Saving Seafood

A new mega-utility is at ground zero for AI. Here’s what could happen.

May 19, 2026 — Few energy companies have navigated the Trump era like NextEra Energy.

The White House selected the Florida-based power giant to build a pair of massive natural gas plants in Pennsylvania and Texas in March, as part of a wider $550 billion trade deal with Japan. But even as NextEra embraced President Donald Trump’s call for more gas, its executives made clear during their quarterly appearances before financial analysts that they believed renewables and batteries are the quickest ways to meet soaring energy demands from data centers.

Now, NextEra’s proposed $67 billion merger with Virginia-based Dominion Energy stands to test those competing strategies on the front lines of artificial intelligence.

Read the full article at E&E News

Trump administration asks NEFMC to kill rule forcing herring fishers to pay for at-sea monitors

May 14, 2026 — The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has asked the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) to abandon a rule forcing commercial herring fishers to pay for at-sea monitors out of pocket.

“After careful consideration, we have determined that an action removing Atlantic herring monitoring requirements […] may be warranted to remove unused provisions that are not achieving their intended goals and, thereby, reduce regulatory burdens on Atlantic herring fishery participants,” NOAA Fisheries Assistant Administrator Eugenio Piñeiro Soler said in a 1 May letter to the council. “Because the herring [industry-funded monitor] program imposes costs on [NOAA Fisheries] as well as the herring industry itself in order to be effectively implemented, in the face of declining resources and the need to prioritize our activities to support the Administration’s goals and objectives of Executive Order 14276, it is unlikely that [NOAA Fisheries] will have the resources necessary to support this program.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Conservationists ask to defend US right whale speed rule in court

May 14, 2026 — A group of conservation organizations have filed a request to defend vessel speed limits designed to protect North Atlantic right whales from a legal challenge, questioning U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration’s willingness to fully defend the regulation in court.

“With lawmakers and the Trump administration trying to delay right whale safeguards for another decade, preserving the Vessel Speed Rule is more important than ever,” Conservation Law Foundation Senior Counsel Erica Fuller said in a release. “This rule is the only one that protects the few remaining right whales from vessel strikes. Weakening it would be a reckless abandonment of our responsibility to protect endangered marine life and the health of our oceans for generations to come.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Conservation groups launch lawsuit after Trump admin reopens Seamounts monument to fishing

May 11, 2026 — A group of conservation organizations has launched a lawsuit against the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump in response to his reopening of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument to commercial fishing.

Trump revoked restrictions on commercial fishing in the monument in February, marking the fourth time that the status of commercial fishing in the region changed since the monument was first created by U.S. President Barack Obama in 2016. At this point, the monument has seen three different presidents make four different management decisions, with each decision being met by lawsuits by either fishing groups opposing commercial fishing closures or environmental groups suing over the monument being reopened again.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NOAA Fisheries wants to ditch Atlantic herring monitors

May 7, 2026 — The Trump administration is pressuring regional officials to roll back a monitoring program for Atlantic herring fisheries, reversing course on regulations that sparked the legal battle that upended the Chevron doctrine.

NOAA Fisheries chief Eugenio Piñeiro Soler outlined the directive in a May 1 letter to the New England Fishery Management Council, the regional agency charged with creating management plans and setting catch limits.

Pointing to an executive order on “seafood competitiveness” issued by President Donald Trump in 2025, Soler directed the council to reverse an earlier decision to leave the monitoring program in place. He warned that failing to do so might spur involvement by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Read the full article at E&E News

Environmental groups sue over reopening of Northeast marine monument

May 7, 2026 — A coalition of environmental groups has filed suit against the Trump administration over its move to reopen the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument to commercial fishing, reigniting a long-running battle over access to the protected Atlantic waters.

