NOAA Fisheries will continue conducting seafood inspections, fisheries management, and law enforcement operations during the U.S. federal government shutdown, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), although most research efforts will be paused.
The federal government officially entered a partial shutdown 1 October after Congress failed to pass appropriations bills funding several departments and agencies into fiscal year 2026. While the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution to keep the government funded for seven more weeks, Republican leaders in the Senate were unable to accomplish the same. Democrats in the Senate have held firm in opposing the stopgap funding bill until Republicans concede on funding health care subsidies.
Lawmakers from both U.S. political parties were quick to pin blame for the partial shutdown on the opposing party.
“After months of making life harder and more expensive, Donald Trump and Republicans have now shut down the federal government because they do not want to protect the healthcare of the American people. Democrats remain ready to find a bipartisan path forward to reopen the government in a way that lowers costs and addresses the Republican healthcare crisis. But we need a credible partner,” U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and U.S. Representative Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) said in a release.
“We voted to keep the government open for an additional seven weeks while we continue to negotiate on the appropriations bills,” U.S. Representative Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma), chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said in an ABC News appearance. “Almost every Republican in the House and Senate voted to keep the government open. Almost every Democrat in the House and the Senate voted to close it. It’s pretty simple who’s responsible for closing the government now.”
The shutdown pauses progress on several seafood provisions incorporated into the appropriations process. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has suggested that the shutdown could be used to advance its goal of shrinking the federal workforce, with the White House Office of Management and Budget telling agencies to issue reduction-in-force notices to employees who don’t align with “the President’s priorities.”
As the shutdown starts, the government will begin furloughing hundreds of thousands of employees and ceasing operations that aren’t deemed essential.
The Department of Commerce announced that some of its activities will pause during the shutdown, including most research activities at NOAA, assistance and support for grant recipients, and technical oversight of projects halted due to the shutdown. A note on NOAA Fisheries’ homepage stated that the agency’s website will not be updated during the shutdown.
According to the DOC’s contingency plan, just 8,273 of NOAA’s 42,984 employees will be retained during the shutdown; the document doesn’t specify how many NOAA Fisheries’ employees will be retained. Despite the substantial number of furloughs, the department claims many of its fisheries-related missions will continue while the government is partially closed.
“NMFS’ excepted functions focus on law enforcement; seafood inspection and other functions funded by other than current annually appropriated funds; maintenance of facilities and laboratories, systems, and aquaria/organisms to protect key science and research studies from loss, functions related to fisheries, protected species, and other marine resources required to protect life and property, including avoid irreparable harm to U.S. trust resources,” the department said in its report.
The government specifies that it will continue managing U.S. fisheries and protecting species under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, Endangered Species Act. That includes issuing fishery closures to prevent overfishing and deploying fishery observers, the document noted.
NOAA Fisheries will also continue seafood inspections, coordinating emergency responses for marine mammal and turtle strandings, support for ongoing legal cases, and representations at international fisheries meetings.
However, some officials are concerned that a longer shutdown could impact the government’s ability to complete stock assessments and other work needed to keep commercial fisheries operational in the long term.
“If we go greater than 15 business days, that’s going to dramatically impact our ability to produce our stock assessments in time for our internal and your review deadlines. We would not likely meet any of those deadlines,” Alaska Fisheries Science Center Executive Director Bob Foy told the Alaska Beacon.
