Saving Seafood

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Following Trumpโ€™s executive order, New Hampshire House votes to roll back offshore windโ€ฌ

February 24, 2025 โ€” Citing President Donald Trumpโ€™s executive order halting new federal offshore wind leases, the New Hampshire House voted Thursday to roll back offshore wind development in the state.

HB 682 would remove โ€œoffshore wind industry developmentโ€ from the Office of Offshore Wind Industry Development and Energy Innovation. It would also repeal the Offshore Wind Industry Workforce Training Center Committee and the Offshore and Port Development Commission.

The legislation passed the House 206-163 largely along party lines.

Read the full article at USA Today

CALIFORNIA: California policymakers say theyโ€™re undeterred by Trump opposition to offshore wind

February 24, 2025 โ€” Despite resistance from the Trump White House, California government officials and administrators at the stateโ€™s ports say they are still going full-speed ahead on offshore wind projects.

โ€œNow more than ever, California needs to be the hand around that candle of hope and keep the momentum goingโ€ for the state to reach its ambitious wind energy goals, David Hochschild, chair of the California Energy Commission, said at a symposium Friday in Long Beach.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and state policymakers expect offshore wind to generate as much as 5 gigawatts of power by 2030 and 25 gigawatts by 2045. For perspective, the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in San Luis Obispo produces 2.2 gigawatts of capacity, which accounts for about 9% of the stateโ€™s power mix each year.

Five companies collectively bid $751.1 million in December 2022 to win the leases to build wind farms off the coasts of Morro Bay in Central California and Humboldt Bay in Northern California. When completed, each project that covers tens of thousands of acres will be located at least 20 miles from the mainland, in federal waters.

But on his first day in office, President Donald Trump issued a review of leasing and permitting practices for all wind energy projects in the U.S. and called for a temporary withdrawal of all areas on the outer Continental Shelf from offshore wind leasing.

โ€œWe acknowledge new uncertainties in federal policies and we have important work ahead of us to understand where that federal policy is actually headed and what the implications are for California,โ€ said Jana Ganion, Newsomโ€™s senior adviser for offshore wind.

Read the full article at The San Diego Union-Tribune

Offshore wind foes ask Trumpโ€™s Interior secretary to halt all projects

February 21, 2025 โ€” Dozens of offshore wind opponents are lobbying the new Interior secretary to revoke authorizations for the energy projects and order an immediate stop to construction, including at Vineyard Wind, citing concerns over whales and other marine species.

President Donald Trumpโ€™s Jan. 20 order on offshore wind has already had a chilling effect on the industry. It halted leasing and permitting, and ordered Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to not only review all projects and permits, but also consider terminating leases and rescinding approvals.

This Feb. 11 request from the groups, submitted in a letter, is seeking to fast-track possible actions by the Interior Department before it completes its project-wide review.

The status of that review is unclear. The Interior Department did not provide a comment on the letter, or answer questions from The Light about the secretaryโ€™s review of permitted offshore wind projects, what it entails, and when it might be completed.

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

US confirms Howard Lutnick as commerce secretary amid uncertainty over NOAAโ€™s future

February 20, 2025 โ€” The U.S. Senate voted to confirm Howard Lutnick as the secretary of the Department of Commerce despite fears that the Trump administration plans to cut NOAA funding or dismantle the agency altogether.

U.S. President Donald Trumpโ€™s pick to lead the Department of Commerce, which oversees such agencies as NOAA, was confirmed on a 51-45 vote, with no Democrat senators supporting his nomination.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Senate confirms Howard Lutnick as commerce secretary, a key role for Trumpโ€™s trade agenda

February 18, 2025 โ€” As Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick will oversee NOAA, which includes the National Marine Fisheries Service. The following excerpt is from an article by the Associated Press:

The Senate confirmed wealthy financier Howard Lutnick as commerce secretary Tuesday, putting in place a staunch supporter of President Donald Trumpโ€™s hardline trade polices.

