U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan has introduced an updated version of his Bycatch Reduction Act, legislation he submitted last year, with stronger opposition to seafloor contact by trawling gear.
“I just introduced the Bycatch Reduction Act, an updated version of bycatch legislation I introduced last year and an expansion of my Alaska Salmon Task Force Act, which was signed into law four years ago,” Sullivan said in a social media post. “My bill is the most comprehensive bycatch legislation ever introduced in Congress, with three clear objectives: protect Alaska’s ocean habitat and fisheries, make bycatch monitoring and reporting more transparent, and reduce bycatch and habitat disturbances.”
The first draft of the bill, introduced more than six months ago as the Bycatch Reduction and Research Act, focused mostly on research; reviving the Alaska Salmon Research Task Force; and establishing the Bycatch Reduction and Research Task Force to improve salmon data collection, review salmon research, and investigate the impact of trawling gear on the sea floor. The original legislation also included provisions intended to foster innovation in bycatch-reducing gear.
The revised bill, however, has been lengthened significantly, more than doubling from 15 pages to 36, with a much bigger focus on regulating trawling and bottom floor contact. The Bycatch Reduction Act directs the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) to establish a pelagic trawl gear performance standard and “implement enforceable regulations to manage gear impacts” on the benthic habitat in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands. The legislation also directs the council to identify the current baseline for the impact of pelagic trawl gear on that habitat and then set regulations to reduce those impacts through gear modifications, reduced fishing effort, and prohibitions on fishing in some areas. All in all, the legislation states its objective of “ensuring mid-water nets do not operate like bottom trawl gear.”
Pelagic fishing vessels would also be required to use salmon excluders in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands as well as the Gulf of Alaska.
The legislation also takes aim at trawlers, again directing NPFMC to establish a gear performance standard system for vessels using nonpelagic trawling gear and a 1-year phase in period for requiring those vessels to be equipped with gear to reduce seafloor contact.
The Bycatch Reduction Act would also require more transparency on NPFMC actions, directing the council to put more information online and publicly post videos or transcripts of their meetings.
Sullivan’s office touted support from Alaska seafood groups for his bill, including the Alaska Marine Conservation Council (AMCC) and the Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association.
“AMCC has long called for better data and stronger accountability around bycatch, unobserved fishing mortality, and seafloor contact from fishing gear,” Alaska Marine Conservation Council Executive Director Michelle Stratton said in a statement. “This legislation includes important steps in the right direction, particularly its focus on research, monitoring, and performance standards tied to seafloor contact. To be meaningful, that work must lead to measurable, enforceable standards that reduce real impacts on salmon, crab, habitat, and fishing communities.”
The campaign of U.S. Senate candidate Mary Peltola, who previously served as Alaska’s sole representative from 2022 through 2025 and is running against Sullivan in the November election, was quick to criticize the bill as a political move in an election year.
“Dan Sullivan is running scared after seeing a groundswell of support from Alaska fishermen who are fired up to support Mary’s plan to ban factory trawling and fight for Alaska’s fisheries – and Alaskans will see through his election-year tricks,” campaign spokesperson Harry Child told Native News Online. “The truth is that Sullivan has had twelve years in the Senate to take meaningful action to shut down factory trawling and stand up for Alaska fishermen – instead, he’s made money off of the world’s largest farmed salmon company, lied about continuing to take money from Pebble Mine executives, and has supported the factory trawling agenda in DC at every turn.”
In 2024, Peltola introduced the Bottom Trawl Clarity Act, which among other things would have required the designation of bottom-trawl zones, limiting where gear is allowed to scrape the seafloor. She also introduced the Bycatch Reduction and Mitigation Act to help develop bycatch-reducing solutions.
