April 21, 2025 — Many Maine fishermen are applauding a new executive order from President Trump, which calls on the federal government to identify and roll back regulations that are overly burdensome to the commercial fishing industry.
The order signals that the Trump administration wants to listen to commercial harvesters and involve them in decision-making and research, said Ben Martens, executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association.
“There are a lot of regulations that you could take a scalpel to, right? We can clean things up,” he said. “There’s a piling up regulations that takes place over time, and so I think it needs to be done carefully.”
Jerry Leeman, CEO of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association, described the order as a “long time coming.” Many of his members have long questioned the data that federal fisheries regulators use to conduct stock assessments and set stock limits.