Saving Seafood

NJ Sues Dept. Of Defense For Halting Wind Farm Safety Reviews

July 20, 2026 — On Thursday, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport joined 18 other states in suing the U.S. Department of Defense and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, for what Davenport says was Hegseth’s illegal decision to suddenly stop doing safety reviews of wind farms under construction across the country.

No wind farm has been built off New Jersey or New York yet. The only wind farm off New Jersey that’s the closest to starting operations is Empire Wind, which is currently under construction 19 miles off Long Branch.

Empire Wind is about 60 percent complete; they started installing monopiles (the towers that hold the wind blades) into the ocean floor last summer; see these photos of the wind farm site under construction last August.

Read the full article at The Patch

US lawmakers insert seafood measures into annual defense funding bill

July 6, 2026 — U.S. legislators in Congress are once again utilizing the fiscal year 2027 annual military funding bill to advance several key seafood provisions, most of which block the Department of Defense from purchasing foreign seafood.

The U.S. House took up its version of the bill recently, which most notably would eliminate any exemptions from the military’s “Buy American” requirements when it comes to seafood. That requirement is part of the Berry Amendment, which directs the federal government to purchase American-made and -sourced products. The Berry Amendment requires all seafood products to be sourced from U.S.-flagged vessels or harvested from U.S. waters, and all processing must take place in the U.S. or on a U.S.-flagged vessel.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

How offshore wind permits handled DOD concerns before Interior’s pause

January 6, 2026 — Citing classified reports, the Interior Department last month shut down construction of five offshore wind projects off the East Coast.

A Department of Defense classified assessment, completed in November, contained information about “the rapid evolution of relevant adversary technologies and the resulting direct impacts to national security from offshore wind projects,” according to copies of the similar letters sent to each project’s owner.

“These impacts are heightened by the projects’ sensitive location on the East Coast and the potential to cause serious, immediate, and irreparable harm to our great nation,” said the letters, which were sent by Matthew Giacona, acting director at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

Read the full article at E&E News

US military audit finds Navy, Marines not properly implementing domestic seafood purchasing requirements

September 29, 2025 — An audit of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has revealed that the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are not including language requiring the purchase of domestic seafood nor blocking the purchase of any food that involves forced or child labor in their procurement contracts.

“The DoD Office of the Inspector General [OIG] found that contracting personnel for the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy Force failed to include the required clauses in three of eight contracts to restrict purchases from foreign sources and those involving forced or child labor. This lack of oversight means the Marine Corps and Navy cannot ensure full compliance with federal guidelines in seafood procurements,” the OIG said in its announcement.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

US Senator Sullivan aims to attach FISH Act to US military spending bill

July 15, 2024 — U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) has introduced an amendment to incorporate the Fighting Foreign Illegal Seafood Harvest (FISH) Act into the annual funding bill for the U.S. Department of Defense.

The FISH Act would create a blacklist of vessels with a history of conducting illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing activities. Fishing vessels on the list would be banned from entering U.S. waters, and the legislation also would require the U.S. Coast Guard to increase at-sea inspections of vessels it suspects may be engaged in IUU fishing.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

US federal agencies launch USD 1 million challenge for forecasting IUU fishing

January 22, 2024 — The U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Security Innovation Network (NSIN) – both of which operate under the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Defense – have jointly launched the “Global Fishing Forecast Grand Challenge,” which will award USD 1 million (EUR 918,000) to entities or individuals who can develop effective strategies for forecasting global maritime vessel traffic involved in illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

“The objective of the NSIN/NGA Global Fishing Forecast Grand Challenge is to elucidate IUU fishing activities by transitioning the analytic paradigm from detection to anticipation, via the development of novel and effective forecasting capabilities,” NSIN said.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

US Department of Defense awards grant to project aiming to predict how climate change could lead to conflicts over fishing rights

October 22, 2023 — The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has awarded an Oregon State University (OSU) researcher USD 1.4 million (EUR 1.3 million) over three years to predict how fish stocks could shift due to climate change, specifically focusing on movements that have the potential to cause geopolitical tension.

The research aims to support world leaders in reducing the risk of future conflicts and, if tensions do rise, enhancing global preparedness for such instances.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource