The Trump administration is planning to make severe cuts to NOAA Fisheries, transferring most fisheries services to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services (USFWS), according to internal documents obtained by CNN.
“This is ludicrous! Whether you live on a coast or in the heartland, these proposed cuts to NOAA will impact you,” Oceana Vice President for the United States Beth Lowell said in a statement. “Eliminating funding and staffing won’t just cause chaos and confusion within NOAA – it would undermine people and businesses across the country.”
The documents, which outline the government’s fiscal year 2026 budget, show plans to “severely defund” NOAA Fisheries, transferring fisheries services from the Department of Commerce to the Department of the Interior, which oversees USFWS. According to the New York Times, which also obtained the internal documents, NOAA would receive just over USD 4.4 billion (EUR 3.9 billion), a USD 1.6 billion (EUR 1.4 billion) cut. The New York Times reported that NOAA Fisheries’ budget would be cut by a third before being moved to USFWS, and species recovery and habitat conservation grants would be eliminated.
“It opens the door to overfishing and would leave fishers with uncertainty about how they will support their families,” Lowell added. “It would put Americans in harm’s way as critical weather updates may be offline. Protected animals like whales and sea turtles could go extinct with scientists no longer on duty. Congress must act to stop the dismantling of NOAA that would directly threaten the millions of Americans that depend on healthy oceans for their jobs, businesses, and seafood dinners.”
For weeks, Democrats in Congress have warned that the Trump administration intends to gut NOAA and transfer its missions to other agencies – a proposal outlined in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 policy blueprint. While Project 2025 was tied to U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign throughout the 2024 election, Trump denied having any connection to the document. Despite those denials, Trump hired Russell Vought – a member of Project 2025's advisory board – as director of the Office of Management and Budget.
During a January hearing on his nomination to lead the Department of Commerce, Democrats grilled Wall Street billionaire Howard Lutnick on whether he planned to follow the Project 2025 blueprint of dismantling NOAA or transferring its missions to other agencies.
“It is not part of my agenda,” he told lawmakers.
In written responses provided after the hearing, Lutnick provided inconsistent answers, at first stating that he had “no plans to dissolve NOAA” and that he intended to keep NOAA Fisheries within the Department of Commerce. However, when asked directly if NOAA should be dismantled, Lutnick said it was “premature to discuss any specific recommendations.”
At the time, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) called out Lutnick’s obfuscation.
“When asked for the record, ‘Should NOAA be dismantled, as called for in Project 2025?’, Mr. Lutnick would only say he'll figure it out once he's confirmed,” Cantwell said. “We needed a bigger commitment to NOAA. NOAA already supplies a big, important aspect of what we deal with, with weather forecasting, tracking extreme weather, managing our fisheries, and operating ships that conduct important charting for national security. Mr. Lutnick gave very tepid support for NOAA.”
Despite Democrats’ vocal opposition, Lutnick was confirmed in a 51-45 vote by the Senate.
NOAA Fisheries has been strained in the two months since Lutnick’s Senate hearing. In early February, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) gained access to NOAA, a move that was again criticized by lawmakers.
“Last week, the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency entered NOAA facilities and accessed data and files,” U.S. Representative Val Hoyle (D-Oregon) said during a 12 February U.S. House Natural Resources Committee markup meeting. “Furthermore, NOAA employees are reporting rumors of severe budget cuts that would gut essential programs and jobs that our fishermen and our communities rely on. Basic responsibilities such as providing grants to regional fishery management councils for their operations and routine fisheries stock assessments could be delayed or canceled.”
On 27 February, the administration fired more than 800 NOAA employees, drawing criticism from The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), conservation groups, and members of Congress.
“When testifying under oath, Howard Lutnick assured congressional members that if confirmed as commerce secretary, NOAA wouldn’t be dismantled under his watch – a promise that was broken today,” Juan Declet-Barreto, senior social scientist for climate vulnerability in the Climate and Energy Program at UCS, said following the mass layoffs. “It seems either Lutnick willingly lied to Congress and the American people or that he has caved in record-breaking time to the destructive agenda of the Trump-Musk regime."
Those staff cuts – as well as Trump’s executive order to cut ten regulations for every new regulations – have hampered NOAA Fisheries’ missions, according to experts. Multiple fisheries have experienced delayed starts to their season waiting on the Trump administration to approve the necessary documents.
