NOAA Fisheries has opened the public comment period for allowing commercial fishing within the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument, formally known as the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (PRIMNM).
The move follows U.S. President Donald Trump’s April 2025 proclamation, “Unleashing American Commercial Fishing in the Pacific,” which
“As a result of the prohibitions on commercial fishing, American fishing fleets have lost access to nearly half of the United States’ exclusive economic zone in the Pacific Islands,” the proclamation said. “This has driven American fishermen to fish farther offshore in international waters to compete against poorly regulated and highly subsidized foreign fleets.”
NOAA Fisheries initially issued a letter stating that the ban on commercial fishing in the monument was moot roughly a week after the proclamation, but a federal judge later ruled that letter was unlawful, requiring NOAA Fisheries to go through the traditional regulatory process to authorize commercial fishing.
NOAA Fisheries did have the backing of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WPRFMC), however, and has since moved forward with its plans for commercial fishing as amended in a June 2026 proclamation, “Restoring American Commercial Fishing in the Pacific.”
NOAA Fisheries’ official proposal does not refer to the area by the name it was changed to by then-U.S. President Joe Biden as he left office in January 2025, instead referring to it as the PRIMNM Expansion. If approved, NOAA Fisheries proposal would enable commercial fishing in U.S. waters between 50 to 200 nautical miles around Johnston Atoll, Wake Island, and Jarvis Island.
On 9 November, the government officially opened the public comment period for its proposal, accepting feedback through 9 December.
“Fisheries in the PRIMNM Expansion would be regulated pursuant to existing fishing regulations under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act), the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Convention Implementation Act (WCPFCIA), the South Pacific Tuna Act (SPTA), and other applicable laws, that apply to all U.S. commercial fishing vessels but were superseded and made inapplicable when the commercial fishing prohibition for the PRIMNM Expansion was established,” NOAA Fisheries said in a notice in the Federal Register. “The proposed rule supports the long-term sustainability of U.S. fisheries and provides for the proper care and management of the PRIMNM and PRIMNM Expansion and the objects of historic or scientific interest therein.”
The proposal was immediately criticized by local and national conservation groups.
“We are disappointed by the Fisheries Service’s latest attempt to gut fishing protections in our marine national monument. There is extraordinary stress on the Pacific’s ecosystems from climate change, and species like tuna are already overfished. The Trump administration is taking the least scientific approach possible to pander to the commercial fishing industry,” Conservation Council for Hawaiʻi Executive Director Jonee Peters said in a release.
In a release, the conservation organizations who successfully won the lawsuit against NOAA Fisheries last year stated their intent to again challenge the federal government’s action in court.
“This proposal to open a marine national monument to commercial fishing will harm ecosystems and kill imperiled marine mammals, sharks and sea turtles – even as agency officials admit it won’t help the fishing industry catch more fish,” Earthjustice Attorney David Henkin said. “This ill-conceived and illegal proposal shows that the Fisheries Service is all too willing to gloss over science and ignore the law to pander to the whims of a president whose failed policies are already causing environmental destruction. We prevailed in court the last time this happened, and we’ll head back to court again to defend the pristine waters of the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument.”