At the Commerce Department, Lutnick, who was CEO at the investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald, will oversee 50,000 employees who do everything from collecting economic statistics to running the census to issuing weather reports. But heโ€™s likely to spend a lot of time โ€” along with Jamieson Greer, Trumpโ€™s nominee to be the top U.S. trade negotiator โ€” managing the presidentโ€™s aggressive plans to impose import taxes on U.S. trading partners, including allies and adversaries alike.

The Senate vote to confirm Lutnick was 51-45.

Trump views the tariffs as a versatile economic tool. They can raise money to finance his tax cuts elsewhere, protect U.S. industries and pressure other countries into making concessions on such issues as their own trade barriers, immigration and drug trafficking. Mainstream economists mostly view tariffs as counterproductive: They are paid by import companies in the United States, which try to pass along the higher costs to consumers and can thereby add to inflationary pressures throughout the economy.

Read the full article at the Associated Press 

US judge orders Trump end USAID funding freeze

February 14, 2025 โ€” A U.S. federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore funding for foreign aid through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), temporarily frustrating the presidentโ€™s efforts to shut down the agency.

At the beginning of February, members of the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency entered the USAID headquarters, closed its offices, furloughed its employees, and shut down its funding.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

As Trump escalates trade war, analysts tell shippers to expect the unexpected

February 14, 2025 โ€” U.S. president Donald Trump announced that he would impose reciprocal tariffs on the nationโ€™s trading partners on 13 February, prompting numerous trade experts to predict higher prices for American consumers. 

Shortly after Trump announced the measures, Capital Economics, a global financial analytics firm, told the New York Times that it โ€œpredicts that the effective tariff rate on all U.S. imports could rise from less than 3 percent now to around 20 percent.โ€ The effective tariff rate is the percentage of the price of imported goods that goes toward paying tariffs. 

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Longtime NOAA staffer acting as head of fisheries agency amid Trump transition

February 14, 2025 โ€” Longtime NOAA staffer Emily Menashes is currently leading NOAA Fisheries amid a leadership gap following the resignation of Assistant Administrator for NOAA Fisheries Janet Coit last month.

The appointment is part of a temporary churn of leadership positions at the U.S. Department of Commerce as leaders appointed by then U.S. President Joe Biden step down to make room for U.S. President Donald Trumpโ€™s picks. As the Biden administration came to an end in January, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, NOAA Administrator Richard Spinrad, and NOAA Fisheries head Coit all resigned, leaving the nationโ€™s top fisheries management positions needing to be filled.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Closure of USAID fishery, aquaculture programs will hurt US seafood sector, aquaculture consultant warns

February 14, 2025 โ€” The administration of U.S. Donald Trump has set plans in motion to shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in a move that some experts are warning will have long-lasting effects on the U.S.โ€™s own seafood sector.

Kevin Fitzsimmons, an aquaculture specialist and an environmental science professor at the University of Arizona, has consulted on USAID aquaculture projects in Myanmar, among other locations, and said that the recent funding freeze will have negative ripple effects across the globe.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NEW JERSEY: Is NOAAโ€™s Sandy Hook lab at risk from funding freeze? โ€˜Bad news for fishermenโ€™

February 14, 2025 โ€” NOAAโ€™s James J. Howard Marine Sciences Lab in Sandy Hook is in the crosshairs of President Donald Trumpโ€™s freeze on federal funding, Rep. Frank Pallone said this week.

Pallone, a Democrat and ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said $5 million in Inflation Reduction Act funding is unavailable which is putting jobs, research and critical infrastructure at the lab at risk.

The labโ€™s seawater intake supply infrastructure, essential for the labโ€™s core function, was set to be rehabilitated using IRA funds. Pallone said the freeze means the system is in jeopardy of total failure by April when contracts for critical maintenance staff expire. He said the system must now be manually shut down each night when maintenance staff leaves.

Read the full article at Asbury Park Press