A group of conservation organizations have filed a request to defend vessel speed limits designed to protect North Atlantic right whales from a legal challenge, questioning U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration’s willingness to fully defend the regulation in court.
“With lawmakers and the Trump administration trying to delay right whale safeguards for another decade, preserving the Vessel Speed Rule is more important than ever,” Conservation Law Foundation Senior Counsel Erica Fuller said in a release. “This rule is the only one that protects the few remaining right whales from vessel strikes. Weakening it would be a reckless abandonment of our responsibility to protect endangered marine life and the health of our oceans for generations to come.”
The 2008 speed limit rule was put in place to protect North Atlantic right whale – an endangered species with roughly 380 individuals left in existence. NOAA Fisheries has listed gear entanglements and vessel strikes as the primary threats to the whales, and the 2008 rule requires vessels greater than 65 feet in length to travel under 10 knots in designated “seasonal management areas” where whales are likely to be present.
Under U.S. President Joe Biden, NOAA Fisheries pushed to expand the speed limit to smaller vessels, but the effort was abandoned when Biden’s term came to an end in 2025. According to NOAA Fisheries, the agency did not have enough time to review public feedback on the rule, which was heavily contested by the commercial marine and fishing sectors.
That rule has been challenged by a Florida boat captain who sped through a seasonal management area in 2022 in a 110-foot-long superyacht and was fined USD 14,250 (EUR 13,190). The captain, represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), has asked the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida to vacate the rule, arguing NOAA Fisheries does not have statutory authority to implement it.
Conservation groups have denounced the lawsuit, filing a brief asking the court to dismiss the legal challenge.
“The 2008 vessel speed rule is firmly grounded in the science and the law,” Defenders of Wildlife Senior Attorney Jane Davenport said in a release. “The plaintiff’s suit attacks not only the speed rule but the laws that protect our nation’s cherished wildlife heritage, including imperiled species and marine mammals. If the plaintiff succeeds, it will set the stage for attacks on regulations protecting other species from vessel strikes, including the beloved Florida manatee and the iconic southern resident orca.”
Since the lawsuit was filed, the Trump administration has also moved to roll back the speed limit rule. In February, NOAA Fisheries said it was looking to take “deregulatory-focused action […] to reduce unnecessary regulatory and economic burdens while ensuring responsible conservation practices for endangered North Atlantic right whales,” in a statement shared with Greenwire.
With the Trump administration clearly interested in changing or rolling back the rule, a group of four conservation groups – Defenders of Wildlife, Whale and Dolphin Conservation, Conservation Law Foundation, and the Center for Biological Diversity – have filed a motion to intervene, asking the court to let them defend the rule from the lawsuit.
“This development casts significant doubt on Defendants’ willingness and ability to vigorously defend all aspects of the Rule throughout the course of this litigation,” the groups state in their motion.
“The same agency which, just two years ago, wanted to expand the areas covered by the speed rule because their own data indicated the existing rule was inadequate is now proposing to completely remove it?” Whale and Dolphin Conservation Executive Director Regina Asmutis-Silvia said in a release. “It seems pretty clear that politics is now a bigger threat to right whales than entanglements and vessel strikes.”
