June 8, 2020 — President Donald Trump signed a proclamation in Bangor on Friday that he says will undo most of the fishing restrictions President Barack Obama ordered for a 5,000-square-mile swath of submerged canyons and mountains off the Atlantic coast that’s prized for its biological diversity. A legal battle is expected.
Obama established the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument in 2016. It’s an area 130 miles off Cape Cod, within an much larger underwater formation called Georges Bank that plays a big role in commercial fisheries based in New England.
At the Bangor roundtable with several representatives of Maine and Massachusetts fishing interests — as well as former Republican Gov. Paul LePage — Trump said he would take the “no fishing” sign down from the Monument’s waters.
“And we’re going to send our fishermen out there — you’re going to go fishing out there in areas that you haven’t seen for a long time, I want to just congratulate you,” he said.