The lawsuit, filed Monday by the Conservation Law Foundation, Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for Biological Diversity, along with whale-watch naturalist Zack Klyver, challenged President Trump’s February proclamation allowing commercial fishing within the monument boundaries

Read the full article at National Fisherman

Endangered whale protections may be delayed to 2035 under Trump-backed plan

May 5, 2026 — For roughly 380 right whales left in the North Atlantic, which can die after getting tangled in fishing ropes or hit by ships, the Trump administration said this month it wants to delay new protections by almost a decade in favor of commercial fishing interests.

The sleek black whales, which weigh as much as a midsized bulldozer, are critically endangered and their numbers have declined sharply in recent decades. Environmental groups say reducing deaths and injuries caused by people is essential to the species’ recovery.

The whales give birth off Florida and Georgia before making a long migration north to feed off New England and Canada. Protected areas of ocean aid them on their journey, but scientists have said they have strayed from those zones in recent years in search of food as the oceans have warmed.

A proposal by U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat from Maine, would push back new federal protections for right whales to 2035, and allow time to craft regulations that are less burdensome to the fishing industry. The White House released a memo Friday saying it “strongly supports” the plan and that President Donald Trump’s senior advisors would recommend he sign it into law if it passes Congress.

Read the full article at the Associates Press

Trump Administration says it supports Rep. Golden’s proposal to delay right whale regulation

May 5, 2026 — The Trump Administration said it supports a proposal by Democratic Maine Congressman Jared Golden to push back new federal protections for North Atlantic Right Whales to 2035.

A moratorium on new federal rules around right whales is already in place until 2028 due to concerns from lobsterman who say certain regulations for the endangered species would cripple the fishing industry.

A Monday memo from the President said Golden’s bill would also extend the requirements for the National Marine Fisheries Service to promote the innovation and adoption of gear technologies in the American lobster and Jonah crab fisheries.

“The need to protect Maine’s iconic lobster industry knows no party. I’m grateful for the President’s support for Maine’s lobstermen and hopeful that my colleagues in the House will join me in quickly passing this bill into law,” Golden said in a statement.

The North Atlantic Right Whale population currently sits at around 380 individuals, according to the New England Aquarium.

Read the full article at nhpr

Enviros sue Trump admin to stop fishing in Atlantic monument

May 5, 2026 — Green groups and an ocean conservationist have sued the Trump administration over its attempt to open a 3.1-million-acre national monument off the coast of Cape Cod to commercial fishing.

President Donald Trump’s proclamation would jeopardize endangered whales, vulnerable corals and other delicate species and ecosystems protected by the Atlantic Ocean’s first and only marine national monument, the groups said in a statement announcing their lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in Washington.

“Northeast Canyons and Seamounts is a living scientific laboratory and a refuge for species as varied as cold-water corals and sperm whales. Only the Trump administration would think it makes sense to open it up to damage and harm from commercial fishing,” said Devon Flanagan, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “That decision is clearly unlawful, and we will be fighting it in court until we win.”

Read the full article at E&E News

Bill to delay right whale regulations gains support from Trump and Maine fishermen

May 4, 2026 — A bill proposed by Democratic U.S. Representative Jared Golden is gaining support from President Donald Trump and some in Maine’s fishing industry.

The legislation, known as H.R. 8509, would extend a moratorium on fishing regulations aimed at protecting the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale. Those rules are currently set to take effect in 2028, but the bill would push that timeline back to 2035 if approved.

Lobstermen with the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association said the data used to create those regulations is inaccurate. They argued the rules could lead to unnecessarily strict limits on where they can fish and how they operate.

“Give fishermen and the state of Maine DMR time to see where the whales actually are and give a chance for us to see the impact the seasonal closures and the changes we’ve already made to our gear have made.”

Joyce said some of the proposed regulations could include restricting access to certain waters and requiring the use of “ropeless” lobster gear. That type of gear removes the vertical rope connecting traps to buoys—a line that can entangle whales.

But Joyce and other fishermen believe that the solution is unsafe and costly.

Read the full article at News Center Maine