A group of nine Democrats in the U.S. Senate has signed a joint letter to U.S. President Trump demanding he reverse his decision to allow commercial fishing in Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, calling the move illegal.
“We write to express our strong opposition to the elimination of vital protections for the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument and demand that the administration immediately reverse course. This action is in clear violation of the Antiquities Act of 1906 and will harm a priceless and vital ecosystem meant to be safeguarded for current and future generations,” the senators wrote.
Commercial fishing in the area has been hotly disputed since former U.S. President Barack Obama established the monument in 2016. That action included a ban on all commercial fishing in the nearly 5,000-square-mile monument off the coast of New England, with lobster and crab harvesting set to be phased out over 10 years. A legal challenge to the ban was ultimately rejected by the courts.
Since then, each successive president has reversed his predecessor’s action on the ban. Trump reinstated commercial fishing in 2020, and former U.S. President Joe Biden put Obama’s protections back in place in 2021.
Now back in the office of the presidency, Trump once again took action to allow commercial fishing within the monument.
Trump’s latest presidential proclamation, issued in February, again revoked the ban.
“I find that appropriately managed commercial fishing would not put the objects of historic and scientific interest that the monument protects at risk,” Trump said in the 6 February proclamation, further elaborating on his decision in a social media post.
“In my First Term, I reversed the prohibitions placed on Commercial Fishing, but Joe Biden, or whoever was using the AUTOPEN, foolishly reinstated them,” Trump wrote on his social media site Truth Social. “Since Day One, I have taken historic action to END these disastrous policies and today, I signed a Presidential Proclamation to UNLEASH Commercial Fishing in the Atlantic Ocean, advancing the America First Fishing Policy!”
Now, a group of nine senators, which includes U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico) U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut), U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), U.S. Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-New Mexico), U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon), U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-California), U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-California), and U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) have demanded that Trump put the commercial fishing ban back in place. The lawmakers argue that the ban would have minimal impact on commercial fishing activity.
“New Englanders largely favor the establishment of permanently protected ocean areas, but you baselessly justify this proclamation and its devastating environmental impacts by claiming that it will benefit commercial fishermen. The science suggests otherwise. Multiple studies show that creating well-managed marine protected areas that prohibit fishing has little to no harmful economic impact on commercial fishermen,” the lawmakers said. “When your administration opened the monument for fishing in 2020, 99 percent of fishing activity still took place outside of the monument. In an era where fish stocks are shifting and being depleted, fishing communities need our support more than ever, but selling out the monument to earn political points does nothing to actually help fishermen.”
Saving Seafood Executive Director Bob Vanasse previously stated that federal regulations could adequately protect marine resources in the monument while still allowing commercial fishing activity, despite opposition from conservation groups.
“So, let’s be absolutely clear: Any fishing that resumes in the monument will remain subject to the full force of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, a law these same groups routinely hail as a global benchmark for sustainable fishery management,” Vanasse told SeafoodSource. “Their objection is not about protecting the ocean; it is about controlling American commercial fishermen and pushing a broader, extremist agenda that seeks to deny citizens the ability to responsibly use our resources, regardless of science or sustainability.”
