.

The Justice Department said in its filing that the Pebble mineral deposit exists under streams, wetlands and other waters that are critical for supporting salmon in the watershed, “a largely undisturbed, globally significant economic, ecological, and cultural resource.”

“(Pebble Limited Partnership’s) mine plan calls for the disposal of large quantities of fill into waters of the United States that would destroy or comparably damage large areas of salmon habitat that are fishery areas,” the filing said.

Ron Thiessen, president of Pebble’s parent company, Northern Dynasty Minerals, said in a statement that the filing is “surprisingly short-sighted” and legally flawed.

Read the full article at Alaska Journal of Commerce 

Trump administration moves to loosen rules around North Atlantic right whale speed limits

March 5, 2026 — Following the U.S. government’s promise to take “deregulatory-focused action” on a vessel speed limit rule designed to protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales, NOAA Fisheries has issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking to gather feedback.

“This reckless decision threatens the future of North Atlantic right whales,” Conservation Law Foundation Senior Counsel Erica Fuller said in a statement. “The species can’t afford to lose a single whale. Eliminating one of their strongest protections would imperil right whales’ already challenging recovery. At a time when we need stronger, not weaker, protections, this would be another shortsighted move by this administration to help special interest groups.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NOAA announces planned rollback of North Atlantic right whale protections

March 4, 2026 — The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration has announced plans to roll back protections for North Atlantic right whales as part of the Trump Administration’s ongoing efforts to deregulate across multiple government sectors.

There are fewer than 380 right whales left in the world, with roughly 70 females capable of bearing young. North Atlantic Right Whales, one of the most endangered species in the world, are frequently spotted by the dozens in the Gulf of Maine.

Vessel strikes and equipment entanglement are the leading causes of death, Rachel Rilee of the Center for Biological Diversity told Maine Public.

Read the full article at NEPM

Tariff lawsuits begin moving forward as US federal court issues mandate

March 3, 2026 — The U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a mandate that moves multiple lawsuits on U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs forward on the path toward refunds.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in late February that Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to justify his tariff program was illegal. The ruling largely agreed with earlier rulings by the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) and the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and determined that the IEEPA did not give Trump the authority to impose the sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs he implemented in April 2025.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource