As the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump works to reduce staff and resources at NOAA Fisheries, a government watchdog has suggested more staff may be needed to improve the nation’s fisheries disaster assistance program.
The federal government’s fisheries disaster program was established to provide financial relief to the commercial fishing sector when it suffers a qualifying disaster, such as a sudden drop in population or the closure of a fishery for ecological reasons. However, the program has been frequently criticized by both commercial fishers and U.S. lawmakers for its lack of transparency and how long it takes the government to award disaster relief. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a Congressional watchdog organization, it took NOAA Fisheries between 1.3 years and 4.8 years to distribute funding for the 56 most recent fishery disaster determination requests.
U.S. lawmakers have attempted to improve the process; in 2022, Congress passed a law implementing deadlines that should have – if followed – cut down the timeline to just over a year. Congress passed a follow-up law to further hurry the process in 2024.
However, a new GAO report found that though NOAA Fisheries has implemented some changes in response to the 2022 law, issues remain.
“Specifically, not all agency officials who work on the program have access to up-to-date information on requests, program guidance does not have complete details, and the agency has not assessed staffing needs,” the GAO report stated.
For example, NOAA implemented a new disaster grants dashboard to help track disaster requests in November 2023, but access is limited.
“NMFS headquarters officials could not explain why other agency staff who work on the program were not given access to the dashboard,” GAO noted. “Without access to the tracking system, which now contains the most updated information about requests, NMFS regional officials may not be adequately equipped to respond to requests for status updates.”
According to GAO, NOAA Fisheries was working to have dashboard information automatically updated on the public-facing website in spring 2025 but were still working on details of the plan.
Stakeholders from state and Tribal governments also told GAO staff that they would like more guidance from NOAA Fisheries on what to include in a disaster determination request or how to put together an acceptable spend plan. NOAA Fisheries claims that it has been waiting for approval from the Office of Management and Budget to publish updated guidance since summer 2023.
Tribal representatives also told GAO that fishery disaster assistance was difficult for Tribes to access. Many Tribes struggle with workforce capacity, meaning they don’t have the staff needed to appropriately apply for and monitor disaster determination requests. The federal program is also largely reimbursement-based, meaning that Tribes must have the cash on hand to pay for research up front.
GAO's first recommendation in the report is to conduct an assessment of staffing levels for administering disaster relief. According to the report, there are no headquarters staff dedicated full-time to fisheries disasters, and only one regional office employs a full-time staffer dedicated to fisheries disasters.
“Without assessing its workforce in light of the recent workload changes that have occurred with implementing [fisheries disaster relief] timelines, [NOAA Fisheries] will not be able to ensure that it has the appropriate staffing levels in place to implement the program,” GAO stated.
It’s not clear how the Trump administration’s mass firings of NOAA staff in February have impacted the agency’s efforts to improve or conduct the fisheries disaster program. Led by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the federal government laid off hundreds of NOAA employees as part of Trump’s efforts to rapidly shrink the federal workforce. The government has not been transparent about who was let go and how staffing levels have impacted specific programs or offices. However, anecdotal reports have shown delays in issuing basic commercial fishing regulations, issues with securing regular lab services, and more time needed to process analysis and management plans.
In addition to conducting a staffing level assessment, GAO recommended NOAA Fisheries increase access to its internal dashboard and provide additional information to stakeholders about the fishery resource disaster process and what information should be submitted in a request or spend plan.
In its comments on the report, NOAA said it plans to expand access to the dashboard to regional offices and provide more public information on the disaster process. The agency also expressed interest in evaluating staffing capacity, though GAO noted that NOAA Fisheries “is operating under a hiring freeze and is preparing for a likely reduction in force across the agency.”
